Indian Stripe Heart? and its elusive heartiness

[JLJ_]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

blueltyes seeds never worked out,you posted that yourself as did I.

Surely, it's the children of bluelytes' seeds that all of us who are working with seeds from your 2013 seed offer are working with.

One of the reasons that I think it's so wonderful that you got seeds from Marina is that it adds another bluelyte seed child to the IS Heart? gene pool.

I get the feeling that you believe Marina's seeds represent a "finished" Indian Stripe Heart. From what you said above, you hadn't had time to really look at post 1 -- both you and Marsha indicated not having seen the pics of Marina's fruit.

When you get a chance -- look at the shape of her mature fruit, Marsha's and my pics of mature fruit and also compare the young fruit Marina saw with the 2016 pics. From that data . . . not much difference -- heartiness in both lines, but some pretty round adult fruit -- lots of potential but not yet a producer of reliable mature adult heart shapes.

Perhaps when you have growouts done of her seed you'll find that it is a producer of all or nearly all mature heart shaped IS fruit -- which will be great, if it happens. But the "really blunt heart" concept can awfully easily blur into seeing hearts in fruit shapes that are normal for IS and ISPL, especially if IS and ISPL aren't right there for comparison.

What's always given me hope that true heart shape is in the genes of those seeds, in addition to bluelytes' original fruit pic, is that you saw hearts from your yard and said that your seed producer reported all hearts. Has to be there somewhere. (links to where you said that are in post 1, too)

But, even though you and your producer saw hearts, considering the problems with germination of the 2013 seed offer seeds resulting from that 2012 'hearty' production -- there has to be a complication somewhere. Perhaps there's a correlation in these tomatoes between production of good mature hearts and poor seed formation -- maybe something that could be selected against to get a bluelytes type "real heart" producing plant. No way to tell but to plant seeds, evaluate them objectively (not wishfully) and go from there. It would be easier if hearts weren't fashionable -- less inclination to see hearts where there's just . . . nice IS tomatoes.

But the clear heart shaped baby fruit is an observable factor that is not in IS (except rarely), so it might really be a help in locating the heartiest parent plants -- especially paired with observations of hearty baby hearts fattening into forms nearer standard IS as they mature.

Anyway it will be interesting to see what happens when you grow out the seed, and meantime, if you look at the pics-data we have, I think you'll see why I don't think we have evidence of a reliable IS Heart as yet.

[JLJ_]

Originally Posted by akgardengirl

My baggie says Indian Stripe Potato Leaf 2013 C. Male. They came from a trade a few years back. Unfortunately, I don't remember the persons name but looks like they originally came from Carolyn's seed offer in 2012. I don't care what it is because it sure did well up here in both production and taste.
Sue

Carolyn only sends a few seeds -- not in baggies -- and her 2011 ISPL seeds (also distributed in 2012 and 2013, I think) were true, here, and perhaps more important have proven true in generations since and her feedback thread reports on them were almost a rave.

So probably they were crossed in someone's garden before you got them. Perhaps the name will come to you -- would be interesting to know what else is in them -- though whoever grew them probably didn't think that unprotected tomatoes engage in creative interaction, so perhaps it'll remain a mystery. Mystery with a happy ending, anyway.

[akgardengirl]

Yes, I have participated in Carolyn's seed offers and remember that she doesn't use the little plastic bags. It no doubt was crossed somewhere along the way but since it did so good here, I will continue to grow it and maybe call it Not Indian Stripe Potato Leaf!
Sue