Looking for help in growing out tomato crosses

[FredB]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Having been through all of this before, as regards my seed offers, as well as making selections of my own from known or accidental X pollinations, I thought it might help to share with you what to expect and what not to expect.

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Fred, since I haven't seen you come back and post here I certainly hope you didn't think I was discouraging you from wanting to do as you outlined above.

I was trying to alert you to some problems that might arise since for you it's the first time doing this and for me it's been many times doing it.

Carolyn

No problem. Due to the size of my garden, I usually can't fit more than a dozen or so plants from any single cross, which isn't enough to fully sample the variation in a typical F2 or F3 generation. So I figured there was an opportunity for people who are interested in this sort of thing to have some fun and untap more of the potential of these crosses.

Fred

[Fusion_power]

I'm finding that it takes at least 40 plants of a given line to get something interesting at the F2. Also, when crossing with wild species such as S. Pimpinellifolium, I try to grow at least 64 F2 plants. Genetic drag from the wild species is especially difficult to overcome.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by FredB

Carolyn –

Thanks for the comments, I was hoping you would chime in. You bring up several important issues.

Expectations. I tried something like this with some of my melon breeding projects about 15 years ago through a note with my listing in the Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook. I got a few responses, but they tended to be one-offs and I often didn’t get much feedback. I was hoping that the community aspect of Tomatoville might lead to better engagement. So far, I have seven PMs, which exceeds my expectations.

Commercialization. I sent several varieties to Johnny’s last year and was disappointed with the feedback I got. Johnny’s is interested in commercial characteristics such as crack resistance that are beyond the scope of what I’m trying to do as a hobby. So I decided to forego any aspirations toward commercialization and go “open source”. I suppose I should never say never, but commercialization doesn’t look like an option at this time.

Naming. I hadn’t thought of the issues you bring up. It does seem fair that the person who finds and stabilizes a particular type should get to name it, but as you say this could lead to confusion if several lines from the same cross end up with different, unrelated names. My suggestion would be to post the proposed name on Tomatoville so there could be public discussion and a written history of where the variety came from.

If people can only grow a couple of plants, I would suggest they try one of the stable or near-stable varieties. It would be helpful to learn how they perform in different locations and whether they are truly stable. There are three listed: Sumo, Sweetest Volunteer, and Sungold Red OP.

I would definitely like to list various breeding lines in your offering. I presume it’s too late for this year, but I anticipate having plenty of interesting stuff at the end of the 2015 growing season.

Thanks again for the advice,

Fred

In order.

SSE no longer allows for listing unstable varieties.

I used to send many stable varieties to Johnny's, I know Rob Johnston, and some were listed, but with their newest Garden Manager all bets are off.

Naming a variety that's a rough one when someone does the initial cross and sends out F gen seeds to others who get something good as to who names it, but you know that already.

Yes, it's too late for some of your crosses to be listed for this year, but this Fall if you want to send me some seeds for my offer in jan of 2016, I should live so long, ahem, that would be wonderful for my Experimental section/

Please keep in touch,

Carolyn

[joseph]

Originally Posted by FredB

PI 422397 (S. pimpinellifolium) X Brandywine cross

Line #3. This F3 had 4” beefsteak fruit with clear skin and intense red flesh. The result was a spectacular red lipstick color. Unfortunately, an attempt to bag the flowers to prevent cross-pollination failed, so the only seeds I got were from an open-pollinated fruit that seems to mostly have cross-pollinated. I’m going to try more of the F4 seeds to see if any came from self-pollination, and I’m also going to grow more plants from the F2 that this variation came from, to see if I can repeat the same combination of traits.

This is the line that I am growing. I misplaced the letter that they arrived in, and have been tearing the place apart looking for it... Found them and got them started today. It's about 11 weeks till frost, so iffy, but I was still planting tomatoes into the field on Monday, and have one more flat to go in tomorrow. It's just now getting warm enough for tomatoes to start growing well.

[Mike723]

Gary,

I would love to grow some out for you as well if you need more homes for them.. I could handle at least 10 or so (on top of what I normally grow)... Of course it's too late for me to start them now, but looking towards next year... PM me if you'd like..