Winter hardiness in trench celery

A total of 51 red and white commercial varieties of trench celery were grown and examined for winter hardiness at the National Vegetable Research Station. Although some plants of most varieties survived the winter, none showed a commercially useful degree of winter hardiness, in that none were marketable after moderate frost. The red varieties had a significantly better survival than the white varieties. In the first season, single plant selections were made from the varieties having both the highest percentage of winter survival and the best agronomic characters. Although some of the progenies derived from these selected plants by self-pollination showed a small increase in winter survival as compared with their parent varieties when both were grown in the second season, no plants of these progenies were sufficiently hardy to remain marketable after moderate frost. It was concluded that none of the varieties tested showed any promise as a source of winter hardiness to be used in a breeding programme, and that selection for one generation from within these varieties did not improve winter hardiness to a useful extent.