If you could only grow hybrids????

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by barkeater

Nice tutorial, Jennifer. I found most interesting that for seed savers:

1. potato-leaf types of L. esculentum generally have styles that protrude outside their blossom. These lines are more attractive to insects and thus, more likely to be cross-pollinated.
2. do not collect seeds of double fruits since double flowers are more prone to insect pollination.

It used to be said that PL varieties were more susceptible to crossing but my own experience and that of others is that that's not true but has been part of the literature for so long it's surprising.

On the second one I wouldn't save seeds from double fruits, megabloom fruits, etc., not necessarily b/c the blossoms are more prone to insect pollination, rather, the blossoms of each fruit of a double fused fruit could have been pollinated by different pollen, thus the seeds in such fruits would not be as pure as one might like to see. A blossom is a blossom and insects that do the X pollination go for the pollen as a protein source, not for nectar, b'c tomato blossoms have no nectar. I guess I'm quibbling with the more prone word.

Jennifer, that link has been posted here and at other sites before and if you look at the genus and species name they use, L. esculentum, you know the link must be rather dated since the Genus name was changed to Solanum now many years ago.

Just my slant on the two points above.

But for sure lots of good info for folks who haven't seen it before.

[travis]

Okay, here's my wacko theory for today: Fasciated leaves, stems, fruit, etc., is not the original plan of Mother Nature. Fasciated tomato fruit evolved from a mutation. Mother Nature wishes more confirmation with her original plan. So, she allows maximum fasciation in abherrant tomato lines which already express fasciated fruit so the blossoms open prematurely exposing the stigma to cross pollination hopefully by double locule "cherry" type tomatoes, whose size and shape are dominant over beefsteak size and shape, thereby returning the resulting F1 to Mother Nature's original plan vis a vis "wild species" replication.

Look, I told you it was a wacko theory right up front

[Petronius_II]

2. do not collect seeds of double fruits since double flowers are more prone to insect pollination.

Shouldn't be a problem if one bagged the blossom before it even opened, and bagged it again after it got thoroughly shaken, and/or one blowed a little puff of air into the opened blossom, or whatever one did to enhance self-pollination.

A pertinent aside: The phrase "double blossom" has another meaning than the "Siamese twin" kind of blossom that is most often meant around here. I'm talking about a big blossom with a double row of petals, but otherwise just as normal and round as any other tomato blossom. Like the difference between a "single rose" and a "double rose."

These usually only appear on your big beefsteak plants, and only on the first few blossoms of the season. Those are blossoms likely to produce a great big honkin' 'mater. (I'm pretty sure also that the better the pollination, the more likely it will produce a seed-catalog-photo quality round tomato, not one that looks like it came from another planet.)

Because as far as I'm concerned, size matters, a plant (not necessarily the exact same fruit) that produces those big blossoms is one I definitely want to save self-pollinated seed from. So for that plant, I'd take special care to bag some blossoms.

[OldHondaNut]

Better Boy and Bush Big Boy. Great production.