Joseph's Tomato Experiments

joseph · May 30, 2015

Today I planted two patches of tomatoes. The first was a production patch so it contained plants that I'm intending as food for my family, the food pantry, and the farmer's market. It contained my saladette landrace, my slicer/canner landrace, some romas, some yellow slicing tomatoes, some dehybridized Sungolds, and DX52-12 as a standard reference plant.

The second patch was a breeding and selection patch. It contained things that I may use as pollen donors or mother plants for making hybrids this summer. It contained all of the varieties that are new to my garden this year. It contains 3 species of tomatoes. One of them isn't directly cross-compatible with domestic tomato so I hope to try a cross, but don't have much expectation of success. The other is current tomato. Fully compatible with domestic tomato, but it is also self-compatible, so I may not use is in any crosses. This planting included "Pollen Donor Group" which are seeds I collected last fall from plants that were super-late-season. I collected them due to having open flowers or loose anther cones. I'm also curious if mere selection can shorten the days to maturity of this population.

May 30, 2015	#11
joseph Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2013 Location: Cache Valley, N/E of The Great Salt Lake Posts: 1,244	Today I planted two patches of tomatoes. The first was a production patch so it contained plants that I'm intending as food for my family, the food pantry, and the farmer's market. It contained my saladette landrace, my slicer/canner landrace, some romas, some yellow slicing tomatoes, some dehybridized Sungolds, and DX52-12 as a standard reference plant. The second patch was a breeding and selection patch. It contained things that I may use as pollen donors or mother plants for making hybrids this summer. It contained all of the varieties that are new to my garden this year. It contains 3 species of tomatoes. One of them isn't directly cross-compatible with domestic tomato so I hope to try a cross, but don't have much expectation of success. The other is current tomato. Fully compatible with domestic tomato, but it is also self-compatible, so I may not use is in any crosses. This planting included "Pollen Donor Group" which are seeds I collected last fall from plants that were super-late-season. I collected them due to having open flowers or loose anther cones. I'm also curious if mere selection can shorten the days to maturity of this population.