'Hearty' Indian Stripe Hearts???

[JLJ_]

In the feedback from Carolyn's 2013 seed offer I saw only one other person who reported an Indian Stripe Heart that survived to produce. That experience was similar to mine, only one producing plant, produced a few healthy Indian Stripe fruit, but no apparent heart shape. Each of us had another variety that did produce heart shaped fruit last year, which would argue against environmental conditions as the reason the heart shape did not manifest itself in the Indian Stripe Heart, but of course conditions vary, even in the same garden, and with us both looking at only a few fruit, produced at the end of the season, it may be that with a longer, warmer period of productivity those plants would have produced hearts.

I'm wondering whether anyone else had plants that vigorously produced heart shaped Indian Stripe fruit last season -- particularly from Carolyn's offer, but from any source, really.

If there are a bunch of plants around chugging out heart shaped Indian Stripe fruit, this post pretty much stops right here.

If not, I was thinking . . . the five fruit my Indian Stripe Heart plant produced came from known Indian Stripe Heart-shaped ancestry -- Carolyn saw the heart shape in fruit produced at her home, and the person who did her seed production saw the heart shape in the fruit used to generate the seed.

My plant was separated from other tomatoes by modest distance, but also, all the fruit were bagged -- so considering tomatoes' tendency to self fertilize, plus some distance between plants, plus the bags, it is very likely that the seeds those plants produced contain (reshuffled) the same genes as the seeds Carolyn distributed, which were known to have come from heart shaped Indian Stripe fruit.

I have not yet tested germination on those seeds. They did ferment quite a bit longer than usual, so viability is a genuine issue -- wasn't intentional, just one of those 'life happens' situations. However, other seeds that had the absurdly long ferment have proved to be OK -- probably because the room they were in was almost unheated -- so there is a reasonable chance the Indian Stripe Heart seeds will be, as well.

IF the seeds are viable, and IF there are not a quantity of other Indian Stripe Heart plants around reliably chugging out hearts, then I was thinking that I might offer some of those seeds to those who wanted to grow them out and see what they produce. This is NOT an offer, this post is for us all to ponder together whether plants that reliably produce Indian Stripe Heart shaped fruit are in short enough supply that such an effort would be worthwhile.

I'm inclined to think that it's a pretty low risk proposition, as the worst that seems likely to happen is that people would grow Indian Stripe not-heart fruit, which is hardly a bad thing.

However, I should probably note that in comments on the 2013 Indian Stripe Heart plants, one person reported round red fruit and one person reported potato leaf babies. I was inclined to think those both probably represented mixups of some sort rather than manifestation of anything in the Indian Stripe Heart seeds' genetics, but who knows . . . stuff happens.

So, folks, (1) are there enough reliable Indian Stripe Heart producers around to make this unnecessary (2) if not, does it sound as if it might be worth a try?

I thought about not posting these thoughts until I saw whether the seed I have seems viable -- but it seemed to me that if we do this, it will have to happen pretty soon, so thought I should see what thoughts everyone had as soon as possible.

[Paul R]

This is interesting. I have grown Indian Stripe for many years and have not heard of a heart shaped variety. The seed I originally obtained were from Carolyn's seed offer years back.

Paul R

[carolyn137]

Without checking thru a lot of stuff, I don't remember right now who did send me that IS Heart. Craig raises my plants for me, and sent me back one IS Heart plant from seeds I sent him, and it did produce blunt hearts here at home.

I sent seeds also to one of the folks who did seed production for me and it was those seeds that I distributed.

Without even referencing the feed back thread I became aware of the fact that the e was something wrong with those seeds, dented ( concave) on both sides for most of them, and mentioned that online and someone offered to regrow if I could find enough non dented seeds to send to him.

I don't know what those results were.

All to say that you can see I deleted it from my 2014 offer b'c, mainly of low to no germination, and don't remember that some got red fruits since I haven't been back to that 2013 Fall performance thread since around Xmas time when I was going thru and writing down what I thought to be problem varieties, such as Mdm Jardels, and some others, so I could delete them from my 2014 offer, which I did.

If you say that some did get some IS hearts, that's good, but I don't see where anyone reoffered them.

And I wasn't surpised to find an IS heart sent to me since Indian Stripe is a version of Cherokee purple and CP already had a PL version, actually several, as did IS, just one which grew true, and CP has a heart, newly offered by Mike at Victory seeds.

Carolyn

[JLJ_]

Carolyn, I didn't say some got IS hearts, I said that only two of us reported IS Heart plants that survived to produce mature fruit. Neither of us thought that the fruit could be described as hearts, but it appeared that we both thought that *might* have been because of growing conditions.

Attached is a picture of the (blossom-bagged) fruit produced by my IS Heart plant last year -- healthy Indian Stripe fruit, not very 'hearty' -- but *maybe* would have been with a longer, warmer growth period. In any event they should be carrying the genes of what you knew to be IS heart-shaped fruit so their seeds *might* produce hearts.

The purpose of my post was to find out if there are plants out there reliably producing IS hearts -- either unreported plants from your offer or plants from some other source and, if not, to suggest a possibility.

On the left in the pic are two comparison fruits, one from an original Indian Stripe plant and one from an Indian Stripe Potato Leaf plant from your 2013 offer. On the right are the five fruits produced by the IS Heart plant from your 2013 offer -- the seed producer candidates.

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by JLJ_

Carolyn, I didn't say some got IS hearts, I said that only two of us reported IS Heart plants that survived to produce mature fruit. Neither of us thought that the fruit could be described as hearts, but it appeared that we both thought that *might* have been because of growing conditions.

Attached is a picture of the (blossom-bagged) fruit produced by my IS Heart plant last year -- healthy Indian Stripe fruit, not very 'hearty' -- but *maybe* would have been with a longer, warmer growth period. In any event they should be carrying the genes of what you knew to be IS heart-shaped fruit so their seeds *might* produce hearts.

The purpose of my post was to find out if there are plants out there reliably producing IS hearts -- either unreported plants from your offer or plants from some other source and, if not, to suggest a possibility.

On the left in the pic are two comparison fruits, one from an original Indian Stripe plant and one from an Indian Stripe Potato Leaf plant from your 2013 offer. On the right are the five fruits produced by the IS Heart plant from your 2013 offer -- the seed producer candidates.

JLJ, if you are going to release some seeds, I would be interested. The ones I got from Carolyn's offer were a no go. My climate is certainly long enough and warm enough to see what happens with the shape.
As a related aside, which plant was more vigorous, the ISH, or the ISPL?

I love that you are looking into this, it will make many happy. Suggest you may want to do your germination test just to know the viability, since you mentioned the prolonged fermentation.
Thank you for thinking of us with this thread.

Marsha

[JLJ_]

Originally Posted by ginger2778

JLJ, if you are going to release some seeds, I would be interested. The ones I got from Carolyn's offer were a no go. My climate is certainly long enough and warm enough to see what happens with the shape.
As a related aside, which plant was more vigorous, the ISH, or the ISPL?

I love that you are looking into this, it will make many happy. Suggest you may want to do your germination test just to know the viability, since you mentioned the prolonged fermentation.
Thank you for thinking of us with this thread.

Marsha

I'm not sure I'd call it "release some seeds" . . . more like "share some of Carolyn's tomato-grand-seeds if they maybe might possibly be of use to some"

I hope to get a germination test started today -- but we're currently having about a 36 hour break in the snow plus subzero temps, so I'm not sure germination tests won't get bumped by other things [g]

I gather that you don't know of any source that has plants reliably producing IS hearts, so think this is worth a try?

Regarding ISH vs ISPL, ISH, to me, has mostly novelty value -- though perhaps if we found a line of vigorously producing plants it would be different. Carolyn thinks so highly of hearts, which has led to my 90 year old mother becoming interested in hearts -- so I'm growing several hearts.

My Indian Stripe Potato Leaf from Caroline's 2013 offer was a real champ compared to ISH or to the original IS or to anything in the garden, except perhaps the Marglobe. And Marglobe is always my pet, so it's just possible I'm not entirely objective in that comparison

Indian Stripe Potato Leaf is apparently after pet status, as well. Around Thanksgiving, when I was getting the last of my seeds out of their fermentation jars, one was a jar with some ISPL and there, growing out of the fungal mat, was a tiny ISPL seedling. None of the other seeds showed any signs of sprouting -- and seeds that just looked as if they were sprouting I'd have discarded routinely -- but this little guy was standing there holding up his cotyledons so proudly that I didn't have the heart to toss him.

Thought, "it'll probably die, but . . . " , scooped some unsterilized potting soil into a planting cup, poked him in, and put him in a warm, light place. Vigorous . . . yes. His odd start didn't bother him at all. I've tried to keep conditions good enough to keep him happy, but not so good to encourage growth. So far, he has a center stem like a tree (well, a small tree) and looks happy, but is unsurprisingly getting too large for a house plant -- and it's a long time before he can go outside, here.

I'm going to trim him into cuttings and root them and we'll see, but I suspect he won't mind becoming several plants at all. I just hope he will leave a little room for us in the house between now and 'planting out' time.

[Idahowoman]

I was on post #91 and I had no germination on the Indian Stripe Heart seed.
Susan

[kath]

I didn't post my results with Indian Stripe Heart on the Fall 2013 feedback thread because I reported in the 2013 Germination Results thread that I didn't get any viable plants.

Took the liberty of going through that thread and hope it's ok to report that the results for Indian Stripe Heart that were reported in the germination thread were:

Heritage: 1/3 (blind)
MarinaRussian: 2/3 (posted a fruit photo in post #111- looking very blunt)
austinnhannasmom: 0/4
kath: 0/5
Heritage's sister, Maria: 1/6
lakelady: 0/8
Boutique Tomatoes: 0/5
Mark0820: 1/4
JLJ: 1/6
nancyruhl: 4/7
ginger2778: 0/6

Don't know if tragedy struck any of these plants after this report but may others could be contacted to see what kind of fruits showed up.

kath

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by kath

I didn't post my results with Indian Stripe Heart on the Fall 2013 feedback thread because I reported in the 2013 Germination Results thread that I didn't get any viable plants.

Took the liberty of going through that thread and hope it's ok to report that the results for Indian Stripe Heart that were reported in the germination thread were:

Heritage: 1/3 (blind)
MarinaRussian: 2/3 (posted a fruit photo in post #111- looking very blunt)
austinnhannasmom: 0/4
kath: 0/5
Heritage's sister, Maria: 1/6
lakelady: 0/8
Boutique Tomatoes: 0/5
Mark0820: 1/4
JLJ: 1/6
nancyruhl: 4/7
ginger2778: 0/6

Don't know if tragedy struck any of these plants after this report but may others could be contacted to see what kind of fruits showed up.

kath

Thanks Kath. I didn't go through the 2013 germination thread now but I had noted the problems with Germination, and said so in one of the posts from the Fall 2013 performance thread.

And what you posted is what I also saw is why I deleted ISH from the 2014 seed offer.

I can contact Nancyruh, I know her well, since she said she got 4 plants up and see what she has to say, since I don't recall her posting in the Fall thread.

Carolyn

[JLJ_]

Originally Posted by kath

I didn't post my results with Indian Stripe Heart on the Fall 2013 feedback thread because I reported in the 2013 Germination Results thread that I didn't get any viable plants.

Took the liberty of going through that thread and hope it's ok to report that the results for Indian Stripe Heart that were reported in the germination thread were:

Heritage: 1/3 (blind)
MarinaRussian: 2/3 (posted a fruit photo in post #111- looking very blunt)
austinnhannasmom: 0/4
kath: 0/5
Heritage's sister, Maria: 1/6
lakelady: 0/8
Boutique Tomatoes: 0/5
Mark0820: 1/4
JLJ: 1/6
nancyruhl: 4/7
ginger2778: 0/6

Don't know if tragedy struck any of these plants after this report but may others could be contacted to see what kind of fruits showed up.

kath

I think you have it right kath.

According to my notes:

MarinaRussian posted a pic of immature green fruit in post #111 in the germination thread, but nothing when/if they matured.

As I'd said in the first post, there were only two of us who posted about mature Indian Stripe Heart fruit in the feedback thread -- the other was Mark0820 -- and I believe it was post #41 in the feedback thread.

nancyruhl posted in post #88 in the germination thread about 4 PL "Indian Stripe Hearts" -- but in post #10 in the feedback thread she posted about "Indian Stripe PL" -- and the other four varieties mentioned were the same in both posts. Since Indian Stripe Heart is not PL, it seems likely that the germination thread post #88 contained an accidental name error and that the Feedback thread post saying that she had grown Indian Stripe PL was correct.

In a different thread(s) marktutt/boutiquetomatoes said that Carolyn had sent some additional Indian Stripe Heart seed, which had sprouted and which was intended to grow out some seed for her. I believe that Carolyn said that she hadn't heard further from the person to whom she sent the extra Indian Stripe Heart seed, so the seed production apparently didn't work out

doublehelix said in a different thread that the indian stripe heart seed had produced round red tomatoes -- which I inferred meant that a mixup had occurred somehow, somewhere, but as I said in the first post, it's worth noting as odd crosses can always happen.

I'm a little concerned -- I didn't mention any names earlier as -- while I entirely understand why Carolyn gets vexed when she doesn't get enough reports on seeds distributed -- I didn't want to be any part of making anyone feel even a little bit bad about what they'd reported or not reported or of stirring up any other form of discomfort for anyone.

As it says in the first post, what I had in mind was to find out whether there are plenty of Indian Stripe Heart plants reliably producing hearts and, if not, to suggest a strategy using the already saved bagged-blossom seeds that my Indian Stripe Heart plant produced last summer to *maybe* be able to produce some 'hearty' fruit. But not if there are already reliable IS Heart plants producing, or if there are better seeds available.

And . . . the Indian Stripe family are a late season variety here -- last year they were still trying to mature when winter jumped on us in late September -- though when a plant decides to start himself the previous Thanksgiving that may vary his summertime maturity schedule.

Assuming that we're not still covered with ice and snow in June

[travis]

I am having a slight reaction to my meds today, and cannot concentrate on details in the overly long posts. Please clarify a couple of things for me:

Where did the Indian Stripe Heart tomato originate, in whose garden?

Who supplied the original Indian Stripe Heart seeds referred to in this thread?

Who grew out the increased seed lot from which the IS Heart seeds were distributed via Carolyn?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by travis

I am having a slight reaction to my meds today, and cannot concentrate on details in the overly long posts. Please clarify a couple of things for me:

Where did the Indian Stripe Heart tomato originate, in whose garden?

Who supplied the original Indian Stripe Heart seeds referred to in this thread?

Who grew out the increased seed lot from which the IS Heart seeds were distributed via Carolyn?

I'm not on meds today and I'm trying not to get confused. I'll answer you as best I can Bill.

In post #3 I said I was sent a plant from Craig L.

I did save seeds from the fruits of that plant and they were blunt hearts as I also noted above.

I sent those starter seeds to one of my seed producers and as always I have a list of varieties for them to choose from and that's what they get sent. That data is not in my current data book and I don't know where the other data books are right now.

I listed this variety in 2013 but b'c the germination was so bad and apparently some who did grow it got wrong fruits, so I deleted it from my 2014 seed offer.

In post #7 above I asked JLJ for some seeds, saying we could work it out, but he never sent them to me so I was surprised in post #13 when Marsha just thanked him for the IS Heart seeds he sent her and she had offered them to others who participated in her seed offer.

Nancy Ruhl did get up several plants, but sadly, Nancy, who was one of my best seed producers, kind of disappeared and I never heard anything back from her about IS Heart,

Are you back home now? I ask b'c I need to ask you about those seeds you were going to send and someone else has said to contact you about some other varieties you were associated with that are out for seed production in terms of permissions.

You can just PM me or better e-mail me and then I can call you.

Thanks,

Carolyn

[ginger2778]

Carolyn, I think I have enough ISH seeds that I can send you some, but I'll have to check to be sure. If I have enough (12-15) do you want some?

[JLJ_]

Carolyn, I think that Nancy Ruhl's IS Heart report was a mistake as later she reported on Indian Stripe PL seeds, with all other varieties reported identical. (see post #11)

Also, I read post #7 over, and if you asked me for seeds to grow in 2014, you were too subtle for me. Ginger asked for some, and got them, but with a bunch of caveats to the effect that these were children of an Indian Stripe plant from your 2013 seed offer, but with questionable heartish tendencies. I don't think they were anything you'd have wanted to distribute.

And at the end of 2014 Ginger and I were both seeing just some heartish shapes. See this thread

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=34582 posts #14 and #19

I was hoping that when you picked out your best remaining IS Heart seeds for marktutt/boutiquetomatoes to grow out, but which I guess didn't work out, that you might have some left in a dusty corner that might be revived to see if any of them produced reliable IS hearts.

Also, I do have records of some 2010 IS Heart postings on various tomato forums -- don't want to mention as I'm not sure if they are forums that are reliable, and don't want to point anyone astray -- I only visited them some years ago in quest of IS Heart info -- anyway, there were posts about some alleged IS Heart seed that bluelytes got from 'paternal ancestor Vic' -- and there were pictures of "tiny" seed -- which I think discussion suggested was mostly immature seed -- but none of it that I saw ended up with a clear cut reliable heart shaped IS heart. And I haven't seen it anywhere since then, either -- though I don't visit many forums.

[JLJ_]

Originally Posted by travis

I am having a slight reaction to my meds today, and cannot concentrate on details in the overly long posts. Please clarify a couple of things for me:

Where did the Indian Stripe Heart tomato originate, in whose garden?

Who supplied the original Indian Stripe Heart seeds referred to in this thread?

Who grew out the increased seed lot from which the IS Heart seeds were distributed via Carolyn?

1) Where alleged Indian Stripe Heart originated, I dunno.

2) This thread is about the offspring of the one Indian Stripe Heart plant that grew to maturity in my garden from Carolyn's 2013 seed offer. As most of the fruit was similar to fruit from other Indian Stripe plants, I considered them marginal hearts, at best, and inquired if anyone had reliably gotten heart shaped Indian Stripe fruit. No one spoke up -- few apparently got any results at all from that seed -- but as Carolyn said that she knew the the source of her seed had been genuine hearts, I've worked with my saved seed from 2013 until/unless some clear cut IS hearts appear from some source.

Ginger2278 expressed a desire to try the seeds in 2014 so, figuring that her much longer season might get a clearer heart/not heart result, I sent her seeds from five different IS Heart? tomatoes. I also sent her seeds from my best Indian Stripe Potato Leaf plant.

She grew both in 2014, as did I. Our season here was cut short by snow and freezing temps in September -- but the results I did get included what were at best marginal hearts.

Ginger asked me if I minded if she included her 2014 production of IS Heart? seed and IS Potato Leaf in her seed offer early this year. I told her that I thought it would be fine to include IS Potato Leaf, as I'd sent her bagged seed from my best plant, and it had performed well for her, but that I thought that the IS Heart? seed should be distributed only if it's faintly heartish tendencies are the best IS heart seed available. As no source appeared to be offering better IS Heart seed, she distributed it with a request that recipients save seeds only from heart shaped fruit.

That might produce some hearty results, but at this point I remain somewhat skeptical about IS heart -- except that I am sure that if Carolyn says she got them from a reliable IS heart producer, someone was getting reliable IS hearts at some time.

And it is interesting that Ginger2278 is getting some hearts that she finds encouraging. (Though I'm not sure if the difference is in the 'heartiness' of the fruits or the optimism of the observer.

But I'd sure like to hear from someone who gets IS hearts reliably. Until then, I'll keep working with this seed, or any better seed I run across or that anyone happens to find rooting around in her old undistributed seed supplies. The non-heartish plants produce nice Indian Stripe Heart tomatoes, so it's no loss of garden productivity to try for the hearts.

3) Who supplied the seed Carolyn distributed -- I dunno.

And . . . I know that it can be difficult sometimes to get through long posts -- but sometimes that's the only way to get a clear picture of a discussion.