Bee Crosses?

[lumierefrere]

I'm guessing they're bee crosses, I didn't do it. For several years I've grown out and saved seeds from Siberia. This year out of 6 seedlings, 2 are obviously rugose, 4 are not. Anyone want to take a stab at explaining this? There are so many here who know more than I.

And to add insult to injury, same background for my Stupice. This year out of 4 seedlings, 3 are RL, 1 is PL.

Should the PL Stupice bee ;-) correct or ---what should I expect?

Barb

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by lumierefrere

I'm guessing they're bee crosses, I didn't do it. For several years I've grown out and saved seeds from Siberia. This year out of 6 seedlings, 2 are obviously rugose, 4 are not. Anyone want to take a stab at explaining this? There are so many here who know more than I.

And to add insult to injury, same background for my Stupice. This year out of 4 seedlings, 3 are RL, 1 is PL.

Should the PL Stupice bee ;-) correct or ---what should I expect?

Barb

Barb, how many fruits do you use for each variety when saving seeds? And I 'm assuming you're using geographic isolation and not bagging blossoms. Right?

I don't know the genetics of rugose foliage, but yes, Siberia should be rugose as you know. The fact that you're also getting some RL non-rugose plants does indicate that cross pollination has occurred.

The tomato ovary has many ovules in it and each one has to be fertilized with pollen and so from each fertilized ovule one seed develops.

When self pllenization is complete, as it is most of the time, then all ovules are fertiized with self pollen and all seeds should be true. But if any ovules have not been fertiized with self pollen then bees can drop pollen from another variety and that pollen can then fertilize any unfertilized ovules and thus you then can have some X pollinated seeds and some could then be non-rugose.

With the Stupice, yes, it should be PL, but again, if self pollenization of all ovules is not complete then pollen from another variety, one that is homozygous RL, can fertilize some of those unfertilized ovules and in this case, since RL is genetically dominant to PL you'll get some RL seeds/plants.

Yes, the probability of your PL Stupice being correct is high b'c it tends to indicate self pollenization. PL is homozygous recessive. The only other way that could happenh is if there was cross pollination with pollen that was heterozygous for leaf form and then cc ( homozygous and thus PL) crossed by Cc ( heterozygous foreign pollen and RL) and then half of the seeds would be expected to be PL, but not necessarily Stupice.

If the foreign pollen was homozygous CC ( RL) and fertilized some ovules then those ovules would give rise to all RL plants since RL is genetically dominant to PL ( homozygous recessive).

But I think it's probable that your PL Stupice will be Stupice and you'll know for sure when you see the fruits b'c I guess you've grown it before and so know what to look for.

If it was a single spontaneous mutation of leaf form that occurred in the DNA of a seed you'd see only one such plant, so the fact that you're seeing more than one plant of the wrong leaf form does suggest cross pollination.

And if I haven't explained the above with enough clarity, although I tried, please don't hesitate to ask questions.

[TZ-OH6]

One thing that people seem to forget to factor in when assuming that the potatoleaf offpring is uncrossed is the proportion of RL and PL plants they are growing. If you have 20 RL plants, and 20 PL plants, all different varieties, and 10% of the seed from a fruit off of a PL plant turns out RL, obviously that seed is crossed, but there could be a hidden amount of crossed seed from pollen from the other PL plants. Who is to say that the Stupice was not visited by a bee covered in pollen from a RL plant and another bee covered in pollen from a PL plant.


A cross pollination event is not just from a single, unusual bee visit. I have counted over 20 bee visits per day per individual flower, and the bees didn't methodicaly visit all flowers on a single plant, they often went from plant to plant rather than flower to flower on a plant. They seem to be able to tell if pollen is available by visual inspection of the blossom. Luckily, the flower's own pollen swamps out the alien pollen brought in by bees.

[Tomstrees]

not sure what you should "expect"
but I know what I "expect" of you: GROW OUT THAT PL !!!

~ Tom

[lumierefrere]

Thank you all you wiser than I tomato mavens. I'm trying to understand everything you said, Carolyn, it's one of those instances where you need to read with an open dictionary. I do understand what Tom is saying esp since I favor PLs. (Let's imagine a Stupicke x Grandfather Ashlock....) I'll have to bag this season--that's obvious to me now.

Barb

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by lumierefrere

Thank you all you wiser than I tomato mavens. I'm trying to understand everything you said, Carolyn, it's one of those instances where you need to read with an open dictionary. I do understand what Tom is saying esp since I favor PLs. (Let's imagine a Stupicke x Grandfather Ashlock....) I'll have to bag this season--that's obvious to me now.

Barb

Barb, I don't think you need a dictionary for what I said, I really don't. Perhaps sitting down and doing the chi square stuff you learned in HS, ala Darwin, might help for some of what I said and perhaps I did go into too much detail, but there were optional explanations for what you asked about.

Ja, Tom said the same as I did, grow out the Stupice PL and see what you get.

[lumierefrere]

Gee Carolyn, I don't know what ovule means. I have no science background at all. In college I took earth science to get my BA in English. Just a novelist. Just television. Just a writer.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by lumierefrere

Gee Carolyn, I don't know what ovule means. I have no science background at all. In college I took earth science to get my BA in English. Just a novelist. Just television. Just a writer.

Ovule means egg.

You know, gotta have the egg and sperm, etc, well, with tomatoes the ovule is the egg and it's fertilized not by sperm, but the equivalent male sexual organ with tomatoes is called pollen.

Ovule, ovary, not too distantly related word-wise.

The tomato ovary has eggs called ovules, just as the human ovary makes eggs called, cleverly, eggs.

You mean to get your English degree you never had to take a class in anything in science other than Earth Science?

And here I was the science major in Biology and while I had options I had to fulfill requirements in many other disciplines and ended up taking, in your area:

British Literature
Mythology
Modern English Authors, or something like that along with two semesters of Freshman English, and I also took flower arranging to satify one requirement. It was either that or take Economic Fruits of the World, and I'd laugh every time I thought about the title of that course.

I loved that Brit Lit course a lot.

"Whenas in silks my Julia goes, that sweet liquifaction....and I forgot the rest but 50 years later I can still remember some of what I was exposed to.

Also, "down rain comes small rain........

Any other questions?

[Tomstrees]

Whooooaaaah Carolyn !!! Slow down: this is a tomato site ! lol

Lumi: I'd grow with the Rugrose RL

~ Tom

[lumierefrere]

That's right, Carolyn, I only had to take Earth Science to get my BA in English from Wesconn or whatever it's called now. I'm sure your education was much better than mine and mine is much better than what's being dished out at colleges now. Wiccan 101 or other such nonsense.

I was talking to a young editor at a big publisher a few years back and she was completely unfamiliar with Ivanhoe. How do you go through college as an English major and not have ever heard of Sir Walter Scott? {waves hand in air} I know! I know! He's one of those dead white men writers who don't count anymore.

I'm unfortunately not familiar with some of the vocabulary used here. But still I've learned a lot! Everyone is always so patient, esp. you, Carolyn, your students were very fortunate.

Barb

[dice]

TZ-OH6 posted this thread awhile back with these great pictures
of bees landing on the flowers. The bellies on the little beasts
were just covered with pollen from other plants, and they were
taking hold of the anthers of a flower and shaking it like a
terrier with a rat.

It is a wonder that we see no more random cross-pollination
than we do.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Tomstrees

Whooooaaaah Carolyn !!! Slow down: this is a tomato site ! lol

Lumi: I'd grow with the Rugrose RL

~ Tom

I've had a rough few days Tom, and I guess it shows.

And on top of that there's a red Bellied Woodpecker pecking on the metal flashing around the outside of the chimney that's driving me nutty. My front room is a large hexagon with a vaulted ceiling about 30 ft high and the chimney is therefore close at hand from the woodstove that sits there and is my ultimate backup if power goes out.


Tap tap......taptaptap..Tap..... maybe it's Morse code but I forgot that after memorizing it when I was a Girl Scout, lo those many years ago.

Some birds do it ever year, but usually under the two foot overhang around the house where there's a metal panel for airflow or on the tin roof of the woodshed, but this guy is clearly having problems finding a mate b/c he's been at it for a week now.

[oldbiddy]

I can relate, only it's about a flock of grackle birds eating mulberrys off a mulberry tree and getting drunk thereby.

[newatthiskat]

Seriously I have taken 12 hours of history; 12 hours english; way more than 12 hours of biology; One semester I took calculus, physics, chemistry and biology all together. If underwater basket weaving was available I would have taken that as well. I did once get kicked out of the male football weight lifting class that I accidentally got put in. When I finally decided I did not want to go to med school, I ended up with a BSN. Today I can play the game are you smarter than a 5th grader and I am a flunk out! If it doesn't have something to do with nutrition, health or the human body I have forgotten it. I think I have dementia at 42. I blame it on all the drugs my mom probably took in the 60s .

I never would have thought that sex education class I taught to highschoolers would come in handy with tomatoes Carolyn I will feel dirty now when it comes time to pollenate my squash!

Kat

[Tomstrees]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

I've had a rough few days Tom, and I guess it shows.

And on top of that there's a red Bellied Woodpecker pecking on the metal flashing around the outside of the chimney that's driving me nutty. My front room is a large hexagon with a vaulted ceiling about 30 ft high and the chimney is therefore close at hand from the woodstove that sits there and is my ultimate backup if power goes out.


Tap tap......taptaptap..Tap..... maybe it's Morse code but I forgot that after memorizing it when I was a Girl Scout, lo those many years ago.

Some birds do it ever year, but usually under the two foot overhang around the house where there's a metal panel for airflow or on the tin roof of the woodshed, but this guy is clearly having problems finding a mate b/c he's been at it for a week now.

lol ~ too funny

Growing up at my parents they live in the middle of nowhere in NW NJ (hard to believe but there are beautiful mountains and countryside where I grew up) and this one spring/early summer a woodpecker would start pecking the metal gutter outside of my room window for weeks.

It was the most annoying thing you'll ever here -

After throwing a couple of rocks in socks at him, he finally left -

I hear ya though: he def. needs to get a life !

Take care, Tom