Countryside

The oil seed rape looks good this year, it seems to be grown more and more.

 

I used to test different varieties of OSR for a living :eek: . Im much happier now i get to play with different coloured flowers

 

oil seed rape looks fabulous, but it is terrible for people with allergies. I first had hay fever when fields around us were planted with the stuff, and I have suffered ever since.

 

Mrs Cloudy
Test different varietes? Cant imagine what that involved.
wineandchoc
I dont get affected by it, but I know a lot of people do, cant really aviod it this time of the year. It even self seeds in the towns and on derelict ground.

 

looks like my grass Pete, only mine are dandelions (or pis-en-lit as they call them here)!

 

There are breeders frantically trying to produce the next great variety that all the farmers will want to grow. There are about 100 new varieties that make it as far as testing every year and people all up and down the country whose job it is to test them. And it is pretty BORING!!
One nice thing was sitting in a little clearing in the middle of a flowering field eating sandwiches on a sunny day. Very peacefull.

 

Mrs cloudy, what are you testing for, is it just a heavier crop or are there lots of other factors?

 

Skrumpy I dont believe you haven't got a perfect English lawn over there.
I thought 'dandelion' was an English version of a French word, 'lions tooth' or something like that. :confused:

 

You test for germination rate, hardiness, earliness of flowering and ripening, disease resistance, standing ability and yield amongst other things. They do the same sort of trials on things like roses so that they can give us all the info about height, disease resistance etc. I quite like doing mini trials in my garden with vegies to see what works best but im not very scientific as i usually forget to write anything down. :confused:

 

Sounds interesting, but you must need a lot of space.

 

Na not really you can do things on a pretty small scale. eg try three varieties of carrot at three different sowing dates and see what does best. I was planning to try comparing growing vegies through black plastic to no plastic this year but seem to have run out of time. Maybe we could have a nationwide trial of something?

 

Pissenlit (pissinbed!) it is Pete and the young leaves are considered a delicacy around these parts served in salads - you can even buy packets of seeds for them. Anyone want to buy some dandelion seeds.............?

Oh, hardy flower, disdained as weed,
Despised for head of feathery seed,
Your unsung virtues rate a ballad,
Choice roots for wine, crisp leaves for salad.

Betty Gay, Dandelion

[ May 05, 2005, 09:56 PM: Message edited by: skrumpy ]

 

Thats it sorted then. We can have a trial of dandielion wine :D

 

Having once tasted Dandelion wine, I can see how it got its French name!!!!!

 

Was that the taste or the effect?