Wow, red epidermis?

[frogsleap farm]

I've only been at this (tomato breeding) seriously for 3 years. Each year I learn something new and keep an eye out for the unexpected. Here's a new one for me - an apparently red epidermis on a yellow tomato. This fruit is from one of four F3 plants. The F2 parent had the same trait. I made a couple of crosses to a striped F3 sister line, so can track inheritance. It a very tasty large cherry, w/ BTD as a parent in the F1.

[nctomatoman]

We've seen that in our Dwarf project. Tomato genetics is quite fascinating and sometimes surprising! It was in the Eventful line, I believe.

[frogsleap farm]

Looked like I jumped the gun a little. On closer inspection the red pigmentation is in a very thin layer just under a clear epidermis and above the orange/bicolor flesh. It can be removed with your fingernail. Still pretty cool, but not a new allele for epidermis color.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by frogsleap farm

Looked like I jumped the gun a little. On closer inspection the red pigmentation is in a very thin layer just under a clear epidermis and above the orange/bicolor flesh. It can be removed with your fingernail. Still pretty cool, but not a new allele for epidermis color.

Mark, when checking for epidermis color I've had the same problem of picking up some of the pigmentation along with the epidermis.

And I find that the fingernail method works very well for me. If I can get a small piece of the epidermis free I can usually peel a larger piece right off.

I also have found it useful of late to use a known red and a known pink as controls with the one I'm testing.

How I wish I even knew about epidermis colors for the first 15 years I was growing heirloom varieties. Especially after I listed Anna Russian in the red section of the SSE YEarbook back in the early 90's.

[Heritage]

That IS pretty cool, no matter what the genetics. I wonder if that thin layer of "red" flesh is a gene thing or environmental? It would interesting to have a thicker layer (like 1/4") of red flesh next to the skin to contrast with the different color flesh.

Steve

[frogsleap farm]

Originally Posted by Heritage

That IS pretty cool, no matter what the genetics. I wonder if that thin layer of "red" flesh is a gene thing or environmental? It would interesting to have a thicker layer (like 1/4") of red flesh next to the skin to contrast with the different color flesh.

Steve

It is definitely genetic. It is very consistent in this family, both last year in the F2 and this year in all F3 progeny. It will be fun looking at segregation for the trait in crosses.