Indian Stripe Heart? and its elusive heartiness

[JLJ_]

I've been working on this for a while, but saw that Carolyn did recently receive Indian Stripe Heart seeds from Marina, which she'll either be distributing or having grown out or both, so I thought I'd bump getting this posted higher in my priorities as it *might* be of some value to those growing and evaluating Indian Stripe Heart?

One note -- there was a group of three growing out Selbo's Ribbed Red, but there hasn't been such a group for Indian Stripe Heart?, it just happens that there have only been three of us growing it out with any level of sorta, kinda success. (Important because if you're growing ISH?, don't feel that you're not "in" -- three have been growing it that we know of, but descendants of bluelytes' original ISH have been distributed via several routes, so there may be others growing Indian Stripe Heart?, all of whom are invited, urged, begged to post in this thread -- or somewhere -- about what they've seen.)

Below is a summary of the ISH? story -- there has been lots more discussion of many aspects over the years.

Sorta urgent for those who haven't seen it: As of today, January 14, 2017, if you do a google search for "tomato Indian Stripe Heart" you should see on the left of the image bar that appears as part of the routine search a 2010 picture of the heart shaped Indian Stripe that began it all -- a "real" heart -- the genetics for which *might* be hiding within the Indian Stripe Heart?s we've been growing. If you hover your mouse over the picture it should identify as Indian Stripe Heart.

As with all google image search displays, many of the images are not images of the item being searched for -- google image search just shows pictures that are on pages where the search words appear -- often pictures unrelated to the search words.

And for those who don't like to read long posts, the main conclusion here is that the best way to identify Indian Stripe Heart? plants with the strongest heartish tendencies might be to look for those with all or mostly heart shaped baby fruit, bearing in mind that this tendency *might* not appear until after the first flush.

So . . . about Indian Stripe Heart?

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Once upon a time, the one here known as travis sent seeds from his Victory Seed Co. Indian Stripe seed supply to one known as bluelytes.

Tomatoville thread 34136 October 31, 2014 middle of post #14

In 2010, (not at Tomatoville), bluelytes posted a picture of a heart shaped tomato from those Indian Stripe seeds -- not a "blunt heart", a true heart shape, like Anna Maria's Heart. (see reference to google image above)

There was much interest in this heart shaped Indian Stripe tomato. Seeds were sent to several, there were germination problems, but in 2012 Carolyn was able to get some hearts from the seed Bluelytes had sent her, both from her seed producer and via Freda's efforts at her home, as mentioned in these 2013 posts:

http://www.tomatoville.com/showpost....09&postcount=4

http://www.tomatoville.com/showpost....6&postcount=28

Carolyn did offer Indian Stripe Heart in her seed offer January 2013. There were a lot of germination problems, and by the end of the season, only MarinaRussian and I appeared to have obtained mature fruits that had any heartish tendencies, Marina more positive about the results than I.

Marina had a nice pic of 2013 green ISH tomatoes showing some blunt-heart shapes,

http://www.tomatoville.com/showpost....&postcount=111

and a pic of mature ISH tomatoes from the same season, which she felt were all hearts, if very blunt hearts

http://www.tomatoville.com/showpost....5&postcount=23


I didn't have green fruit pics of mine, but did take a mature fruit pic (top pic below) comparing five fruit from the "Indian Stripe Heart" seed (right) to an Indian Stripe fruit (top left) and an Indian Stripe PL fruit (bottom left).

While there were some sorta kinda heartish tendencies in the mature fruit (the one at about four o'clock on the right, for example) it seems at least questionable to me to identify as hearts fruit that is not clearly different from regular Indian Stripe fruit or ISPL fruit grown the same year in the same general area of the garden. Perhaps we need some sort of clear definition of a heart?

In early 2014 I put up a post to see if anyone was growing Indian Stripe Heart plants that produced unambiguously heart shaped fruit. No one turned up, but Ginger2778 (Marsha) was interested in the fruit, so I sent her seed from bagged blossoms of both Indian Stripe Heart? and Indian Stripe PL. She grew a plant of each in a shared earthbox and collected seed from unbagged blossoms, which may be involved in another 'heartish' story here in Tomatoville -- but at least they were both Indian Stripe. Her first fruits from the ISH? plant that came from the seed I'd sent her did not appear to be heartish, but toward the end of her season I believe that she said the last eight or ten or twelve fruit were more markedly heart shaped.

This is a fruit pic she posted from her 2014-2015 (winter) season:

http://www.tomatoville.com/showpost....&postcount=103

About her 2015-2016 season, she posted that her fruit had been mostly heartish but that another who'd grown the seeds hadn't seen hearts.

http://www.tomatoville.com/showpost....1&postcount=61

She distributed seeds from her 2014-2015 fruit in various ways, and sent me a few in July of 2015, which I grew in the 2016 season, along with other seed from the 2013 ISH? fruit grown here -- that is, I grew children and grandchildren of my 2013 ISH? fruit, as well as original IS and ISPL for comparison.

I enclose first flowers in large tulle "bags" with multiple ties for security -- so I didn't really notice anything about the shapes of my first baby 2016 ISH? fruit, and as it grew, it appeared roundish through the bags. However, in the latter part of the season, when I was no longer bagging blossoms because I had bagged fruit on each plant, I realized that the ISH? plants were producing mostly heart shaped baby fruit. Not *all* heart shaped babies, but decidedly more than the occasional baby-heart seen on ISPL or, very rarely, on original Indian Stripe.

The second and third pic below show the same tomato threesome -- from one of the "grandchildren" of the 2013 fruit that resulted from Marsha's 2014-2015 end of season hearts. There are two weeks between the two photos, and it can be seen that, while still heartish, they are becoming more round as they mature.

The other pics are just misc samples of a few of the heartish young fruit on other plants -- there were many more.

I still think that Indian Stripe Heart? is a work in progress. If most or all fruits mature to a form indistinguishable from original IS or ISPL . . . I just don't think that they're still hearts. But it does seem clear that there's a heartish element present in the ISH? line that does not exist -- or does not exist to the same degree, in the other Indian Stripes.

It was established long ago that, usually, the way to improve tomatoes is to select the best plants, not the best fruit (desirable fruit being one, but only one, attribute of a good plant).

The possibly valuable information from all this may be that the best way to identify Indian Stripe heart plants with the strongest heartish tendencies might be to look for those with all or mostly heart shaped baby fruit, bearing in mind that this tendency *might* not appear until after the first flush.

I intend to pursue this and see what happens, but the season here is so short that it's hard to give plants time to show what they can do, so this may be of more use to those with longer seasons.