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Old August 14, 2017   #4
bower
Tomatovillian™
 
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Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
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Do you find any noticeable difference between the porcelain varieties?

I am curious about the fact we are told all porcelains have identical DNA. The two I've been growing a couple of years (Music and Argentina) seemed very different at first. Argentina was earlier and bigger - of course my Music was still sizing up, but the earliness and vigor of the Argentina was noticeable for two years running. This year I grew them side by side in the same bed, and I couldn't tell them apart on the size or earliness basis any more. They appeared to be converging somehow.
The only difference I could detect at all, is that the Argentina tend to have a little pink or reddish purple on not all but a few of their bulbs. The one Susan Delafield round that survived, also had a pretty pink color.
On the other hand after cleaning up my Music, I found quite a lot of purple color on the wrappers of the best bulbs... really pretty. The stock they came from is always plain white, but the bulbils produced some purple rounds and maybe the resulting strain will be more purple.

(We just pulled the porcelain at my friend's farm on Saturday and they were gigantic and perfect! They made mine look scrawny! How does she always do that. She was growing Argentina and Northern Quebec last year but couldn't remember which one provided the seed stock this year - both were extra large and great performers at the farm, so hard to tell apart. )
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