resurrecting the old brussels sprouts

[philip]

I will start to breed brussels sprouts next year. I will begin by growing several open pollinated varieties together and let them cross freely.
There is something about brussels sprouts that not many people know.
I was in germany and i visited Ludwig Watschong, who has sadly passed away, and we walked through his garden.
He showed me all kinds of amazing vegetables and he told me that in the past the old varieties of brussels sprouts used to ripen from the bottom up the stalk gradually.
This trait was bred out of them because market farmers wanted to be able to harvest all sprouts in one patch of field to be then able to clear the field and plant something else. Having brussels sprouts over a longer period of time was achieved by planting early, mid-season and late-ripening varieties.
I don't know when all this happened or much else about all this.
But Ludwig said, and this is obvious, that it makes way more sense for the backyard gardener or the person wanting to be self-sufficient, to grow the old style brussels sprouts that ripen gradually along the stem from the bottom up towards the top as the plant grows.

If anyone knows of such or has such varieties please let me know.

Also, for the creation of a perennial brussels sprout this trait seems to be much better suited. However i just can't imagine a perennial brussels sprout plant.
I kind of doubt that such a thing would be possible.
Maybe a type of plant that constantly grows out new branches with brussels sprouts on,
but i have trouble imagining a stem where you just keep on harvesting brussel sprouts from.
Nature has its limitations.

So the idea behind this project is to resurrect the old style brussels sprouts that used to give less, but over a much longer period of time.
And yes if such a plant would have been "trained" not to flower or crossed with perennial kale and selected,
a kale-type, perennial brussels sprout seems very possible.
 
But that is not my objective here for now. I just want to try by creating a landrace to make the old genes resurface so that my brussels sprouts will ripen gradually like i explained.

I would like to swap brussels sprouts seeds with anyone who has seeds of old varieties.
Anyone who would like to participate in this project is welcome too.
It won't really get interesting though before 2022 because that's when i should be able to sow seeds of all those varieties crossed.
I will then ask again if people want to participate because i will also have a ton of seeds then.

[philip]

So right now i just ordered brussels sprout seeds. I never even grew brussels sprouts yet. All i have is the information that in the past ancient bs varieties ripened gradually from the bottom up the stalk as the leaves were growing.
From all the pictures that i have seen bs plants always seem to have sprouts hanging all along the stem.
Towards the top of the plant there are tiny ones but i haven't seen a picture yet of a corresponding plant.
Ludwig told me, as far as i remember, that these old varieties don't exist anymore.

So the first step is to cross as many open-pollinated bs varieties into a genetically diverse landrace and in subsequent years to hope for plants displaying the desirable characteristics again in order to create a brussel sprout variety that can be harvested gradually over a long period of time.

[Graham]

It may be worth researching some of the very old varieties. If you can find references to cultivar names you may find seed available in seed banks. Might also be worth contacting the seedbank curators and enquiring directly about any varieties that have the trait. Sounds like an interesting project. Hope you have luck with it