Joseph's Tomato Experiments

[Koala Doug]

Originally Posted by joseph

Me holding landrace carrots. I have been selecting for carrots that can out-compete the weeds.

Wow!

[ddsack]

Those are huge! Did they still have a good sweet carroty taste? I like the idea of one carrot per stew pot!

[joseph]

The carrots are tender and taste great! I taste all my varieties before saving seeds from them. I felt really chagrined the first time I tasted my tomatoes. LOL! Fortunately, since I was working with inbreeding varieties at the time, the taste problem got resolved in one day.

[Harry Cabluck]

Heide; Joseph could chime in here to completely answer your question about his "Big Hill," but according to his seed list: Big Hill tomato was my first attempt to breed a promiscuously pollinating tomato. The anther cone is open and the anthers are loosely attached to each other. The stigma is exposed. It has a bold floral display, and the flowers are open to the sky and not buried in foliage. Determinate. Large (12 oz) bi-colored fruits: red and yellow. Tastes great. Big Hill is fairly susceptible to cross pollination. Promiscuous pollination is a defining characteristic of this variety. Closed flowers are a dominant trait. Therefore any offspring that have closed flowers are off-type and should not be called Big Hill. I would love to receive seeds from any descendents of this variety that are off-type or have closed flowers since they are hybrids and would further my breeding project. The ancestors of this tomato are Hillbilly, which has been my life-long favorite tasting tomato, and Jagodka, which is my earliest market tomato. Big Hill represents the best traits of each ancestor. Bred by Joseph Lofthouse. OSSI-pledged. ~20 seeds. If you click on his "Joseph" on the top left of your screen, you can go to his site and see a list of his seeds.

[hl2601]

Thanks Harry! I will go check it out.
Heide

[joseph]

Here's what my greenhouse looked like a few minutes ago:

[Harry Cabluck]

Very large, and very nice.

[BigVanVader]

I have another flat of Big Hill ready to plant now. This round looks amazingly healthy but I'll likely manage to kill a few. It hasn't rained since I planted the other tomatoes (Ot'jagodka and Fern) so they've not grown much but are still alive. I'm trying to not water at all this year, and its a little stressful but exciting to see how long they can go. Unfortunately they were all flowering at plant out so I pulled all blooms.

The Lofthouse muskmelons are doing great and are flowering already. They are much earlier than my grex and the rest of my melons. Excited to trellis them..I think

[joseph]

Wonderful. Thanks for the grow report.

Here's what my Big Hill looks like today.

[Harry Cabluck]

Dear Folks, Just FYI, here's a Fluence Bioengineering site that discusses study in the use of LEDs in plant growth. https://fluence.science/blog/redefin...ewsletter-2018

[Harry Cabluck]

BigVanVader, Those are mighty good-looking tomato starts, to be proud of. Regarding Ot'Jagodka's that have been planted out and not watered; Of the two plants in the ground here, both have received water. One is grafted to Supernatural rootstock and, of course is somewhat behind the other one that is not grafted. Both look ok, the non-grafted one has a few fruits, but the curled leaves indicate that it needs more water. We'll see how the comparison goes..

[dustdevil]

Originally Posted by joseph

Wonderful. Thanks for the grow report.

Here's what my Big Hill looks like today.

Hi Joseph. What is your secret to growing such nice thick stems on your Big Hill tomatoes?

[hl2601]

Joseph those look terrific! Cant wait to see pics later on!

[Harry Cabluck]

Lofthouse's variety "Brad." Started the seeds a few weeks too late for climate in Austin, Texas, but now the plant is six-feet tall and producing small and very tasty fruit. Fermenting a few seeds, and hope to growout a fruit that Joseph may have interest.

[joseph]

Originally Posted by dustdevil

Hi Joseph. What is your secret to growing such nice thick stems on your Big Hill tomatoes?

I grow my tomatoes cold at night. And in full sunlight (in the greenhouse). I think that the gererally low-humidity here also helps.