>It is an EXTREMELY easy thing to do, if you know some fundamentals of
Botany and Horticulture.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 8:20
PM
Subject: Re: [Assam] For Gardeners
Rajen:
Thanks for the kind words, but it is not an achievement to croak about
:). It is an EXTREMELY easy thing to do, if you know some fundamentals of
Botany and Horticulture.
I have successfully cross-bred the large pale-green Oxomiya 'lao' (
gourd) with Italian Marrow ( a long thin variety of 'lao') years back, and
raise the hybrid in our garden every year. The hybrid is a long but club (
goda) like variety.
I don't know that the hybrid 'kerela' will be 'kerwn' resistant. It could
be, but it could also be extremely vulnerable. I don't know enough about
genetics to be able to predict what could be expected to result from the cross
pollination. Yes, certain disease resistant varieties CAN BE produced by
selective breeding/pollination. But it takes years of methodical work, of
trial and error. There are laws of heredity which can predict certain
characteristics of a cross bred plant or animal. My effort could be compared
to shooting in the dark to see if anything will be hit. Good thing though is
that it is highly unlikely to produce a 'kerela from hell'.
Thanks much for sharing your 'bogori aasar'. We too used it sparingly.
But it is all gone now. I envy you Houstonians and Floridians and Americans
from the South and West who have the climate to be able to grow Assam plants
outdoors and can be sure they would survive the winter. Bogori would be hard
to hybridize, because it really does not belong to the plum family at all.
There are different strains of it in Assam, Bengal, north India etc. I am sure
cross breeding with these variants are eminently possible.
Dil Deka has some Bhat Kerela plants. I am going to get me an 'aalu' (
tuber) from her next time, and see if I can cross breed 'tita kerela' with
'bhaat kerela'.They are both 'momordicas' and just might work.
I tried last year to create a cross between a 'jika' and a 'bhwl',
But I failed. I will try again this year when they start blooming in about a
couple of weeks.
I am trying some other experiments too. But it is too early to talk about
it. If something useful comes out of it, you will surely hear from me
:-).
c
At 7:31 PM -0500 8/19/05, Barua25 wrote:
Chandan:
That is a great
achievement, I would say. Please do publish it in some magazine here and
specaially in Assam with some sketches and pictures so that people would
know and may practise the same May be your hybrid variety will not
suffer from kerwn. The process of creating hybrid
fruits seems to be exciting although I am absolutely novice in this
field. I definitely would like to have seeds of this new variety
of Kerela. Deep fried kerela with white rice and chilli is
one of my favorite Assamese dish for Sunday lunch.
I am sure you can do it
with other Assamese fruits. As I told you before, I have successfully
planted an Assamese Bogori Gos (straight from Jorhat) in our house in
Katy, Texas. The good news is that it survived the frost second year in a
row. This year the tree produced enough khar-khwa Bogoris for
Ajanta to make couple of bottles of Bogori Asar which we are enjoying
sparingly like bapoti xahwn. May be you can teach me how to make a
hybrid Bogori out of this with some American plum
variety.
Thanks
Rajen
----- Original
Message -----
From: "Chan
Mahanta" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <assam@pikespeak.uccs.edu>
Sent: Friday,
August 19, 2005 12:33 PM
Subject: [Assam]
For Gardeners
>
Raiz:
>
>
> I am a part-time khetiyok ( gardener), among
other things :-).
>
> I am pleased to announce that I created a
hybrid tita kerela, by
> cross breeding a variety of semi-wild kerela
that I collected seeds
> of from a vine from the highlands of Jamaica
in 2003 with the long
> Assamese variety. This Jamaican variety kerela
( momordica--bitter
> gourd) fruit is really tiny, about 1" in
diameter and about 2" to
> 2.5" long, with dainty ( about 3" diameter)
leaves. The fruits are so
> small that
they are not useful for eating. The seeds are black,
> about
1/4" long X 1/8" wide. I was told by someone that it is seen in
>
Florida also, growing wild.
>
> Just out of curiosity, I
pollinated an Assamese kerela female flower
> with a male Jamaican
pollen, and vice versa. One did not work, but
> the other did; except
I was not careful about recording which hybrid
> fruited, and don't
know the exact mix.
>
> Anyway, I grew a new hybrid plant this
spring from the harvested
> seeds. At first, the resulting plant did
not indicate any conspicuous
> characteristic. But soon I began to
notice that it is an amazingly
> prolific plant, growing like crazy.
You can almost see it growing
> :-). Soon a very robust and wildly
growing vine took over the trellis
> and spread all over nearby
ground, tomato plants and and overhead
> trellis that I built for
'laos' ( gourds) producing lots and lots of
> mid-sized ( 1.5" dia X
3" to 4" long), pale green ( more white than
> green) hybrid fruits.
In fact we have so many fruits, I stopped
> picking them, and they are
ripening and cracking up like blood red
> flowers with yellow
petals.
>
> The taste is not extremely bitter, like some of our
Assamese little
> kerela varieties. You can say it is of medium
bitterness.
>
> My guess is that it MIGHT become a good garden
vegetable for amateur
> urban gardeners as well as rural khetiyoks in
Assam, because the
> plant is so robust and prolific. It can also
become a beautiful
> screening/landscaping plant at verandas as well
as against ugly ,
> blank compound walls, because it grows so fast.
The flowers are
> mildly fragrant,like all kerela plants. But since
there are so many
> flowers, the pleasant aroma could be smelled from
a slight distance.
> That makes me think, it could be a fine urban
landscape plant in warm
> humid areas.
>
> If anyone wants
seeds to try let me know. I will be pleased to share some.
>
>
Iti bineet,
>
> sondon kerela-seed mohonto :-)
> ( With
apologies to Johnny Appleseed)
>
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