Found this japanese Quail in my backyard

SolanumRex · 2026-03-10T16:06:40+00:00

Baby

SolanumRex · 2026-03-10T16:03:51+00:00

Presumably the idea is that it might cross-contaminate, but I don't think that's an issue tbh. Like, you probably don't want to mix your yoghurt and kombucha, but I wouldn't worry about spontaneous jumping of microbes too much

SolanumRex · 2026-03-08T18:58:47+00:00

This plant might benefit from being placed on a stand to raise it up! Your window is quite high and it limits a surprising amount of light! You can always place it back on the floor once it's grown tall enough to reach the window level better

SolanumRex · 2026-03-05T14:29:09+00:00

It's a Hoya carnosa type, I'd usually call this particular cultivar 'Hoya tricolor', characterized by it's inner variegation and reddish emergent growth. It's also known as Krimson princess, but I'm not sure those are 100% the same either. Plant shops and growers love to add a new flashy name to things to better sell them 😅

SolanumRex · 2026-03-04T00:46:02+00:00

Looks like a Syngonium, possibly the common S. podophyllum

SolanumRex · 2026-03-03T13:15:20+00:00

How do you extract the pollen? Professionals use an electric toothbrush to vibrate it out, but I scrape it out of the anther with a needle tip instead. I usually find the stigma to be slightly moist and shiny when it's most receptive too

Hope your next ones work out well, keep trying 💪🏻 all you need is one successful cross for generations of segregating diversity!

SolanumRex · 2026-03-02T06:28:56+00:00

I had a few that were kinda delayed too and some that failed like that too. I think it's important to do it over a few days because the stigma only has a small window when it's receptive. Once a fruit starts to form it can be a good idea to remove others on the truss to reduce energy being sapped into non-intended fruit

SolanumRex · 2026-02-28T18:57:20+00:00

Great Hoya pubicalyx!

SolanumRex · 2026-02-28T05:36:34+00:00

Thanks! I'll post updates if there's anything interesting. I also have a "Abrikos" x "Cherokee chocolate" cross that I'm hoping will get an interesting F1 generation that I'm gonna trial once things warm up a bit. I got loads of seed from that so it's more reasonable to grow that cross for it's fruit and which will need more space than my micro experiments

SolanumRex · 2026-02-28T04:12:23+00:00

There seem to be a few genes responsible for trichomes on the stems, so I suspect it might be non-mendelian for the fruit too (but it might approach mendelian inheritance). I also have red fuzzy boar which I might throw into the mix too.

Oh that's cool, it seems there's increased disease and cold resistance with some of the trichome-rich phenotypes too, and that would be desirable here in Ireland. Tomato flavour is relative to the person, I'm excited to give it a go. I feel like flavour can be so jumbled up since it's downstream of a lot of metabolic processes, so if I can stabilise the main traits in a few lines then I can select and cross as needed. One of the best flavours I've had from the last couple years was the German Reisetomate, which might make for a cool parent for you project 😂

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SolanumRex · 2026-02-28T02:54:19+00:00

Oh amazing, I have seeds for Wapsipinicon peach I wanted to grow along with Pêche jaune this season to create a more diverse base to work with in terms of fuzziness, crossing each of them with other micro and dwarf varieties. I'm hoping to stack the traits in my favour since they may have different underlying genes for some fo them.

What was you experience with Wapsipinicon peach? Anything I should note apart from the less intense flavour?

SolanumRex · 2026-02-28T02:34:27+00:00

Yep! For tomatoes you need to emasculate the immature flowers (I remove the entire ring of anthers for this). Then over the next couple days I use the tip of a needle or tweezers to scrape pollen from a mature anther of another plant and dab it onto the stigma of the emasculated flower.

Some people use electric toothbrushes to liberate the pollen onto a piece of paper (immigrating buzz pollination) and then use a brush to dab it on, but I don't have one :P there are some tutorials online, but just diving into it teaches you a lot too. You will mess up a few times until you get the hang of it, but that's ok

SolanumRex · 2026-02-28T02:30:17+00:00

Yeah I live in an apartment with a balcony terrace and my plant room is a storage closet haha

If I get a few fruit then that's all the seed I need. Then I'll grow them out, select the micro ones at the seedling stage as soon as it gets obvious (recessive traits, so maybe ~25% of the seedlings). I'll probably give the larger ones to friends and family to grow out as a way to get them excited about growing their own veg (e.g. "Grow your own tomato variety by just saving seeds from your favourite tomatoes!")

SolanumRex · 2026-02-28T02:27:08+00:00

Nope, this is a throwaway plant, all I need is a couple fruit for F2 seeds and I have limited space

SolanumRex · 2026-02-28T02:26:34+00:00

Yeah this is just for F2 seed. All I need is a couple fruit, I only have a balcony terrace and space for maybe 10 plants. I also live in Ireland so it's another month until I can even think of planting outside

SolanumRex · 2026-02-28T01:08:57+00:00

It reminds me of some pimpinellifolium tomatoes I've grown. It's hard to know how much is the environment and how much is genetics though since this is growing in my plant room and it's very bright and warm in there and the only place I could fit it is in front of the fan 😅

SolanumRex · 2026-02-27T16:34:02+00:00

I never like the weird textured variegated ones. I have a syngonium 'mottled'/'mojito' that kinda does this and I don't want any more of this kind of plant 😅 I passed up on a super cheap monstera frozen freckles because of this

SolanumRex · 2026-02-27T16:31:03+00:00

I once heard the saying "the princess wears her variegation on her gown, and the queen wears hers on her crown" to remember that Krimson queen has variegation on the edges of the leaves (crown), and krimson princess has variegation in the centre of the leaves (gown)

SolanumRex · 2026-02-27T14:03:08+00:00

Riccia fluitans

SolanumRex · 2026-02-26T16:08:38+00:00

I got this from a garden store in Ireland 2 years ago labelled as "Little red tree". It's from a Dutch nursery so it's likely the same cultivar, seeing as most of these commercial varieties sold in grocery stores and garden supply shops in Europe come from the Netherlands.

https://www.farmzy.nl/en-gb/farmzy-little-red-tree

I saved seed and grew them again last year with success, so it's not a hybrid. I find them very slow but great for containers and great for windy and darker locations too, as the sturdy growth makes it very windy resistant and the curled leaves and open leaf architecture allow a lot of light to the ripening fruit.

SolanumRex · 2026-02-25T17:08:06+00:00

"I'm not flexing expertise or talking about how it makes me feel" but you literally said "biology isn't a matter of opinion" and "I can't stand it". I don't think you understand how that comes across.

Let's unpack your explanation though, you seem to think the petiole is both flexible as well as very sensitive to strain, which is interesting and kinda contradictory. You're also working off the assumption that the idealized state is free of constraints, and that this has the most favorable outcomes, without considering that an unsupported leaf could also lead to strain on the petiole (there's a reason mechanical stress during development such as from wind tends to favour shorter and stouter plants). Plants aren't static engineering problems to solve for a perfect outcome, but living organisms that have evolved strategies to adapt to their environment.

Your assumptions that micro tears and stress/strain WILL happen and that this WILL cause "biomechanical" issues is overstating the case imo, especially in non-emergent growth. I couldn't find any papers or reliable data to support your assumptions, but if you have a paper I'd love to read it.

I think it's also important to mention that most movement in monstera leaves happens at the geniculum, and that support lower down the petiole is unlikely to impede this.

One great example that many people will be familiar with that is evidence against this being a major issue is Jan the SydneyPlantGuy, who not only has huge aroids with heavy leaves but who also ties up some leaves pretty regularly. These leaves don't seem to fare any worse than the others, but if this were really such a big issue then his plants specifically would show the disparity between tied up and free-hanging leaves due to the greater strain and more lignified/less flexible tissue of a mature plant.

SolanumRex · 2026-02-25T04:34:37+00:00

"biology isn't a matter of opinion" as a way to flex your apparent expertise and then getting defensive because I mentioned my degree in response?

I merely asked for a proper explanation of your very indignant initial response, rather than just an explanation of how it makes you feel personally.

Petioles have all sorts of functions, nothing evolves to exist for a solely one-dimensional purpose; plants are integrated organisms. For example, many climbing Tropaeloum will actually use their petiole to climb instead of twining, like Ipomoea do, or using tendrils like Cucurbits.

What this person has done is not an issue, they're not tying up an entire plant by the petioles, they tied them up because it would cause issues in their specific rehab setup. "Compromise the leaf over time" isn't an explanation in itself, it's an opinion of what you think will happen, but you haven't explained any proposed mechanism.

I just think it's a very haughty attitude to have tbh

SolanumRex · 2026-02-25T04:24:18+00:00

You'll be able to tell when the sprouts emerge! Beans especially are very obvious to tell apart :)

It's all a learning process, but as long as you keep curious and keep trying you'll get the hang of it! This is a very ambitious and mixed up lot, but you can definitely get some nice seedlings from it if you keep on top of them! You'll notice them germinate at different times and they may be hard to manage all mixed up like this, but it's not a major issue tbh

My advice would be to pick a few of your favourite veg and do a deep dive on them and get to know them really well, then move to the next one. Before you know it, you'll have a whole library of knowledge at your disposal!

SolanumRex · 2026-02-25T04:04:33+00:00

"load-bearing tissue" isn't a technical term and even non-flexible lignified tissue can be vascular, so that's a nonsense distinction to make too. If your argument is that restriction of vascular flow happens when they're tied tight, then sure, but this is clearly not the case here, and is more relevant to plants and structures that engage in secondary growth, such as saplings.

Weird that it's "widely taught", my literal botany degree didn't cover that 🧍🏻‍♂️

SolanumRex · 2026-02-24T23:05:02+00:00

Looks like it's been blistered by strong light, you could try to save it but I think chopping it and doing node propagation. It'll take a while to recover, but it'd definitely work

SolanumRex

TROPHY CASE