Sugar Magnolia

[travis]

Here is a tomato that I am trying to stabilize from a cross made between two of Dr. Randy Gardner's originals.

One of Gardner's crosses was Brandywine x NC 1-CELBR and the other cross was Malachite Box x NC 1-CELBR.

NC 1-CELBR is a red fruited, Early Blight/Late Blight resistant breeding line from North Carolina State Univ.'s breeding program.

I crossed one line from each of the two crosses that I had been growing out from seeds I obtained from two Southern growers. The Malachite Box line I used was an F3 green when ripe, regular leaf, semi-determinate with a red blush and some red interior streaking. The Brandywine cross was a pink tomato, F4, potato leaf, with excellent flavor.





I am still getting both potato leaf and regular leaf plants, and the fruit coloring is relatively stable at bicolor, although I still get some clear epidermis and yellow epidermis variations.

There also are slight variations in flavor intensity, although those variations may be more associated with weather conditions during the ripening process.

I had planned on letting these seeds out as Sugar Magnolia, but have now decided to grow the lines out a few more seasons before deciding on the RL vs the PL lines. I also would love to capture a semi-determinate out of these crosses, but all have been relatively compact but fully indeterminate at this point.