Question about de-hybridizing

[BR]

What do you gain by de-hybridizing a tomato other than the ability to collect seeds?

[travis]

Capture in a resulting stable new variety certain traits not extant in one of the parents and not homozygotous in the hybrid.

Explore the interesting recombinations of genes in the numerous expressions toward stability.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by travis

Capture in a resulting stable new variety certain traits not extant in one of the parents and not homozygotous in the hybrid.

Explore the interesting recombinations of genes in the numerous expressions toward stability.

If I had the room for the F-troop, I could see myself doing this at some point just to for the fun of it. With the right fast plant choices, I could probably go through three generations in one year.

In the meantime, i am going to practice saying homozygotous. <g>
jan

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by BR

What do you gain by de-hybridizing a tomato other than the ability to collect seeds?

What's been gained by dehybridizing the hybrids that were formed by accidental cross pollination are about 95% or so of all the heirloom varieties we have today, which number around 12K. The other 5% came from mutation of a preexisting variety.

What's been gained by dehybridizing known named hybrids are OP versions such that seeds can be saved. I did this with Ramapo F1 when it went out of production, and it should have been done with Merced which I think went out of production as well. And many of us are concerned about Jet Star F1 and Supersonic F1, but Moreton Hybrid is now back in production.

What's been gained by dehybridizing varieties that are the result of deliberate crossing of usually two known named varieties are varieties such as Dora, Purple Haze, Marizol Reds and Pinks, Pale Perfect Purple orange Russian #117, and on and on and on.

[amideutch]

BIG SUNGOLD SELECT. Ami

[BR]

I was referring to Big Beef OP. In the case of Merced or another discontinued variety I can understand why, but why Big Beef? Is this an improvement over the hybrid? Does it taste the same.

[travis]

I haven't grown or tasted Big Beef OP, so I cannot answer as to flavor. As to whether the open pollinated version is an improvement as a plant, no one can answer that until they had the plants tested for resistance to the same diseases Big Beef has been tested against and run side by side production comparisons in a fair field test. Best I can tell, that hasn't been done.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by BR

I was referring to Big Beef OP. In the case of Merced or another discontinued variety I can understand why, but why Big Beef? Is this an improvement over the hybrid? Does it taste the same.

But I didn't see you mention Big Beef OP in your first post so I answered rather generically.

Why Big Beef OP? Why Big Boy OP, Why Dona OP, why Better Boy OP? There are quite a few hybrids currently available for which there are now OP versions.

The degree to which they resemble the hybrid they were derived from is really something that each person has to determine for themselves.

There's no way that ALL the genes in the hybrid can be present in the OP version, but some are darn close as regards taste, etc.

With the OP Ramapo that I worked on, and I think one other person also dehybridized, I planted out the hybrid at each generation so I would have a direct comparison when making selections. And I thought the OP version was pretty close to the hybrid, and Barkeater who posts here and who used to grow Ramapo F1 commercially in NJ thought my OP Ramapo was close as well.

Why do some people try to dehybridize known hybrids that are still available as the hybrid? I can't answer for anyone else but I suspect that two motivations might be the ability to save pure seed from the OP and the lower cost of a good OP version as opposed to the hybrid.

Above Ami mentioned Big Sungold Select. I'm also growing it but have no fruits to date, but it's an excellent example b'c seeds for Sungold F1 are not cheap, folks would love to have an OP version of SungoldF1 so they could save seeds and thus the many year project of Reinhard Kraft in Germany to develop an OP from it that most closely resembles the hybrid.

I think it was in another thread here, but to date Reinhard has released:

Sungold Select
Sungold Select II
Big Sungold
Big Sungold Select

And according to taste, which is personal and subjective, we'll see how close this latest one, Big Sungold Select, comes to resembling the hybrid.

With Big Beef, I think it would be best for you to perhaps grow the hybrid and OP side by side in one season to see for yourself how close they are to each other.

[dice]

A lot of people would rather grow OP seed so that they do
not have to buy new seed for it whenever they need more
seed and as protection against the seed no longer being
available because some large corporate vendor has
discontinued it.

Commercial hybrids have some good features, disease
tolerances in particular, that many growers would like
to have in an OP. They can either test thousands of
different existing OP heirlooms to see how they stand
up to the diseases that are chronic in their own gardens
and fields, or they can start with a hybrid that already
survives those diseases and grow out saved seeds from
successive F-generations until they get an acceptable
OP substitute for the original (flavor, production, appearance
for market growers) that still apparently has the tolerance
of the original F1 hybrid for those diseases that plague them
particularly.

[carolyn137]

Dice, I agree with you up to a point, but there's no knowing if an OP version of a known hybrid has any of the systemic disease tolerances that survived gene segregation to get to the OP state.

In order for a variety to have VFN or whatever after its name it has to undergo very specific and controlled disease challenges in an approved lab.

And you know my feeling about those tolerances anyway, that is, it's tolerance and not resistance, and depending on lots of variables such as weather, plant health, etc., most of those tolerances only allow the plants to live a week or so more than if they didn't have them/

Now that's great for a large scale commercial grower who does Brix measurements to determine when mechanical harvesting should start, but I think of limited use to the home gardener.

In addition, most folks looking at the string of alphabetical letters after the name of a hybrid usually don't know what they mean or even if those systemic diseases are found in their area.

N, root knot nematode tolerance is only possibly helpful if one lives in an area where they're found, which is not very many areas in the US. Same with Fusarium; most don't know if Fusarium is even found in their area, let alone what race might be there if they see something like F, or FF, or FFF, b'c there's no cross tolerance between the 3 races of Fusarium.

I think many folks buy hybrids thinking it will help with the common foliage diseases which are THE most prevalent tomato diseases in the world, but no variety, hybrid or OP has significant tolerance, with a few exceptions that might be of use to the large scale commercial farmer.

[dice]

Well, Jetstar, Goliath, Supersonic, and a couple of F2s from
a Brandyboy with an abnormal fruit type (for that hybrid) are
all doing fine where plants were killed or damaged by
Verticillium wilt last year in my garden. So I am happy with
the V tolerance in all of those (and gratified that the two F2s
seem to still have it).

(A Japanese Black Trifele just beyond those plants in the row
still got whacked by it early, so the Verticillium still seems
to be there.)

I would not expect all of their disease tolerances to survive
the dehybridization process. I only care about the segregates
that do show tolerance to the diseases that actually affect
my garden. If I were dehybridizing one of those, I would only
be saving seeds from selections that continue to show the
disease tolerance.

That is not as rigorous as lab testing, but then certification
of the OP as Verticillium tolerant (or whatever in anyone's
particular garden) would not be my goal. I would just want
OP seeds of a cultivar that survives every year in my garden
without production being negatively affected by that particular
disease.

(I probably would not be shooting for exactly the original,
anyway. I mean, anything can be improved. Maybe cross
the F1 with a late blight tolerant cultivar, or Earl's Faux,
or Lucky Cross, or something very early, and then grow out
the selections each year looking for the disease tolerance,
etc.)

[eyolf]

I have played around with a little bit of dehybridizing the last few years, and had only one real goal...to see what would happen. The internet has created oportunities for all of us to experience a little of what some truly creative and unique individuals felt driven to do, including saving and selecting garden plants

I guess I had the suspicion that what would really happen was to get some non-descript, weedy cherry. Of the types I've tried so far, the F2 generation is usually similar to the F1; its the f3 to f5 generations where you see odd things coming out...including sme dead end you'd not choose to pursue. But is is fun!

[RJ_Hythloday]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

What's been gained by dehybridizing the hybrids that were formed by accidental cross pollination are about 95% or so of all the heirloom varieties we have today, which number around 12K. The other 5% came from mutation of a preexisting variety.

What's been gained by dehybridizing known named hybrids are OP versions such that seeds can be saved. I did this with Ramapo F1 when it went out of production, and it should have been done with Merced which I think went out of production as well. And many of us are concerned about Jet Star F1 and Supersonic F1, but Moreton Hybrid is now back in production.

What's been gained by dehybridizing varieties that are the result of deliberate crossing of usually two known named varieties are varieties such as Dora, Purple Haze, Marizol Reds and Pinks, Pale Perfect Purple orange Russian #117, and on and on and on.

From my reading else where on the web it's in production now right? I found an order form for 2009.

I'm just wondering I read you grew out to F4 so is it still around as F6 or higher? I'm looking at all the varieties I want to grow out next year and think I'm going to sacrifice my little 5x20 corn patch for some extra toms. Corn can wait till I have more land, I can get decent sweet corn at the market.

[oc tony]

Basically when you have found a hybrid that grows, produces and tastes good after many trials and tribulations the games begin. Examples a few years ago there was a crop failure for sun gold. how would you like to explain over and over to hundreds of customers why it is not available.After many years of carrying most of the popular Burpee hybrids this spring Wal-mart had none of the
in there seed racks (no big boy, better boy,super steak, brandy boy etc.) that leaves you a month or two to find a new source where you now get to play the out of stock, back ordered wrong variety shipped games and pay shipping and handling for it. Years ago I found a hybrid that grew and produced well in my garden after 3 years of trials. It was only available from the regional plant seller. After two years they sold out to another company and the new company discontinued carrying it. They gave no warning, did not tell you where you could get seed ain't that nice way to be treated. I'm tired of getting sucker punched so I stay away from hybrids. but have no problems with the op versions.