misterroy wrote:
Hi all, thanks for the help, now that we've found sources on the RHS
site, the general reading of the comments says get crowns, which I'll
probably do, but I've got some different questions now:

1. The seeds wont all be true, out of the packet, how many will be
true?

Impossible to say; in a strict sense quite possibly none of them.

2. When will I know they are true?

Not till you've eaten some and observed the plants' habits -- three
years or more, I suppose.

3. How will I know they are true?

If they're identical in all respects to a known genuine specimen. If
you can grow your seedlings on for long enough, I'd say look for their
qualities -- vigour, colour, non-stringiness, low acidity -- rather
than concentrating on matching a particular variety. It's unrealistic
to grow them all on for long enough to select for non-bolting, but that
should really be a big factor too.

4. The untrue plants, will they be ay use?

When I did it, I got far more plants than I could possibly use, and
discarded most of them. I imagine some of the discards would have been
positively sub-standard, but of course I don't know. I just selected
the ones that seemed to be producing the most stems by the end of their
first season. I can't remember now, but I think some were a better
colour than others, too.

I didn't get my scanties in a twist about it: growing conditions are
probably more important than variety. This may even be true when it
comes to earliness, too: the big point of rhubarb is that it gives you
something fruity before anything else, and if you treat a nondescript
variety right it will probably give you a crop just as soon as an
"official" early variety left to its own devices -- or sooner.

As I said earlier, it was good fun, but wouldn't have been sensible if
I hadn't been a bit short of upfront money. The resulting plants didn't
seem any different from anybody else's rhubarb in the end.

--
Mike.