The purple majesty millet was especially interesting to me. I got some in an exchange trade but mine didn't show the dark purple. They were still pretty in a pot with other flowers. I wonder why that seeds is so expensive.

Jay,

That was very interesting. Thanks for linking it so we could read it.

Every year Black Pearl reseeds (though not necessarily heavily) in my garden and sometimes in my containers, and I dig up the volunteers and move them wherever I want them. I have seen a great amount of variability between self-sown seedlings. At the time I'm digging up volunteers, I keep the ones with darker foliage and rogue out the ones that are sigificantly greener merely because I like the darker foliage better. I've also noticed that the volunteer seedlings with green foliage don't seem as vigorous as those with darker foliage.

Helen,

When I grew Purple Millet from saved seed, I mostly got the lighter foliage too. Only one plant in about a dozen had the darker foliage, and I didn't save seed from it. (It was a bad fire year and I was away from the garden too much at grassfires that summer to save seed from anything.)

I assume the seed is so expensive because of the work involved in crossing the right parents to produce the F-1 hybrid....that, and the law of supply and demand. When the ornamental purple millet first hit the market, I thought the seed prices would come down in a couple of years, but they really haven't.

Dawn

Thanks, Jay! I do wish they'd do more veggies but great article. It's interesting to watch saved hybrids grow out but I don't have enough free hands to do it often.

Diane