not stable yet

[troad]

The following quote from Carolyn in an exchange about yellow tomatoes leads to a new question for me.

"Len, Tom's Yellow Wonder would be a possibility if it weren't for the fact that
I've seen some folks post that it doesn't seem quite stable yet and I've seen
the pictures."

What do I look for as far as unstability and how do I proceed from there? An obvious change would be a different fruit color but what else??

[carolyn137]

Len, Tom's Yellow Wonder would be a possibility if it weren't for the fact that I've seen some folks post that it doesn't seem quite stable yet and I've seen the pictures.

But that reminds me that Casey's Pure Yellow from Jeff Casey might be another very good possibility.

.... the above from Carolyn and from a thread here at Tville right now on the first page aboout Mt Gold where a person is looking for something like Lemon Boy but much firmer.

I looked a bit for pictures but they're scattered and I didn't have time to search all the various places here at TV.

And some have posted they didn't get what others got and some have said that to me privately.

So if the same folks are around now to help out here that would be great.

And I know that quite a few folks have gotten what they should as well. But this person is a market gardener and I assume would like ALL the plants to be true to the variety.

If anyone has additional suggestions to make it would probably be best to go to the thread about Mt Gold, see what has been suggested first, and then suggest any new ones there so that everything is in one place.

Also, I don't find it unusual that a new selection OP might throw a few off plants/fruits, viz Black Brandywine, which is still throwing them. As has Grub's Mystery Green and there are others such as Cherokee Green which for me has been fine but others have gotten different colored ones from time to time.

[troad]

Maybe my question is too sophomoric.
Tried to refer to Caroline's comment without hi-jacking the Mt. Gold thread.
Still would like to know what to look for when a tomato is not completely stable. I read about people stabilizing crosses. What do you look for? Is the resulting fruit the only criteria? If not what else do you look for?

[Vince]

Not stable means that the plant will not yet bread true year after year. This is probably obvious. Fruit size, shape, flavor, color can be variable. All other characteristics are fare game for variability also(flower size, truss configuration, leaf type, flower shape, sepal morphology, disease tolerance etc.) I have never grown tom's yellow wonder but recall seeing photos of heart shaped, to beefsteak fruit with different degrees of blossum end blushing.

[Tomstrees]

re: TYW

A KC grower and myself did get a red TYW last season
(and I'm sure we were both bummed) -

Also, some have gotten slightly different colored fruits
(some more bi-colorish rather than a true yellow with a blush) but I'm not sure if its a "regional" thing, or the genes playing themselves out -

Then as Vince has stated, there have been heart shaped,
to beefsteak fruit shapes - (another trait that could be environmental?)

I did get Yellow beefsteak fruits this season -
If someone would like seeds from that plant, PM me, and I'd be happy to send them out to trial.

~ Tom

ps. I know other have requested seed and they will get out soon I promise: I've been fishing a lot lately ! lol

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Tomstrees

re: TYW

A KC grower and myself did get a red TYW last season
(and I'm sure we were both bummed) -

Also, some have gotten slightly different colored fruits
(some more bi-colorish rather than a true yellow with a blush) but I'm not sure if its a "regional" thing, or the genes playing themselves out -

Then as Vince has stated, there have been heart shaped,
to beefsteak fruit shapes - (another trait that could be environmental?)

I did get Yellow beefsteak fruits this season -
If someone would like seeds from that plant, PM me, and I'd be happy to send them out to trial.

~ Tom

ps. I know other have requested seed and they will get out soon I promise: I've been fishing a lot lately ! lol

Tom, thanks for confirming what I had originally said and my comment in another thread was then turned into a different thread. The better for eyes to see the thread title and respond.

I think all of us who are a part of a new variety of one kind or another, don't like to see negative comments about our "babies", and I know that's true for me as well, but it comes with the territory of being involved with tomatoes.

[Tomstrees]

Yup Carolyn -

I def. don't want people to think that TYW is 100% stable:
or more importantly: gold!

Have a good holiday, Tom

[Wi-sunflower]

Generally how many generations would you want to grow out a F-1 hybrid before you would call it stable. Of course that also depends on everything looking like it should.

I ask because I've saved some commercial hybrid varieties that are no longer produced and I have several F-3 and F-4 collections. If I don't see segregation by F-4 or F-5 would it be considered "stable" or "de-hybridized" ??

[Tomstrees]

hmmmm - thats a good question; I'm not really sure as I've been growing out TYW for 4 seasons now, and still got the "red" in the F4

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Wi-sunflower

Generally how many generations would you want to grow out a F-1 hybrid before you would call it stable. Of course that also depends on everything looking like it should.

I ask because I've saved some commercial hybrid varieties that are no longer produced and I have several F-3 and F-4 collections. If I don't see segregation by F-4 or F-5 would it be considered "stable" or "de-hybridized" ??

There is no good answer to your question b/c each hybrid, whether a commercial one or due to an accidental cross pollination, has different parental inputs, thus different genes that segregate at different rates.

The literature suggests 5-7 generations, but the test is whether or not all seeds at the final OP state give rise to the selection that was made in the beginning which speaks to your question above. It also depends on how many plants you out out at each generation.

I was lucky dehybridizing Ramapo F! and it looked good at the F3 and that was borne out by folks to whom I sent seeds.

But with my short lived dehybridization of Big Boy, at the F3 I was far away from getting the large pink beefsteak I wanted b/c my whole purpose was not to get a Big Boy OP, rather, to get out the one parent Teddy Jones.

And dehybridization of commercial heirlooms also depends to a great degree on how many parental inputs there were that went into creating the final F1. Most of the earliest F1's had just two parents, but that changed rather quickly back in the late 40's to maybe the mid to late 70's.

[troad]

Tom,
A simple question takes on a life of it's own. I wanted to learn about segregating and stabilizing in general. In no way was I intending my questions to lead sololy to TYW.
I grew a TYW last year (and posted about it) and thought it was a great tomato. I've saved seeds and will grow it again. Take no offense because none was intended. Thanks to you this nice tomato is available to be appreciated.
And it is definitely yellow not gold

[Wi-sunflower]

Thank you Carolyn for your answer here.

I think I had already more or less understood that it would be different depending on the results gotten. I'm guessing that some of the F-1s I've been growing out may not have extremely diverse parents, or as some suspect are already stabilized.

I also realize that I need to take better notes about what F-? generation I'm growing. For some of my seeds I only know that I'm on at least my second grow-out (F-3) but may actually be at F-4 or F-5 if I had taken better notes over the years.

One thing I have done right tho is that I've grown a decent number of plants. I usually grow at least 20 plants of something I'm growing out. In some cases I've grown a whole flat of 72 for something I really want to save. That gives me a good sample to see if there is obvious segregation.

[Tomstrees]

Troad: And it is definitely yellow not gold

- thanks for giving it a try ...

~ Tom

[dice]

This page has a good illustration of how dominant-recessive
genes segregate into pairs in succeeding generations after
a cross (first generation is F1, with one gene from each parent
in the gene pairs):

http://kdcomm.net/%7Etomato/gene/genes2.html