Not Isolating Heirlooms and Saving Seeds?

[AlittleSalt]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Way back in time it was said to plant 4 of a kind in a row and save seeds from just the inner four.

Of course that doesn't work well at all, so three in a row wouldn't either.

The major question to be asked IMO is....if three in a row, how far are the rows on either side of that row, or more generally, how far away are any other tomatoes. Insect pollinators are known to fly a MILE at a time, their poor midget wings flapping in the wind,

Thankfully where I grew my tomatoes, several hundreds of plants and varieties each year in upstate NY, there were too many to bag or to isolate, but since my crossing rate was only about 5% , most self pollenized, I was willing to accept that.

Carolyn

Carolyn, I plant my tomato plants 3 feet apart in the rows, and the rows are 6 feet apart. I agree completely that there will be crosses. Plants like Sungold and Amish gold that grow 6 foot vines in all directions will absolutely cause crosses. I have little doubt that the Amish gold seeds I just put onto paper plates will have some percentage of crossing with the Russian Mini Yellow I planted 3' away. Both plants spread like wildfire. I will inform those I share seeds with of this possible cross.

The same holds true for the Yellow Riesentraube seeds I am in the process of saving. The YR has a Sungold growing all around it. If YR didn't have a point on the end, they would be difficult to tell the difference in sight to Sungold. Again, I will inform others of the probable cross.

The European Honey Bees we have and other pollinators will be causing crosses as well.

I just saw your post Carolyn - otherwise, I would have replied sooner.

[AlittleSalt]

Vladimir, thank you for posting those pictures. I had never seen bagging to that scale.

[Cole_Robbie]

I planted about a hundred different varieties I got from swaps over the winter. I'm guessing no one bagged their blossoms. I have maybe five plants that are not what they are supposed to be. And four of those look like they are issues regarding stability, more so than accidental crosses.

I have had customers to whom I sold plants at market tell me that they got cherry tomatoes from plants that were labelled something else. I always apologized, and asked if they were upset about it. The typical response was, 'well I was, until I tasted the fruit, and they were the best cherry tomatoes I ever had.'

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by seaeagle

This may be a little off topic but I didn't want to start another thread.I just fermented some seeds from Pruden's Purple.I am doing a germination test now.Let's say these come up as potato leaf and all the rest of my tomatoes in the garden are regular leaf.Is it a pretty safe bet that they haven't been crossed and are true?I know it's a kinda technical question so I won't be holding my breath for an answer

Honest I'm trying to understand what you posted.

Pruden's Purple is PL so any seeds you save from PP in your garden should be PL

But you say that the PP plants in your garden are RL, so I guess I can conclude that the PP RL ones in your garden are not true PP.

So why would you ask about any PL ones showing up in your germination tests if the seeds were saved from the RL plants in your garden?

Or are you saying that you have several PP plants in your garden and just one of them has PL foliage, the rest having RL foliage? And if that's true and you saved seed from that one PL plant in your garden, then yes, saved seeds from that one should show up as PL in your germination tests.

Please tell me what I'm missing here? Have I read something wrongly that you posted?

Carolyn

[tam91]

I think he's saying he has Pruden's Purple (correctly potato leaf) and has saved seed from that. All his other varieties in the garden are regular leaf.

So if his saved seeds come up potato leaf, does that mean that his PP did not cross with any of the others? i.e. if they had crossed, would he get at least some RL plants.

[seaeagle]

Originally Posted by tam91

I think he's saying he has Pruden's Purple (correctly potato leaf) and has saved seed from that. All his other varieties in the garden are regular leaf.

So if his saved seeds come up potato leaf, does that mean that his PP did not cross with any of the others? i.e. if they had crossed, would he get at least some RL plants.

Yes Thank you Tam91, that is exactly what i meant.My PP are true and potato leaf and everything else I have is regular leaf.If the seeds i saved come up potato leaf can I be 100 percent certain that they are true.I'm kinda certain anyway since the bees weren't really active at that time in May

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by seaeagle

This may be a little off topic but I didn't want to start another thread.I just fermented some seeds from Pruden's Purple.I am doing a germination test now.Let's say these come up as potato leaf and all the rest of my tomatoes in the garden are regular leaf.Is it a pretty safe bet that they haven't been crossed and are true?I know it's a kinda technical question so I won't be holding my breath for an answer

Here's where I went wrong in interpretation of what you posted.

Let's say these come up as potato leaf and all the rest of my tomatoes in the garden are regular leaf.

I assumed you were posting about other PP's in your garden that were RL, not that all other varieties in your garden were RL

So yes, if all the seedlings from your PP RL plant come up PL you can assume that there was no X pollination.

Carolyn

[tam91]

So, just for my education - RL is dominant?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by tam91

So, just for my education - RL is dominant?

I've forgotten right now the correct gene designation for the alleles involved with PL and RL, so will explain them my way. Spoiler alert, RL is dominant.

let PP be homozygous and dominant for RL
Pp is heterozygous and RL since P is dominant to p
pp is homozygous and recessive and is PL

So if you cross a PP X pp this is what you get.

P P

p Pp Pp

P Pp Pp

All offspring will be heterozygous and RL

But just looking at an RL variety it doesn't tell you if it is PP or Pp

So let's cross Pp X Pp

P p

P PP Pp

p Pp pp

1/4 of offspring will be homozygous PP, so RL

1/2 will be Pp heterozygous, so RL

1/4 will be homozygous recessive, so PL

And you can do the PP X Pp one/

Carolyn

[tam91]

omg you are making me (try) to remember my genetics!

PP x Pp

1/2 of offspring will be homozygous PP, so RL

1/2 will be Pp heterozygous, so RL

I think haha

So all RL, but can't tell which are crossed

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by tam91

I think he's saying he has Pruden's Purple (correctly potato leaf) and has saved seed from that. All his other varieties in the garden are regular leaf.

So if his saved seeds come up potato leaf, does that mean that his PP did not cross with any of the others? i.e. if they had crossed, would he get at least some RL plants.

Correct. If his PP come up PL, they did not cross. RL is dominant, so a cross of a PL with a RL will result in a RL F1.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by tam91

omg you are making me (try) to remember my genetics!

PP x Pp

1/2 of offspring will be homozygous PP, so RL

1/2 will be Pp heterozygous, so RL

I think haha

So all RL, but can't tell which are crossed

Absolutely correct, and as a reward I will send you two seeds of that very rare variety called Gorgeous George.

Carolyn

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by ginger2778

Correct. If his PP come up PL, they did not cross. RL is dominant, so a cross of a PL with a RL will result in a RL F1.

Marsha, I did both of those crosses in my post above and I wouldn't call it an F1 since that has a different meaning, at least to me, in terms of crossing two varieties that are different, with all of their genes/genomes involved as opposed to considering just the alleles for RL and PL leaf form.

Saying it differently, if PP X pp all of the offspring would be Pp and RL, but it's only the two alleles for leaf form that I think are perhaps better called heterozygous, rather than F1, which would refer to a cross between the complete genome of one parent with the complete genome of the other parent/

Carolyn

[tam91]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Absolutely correct, and as a reward I will send you two seeds of that very rare variety called Gorgeous George.

Carolyn

Hahaha what a reward!