I have a line of Sugar Magnolia that gives quite a few hyper-tendril plants. I would breed away from this trait, it has too many negatives for overall production.

"I have a line of Sugar Magnolia that gives quite a few hyper-tendril plants. I would breed away from this trait, it has too many negatives for overall production."

Glad to hear someone has tried that variant before I did. What were the negatives?

Low yield per plant is not necessarily a negative, nor is the hypertendril trait, if the plants are short enough to plant without support. As long as you don't mind bending over to harvest, that is. I grow "Sugar Lace", which is also hypertendril. The plants are short & support each other, which makes them suitable for wide rows. It is the only PVP vegetable that I grow, which given how I feel about patenting food plants, shows how much I enjoy the pod quality.

I've ruled out trying the parsley trait, I already grow one of Alan's parsley leaf shelling peas, (also purple, perhaps from the same breeding program) and it is "not ready for prime time", so to speak. The plants tend to topple in a strong wind or when loaded with pods, leading to too much pod damage. Still trying to select it for something useful, but since I only grow it every other year or so, progress is slow. All else being equal, though, I prefer pole varieties of almost anything where I have that choice. It makes harvest easier, and keeps the pods further out of reach from bugs & rodents. The downside of that is having to set up & tear down trellises, and having to spend time training reluctant climbers.

Are all Sugar Magnolias single podded?

Are there any plants at all that have pods in pairs like most other pea varieties?

I think the best way to increase yield (irrespective of tendril characteristics) would be to select only plants with double pods, (assuming there are any).

Galina, there are a few plants in the row that are double podded. However, given that the vines are indeterminate, I am more concerned with selecting for yield per plant, irrespective of whether those pods come in ones or twos. The degree of branching factors into that, I noted that some of the plants are much more heavily branched than others.

If one of the other variants (such as the hypertendril or parsley) is determinate, then would agree that selecting for double pods might increase yield.

Fortunately, from my limited taste testing, the pod quality of this variant seems to be fairly constant. There are a few plants with partially green pods, I culled those pods for eating, and will save only from plants with solid purple pods.

I think its actually pretty cool that Alan offers such diverse lines, it gives gardeners & other breeders more material to work with.

Thank you for that information Zeedman. I have just bought seeds for this variety for next year and was really pleased to see your picture. It might be a good candidate for planting individual plants on individual support canes and observing them singly.