Peruvian Wild Tomato

[Stepheninky]

Lycopersicon glandulosum
Peruvian Wild Tomato

This rare Solanum must be one of the most prettiest tomato plants. From the mountains of Peru, it grows quickly into a fat shrub about 3' tall and up to 4ft around , quite unlike its domesticated cousins. It's spectacular in bloom, with hundreds of flowers appearing in large clusters.

Cherry-sized fruits are fuzzy and ripen a whitish pale green with a light purple appearing at the shoulders.

Was wondering if any one has grown these or used them in crosses? Also is the fruit of the wild plant poisonous?

I have done some research on it and from what I can tell it is probably the same one discovered by the field botanist Hugh Iltis, he mailed the seeds to Professor Charles Rick of the University of California, a tomato geneticist.
By that time Iltis had almost forgotten tomato 832, but Rick had been putting it to good use. He had identified it as a completely new tomato species. Only seven had been known before; now there were nine -- Iltis had brought back another from that same expedition. Rick also discovered that the fruits of 832 were unusually high in soluble solids, especially sugars -- a finding of great interest to the tomato industry.

Rick began crossing Number 832 with commercial tomatoes. After 10 years of backcrossing, he finally produced new strains with larger fruit, greater color, and best of all, a soluble solid content as high as 8.6 percent -- as opposed to a normal tomato's 4 to 6 percent.

Wrote Rick to Iltis: "A number of years ago an expert estimated that each 0.5 percent increase in soluble solids would be worth about a million dollars. Greatly improved flavor is another benefit. I thought you might be interested in this use of your valuable collection and want to thank you again for your trouble and foresight in sharing it with us."

Also I believe this might also be the same parent plant that was crossed to obtain the OSU blue tomato.

I have a few seeds of it I will be growing out next year for crosses. Would appreciate any info any one has on it.

[carolyn137]

The genus and species name has been changed from what you wrote above and if you used the new nomenclature I'm sure you'd find out much more.

Here's a general Google Search for Solanum glandulosum which gave me a lot of links confirming that name change, and more:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...AAAKoEBU_QVhi1

I didn't take the time to read more, especially at the Rick Center at UC Davis to see what genes might be useful for crosses, so maybe you could share that with those who might be interested in using it in breedling projects.

[Stepheninky]

Ahh I posted a little on the possible traits (the ones I could find) in a separate post in the Research and development forum. Thanks for pointing out the name change I will try to dig a bit more and update the post as I get more info.

I will go ahead and list some of the traits that might be expected:

As far as disease resistance goes:
Tomato spotted wilt virus - Lots of research projects documenting strong resistance to TSWV
early blight
leaf mold
fusarium wilt
septoria leaf spot
nematodes

It is also reported to have some insect resistances but most of that research is in South American countries so not sure how much of that would apply.

Forgot to add that drought resistance and also some frost resistance has been noted in some research I have read but the results were inconsistent.

F1 hybrid with a red tomato as the parent from what I have read usually produces green to greenish yellow fruits and some yellow and orange fruits, F2 green, yellows, oranges and possible red fruit. F3 is were the purple or bluish trait tends to show up.

Size wise the f1 fruits when parented by a commercial type tomato tend to be larger than the Wild Peruvian fruit. In F2 -F3 generations the fruit size and shape will vary.

Since the Wild Peruvian has to be used as the male parent a successful cross will be indicated by the wild type plant traits and growth habit its not in till further grow outs that cultivated tomato characteristics will appear. (note that selection of larger darker seeds will give more of the cultivated tomato properties)

For my possible grow outs resistance traits will be hard to realistically select for, So I will be using different factors: plant characteristics, Fruit color, size and shape leaf size shape, general health characteristics Self compatibility (The ability of the plants to self pollinate{This may require SIB crossing at the F1/ F2 phase}) Course taste will also be a factor as well.