Mortage Lifter PL var?

[SirZoltan]

Hello everyone!

I returned from the local master gardener's annual plant sale with 5 tomato vars that sounded interesting to grow.

I've grown Mortgage lifter in the past and loved the taste. I've generally had great luck with PL plants in the past also. So, I was intrigued to see a Mortgage Lifter PL plant for sale. I bought 2. Does a PL var of ML in fact exist? I can't find any info on the inet.

The other 4 vars for those who are interested were:
Bloody butcher [which I grew last year and liked due to its earlyness and similar flavor (IMO) to bush goliath].

Wapsipinicon Peach [just sounded interesting]

Missouri Pink Love Apple [sounded yummy]

Vintage Wine [looked interesting and sounded yummy]

Thanks in advance,
Uncle Chad

[nctomatoman]

There is no such thing as Mortgage Lifter potato leaf...well, obviously someone saw fit to call it that, probably because someone grew ML and ended up with a PL plant. You have a mystery of some sorts there! ML is a RL for sure. ('nuff acronyms for ya!?)

[huntoften]

Craig...Is it possible to have a PL Cherokee Purple? If so, I think I have one out of the 400 or so I grew.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by huntoften

Craig...Is it possible to have a PL Cherokee Purple? If so, I think I have one out of the 400 or so I grew.

Craig I'm not but here are two known PL CP's.

One appeared in the garden of Jere Gettle of Baker Creek and is called Cherokee Purple Potato Leaf.

The other one is called Spudakee, spud means potato, and is a PL version found by Bill Malin, aka user name spudleaf.

I know some have compared the Baker Creek one with the RL CP and some say it's that same and some say not.

Same thing with the Spudakee one.

If the change from RL to PL is a single spontaneous mutation then one would expect that PL and RL versions of the same variety would be the same in all ways, but there's more than one way to go from RL to PL and other genes can be lost.

KBX is a well known PL variant of Kellogg's Breakfast, and some claim KBX is identical to Kellogg's and others say it sets more fruit and is more tolerant of folaige diseases, which some folks have seen with many PL varieties.

And it isn't always clear that folks do direct comparisons with an RL and PL of the same variety in the same season so that a meaningful comparison can be made.

[nctomatoman]

Here's the problem as I see it with this sort of thing. Mutations such as these are not common. Over the years I've started perhaps 5000 Cherokee Purple seedlings and gotten 100% regular leaf. By definition, a variety should exhibit the characteristics as originally described. Potato Leaf Cherokee Purple could be a mutation, could be a selection from an accidental cross, or inclusion of a very similar purple PL, Price's Purple.

So if by chance one does get the rare leaf shape mutation, it really should have a completely different name, since it is a different variety. If you grow out the PL Mortgage Lifter and it is a large pink fruit, without genetic testing, it would be difficult to know if it were a mutation of Mortgage Lifter, or another large pink such as Brandywine that was inadvertently included, either through the hidden seed under the fingernail, the seed stuck in the sieve, or an error of some other sort - without genetic testing.

It may be worth growing out the PL you got to see what you get!

[SirZoltan]

I'd say its pretty clear someone probably screwed up and put the wrong seed[ling]s in the wrong cups. This seems to be a mistake given that there were at least two [the two I bought] and probably others that were labeled as ML even tho they were PL.

I guess I was naive enough to think that there might actually be a PL ML.

I don't have a TON of experience with different varieties although I have tried out several varieties over the past 3 years or so.

I did get some RL Mortgage Lifter from a different source [which I've grown before and love].

So, I shall grow them all out and see what I get and see if it tastes anything at all like an RL ML. Of course that won't really prove anything I suppose.

Thanks again,
Uncle Chad

[huntoften]

I bought 1/16 oz of CP seed from TGS. When I started them, all of the other varieties I started at that time were RL varieties. If there was a mix-up, I don't think it was on my end anyway.

I am not selling this plant...it will go in it's own area of my garden and I'll let you know what we get from it.

[dice]

One cannot really know much about the variety until you grow
one of those odd PLs, save seeds from it, and then grow multiple
plants from those saved seeds. If the multiple plants are all the same,
then it was either a stray seed or a mutation. Comparison
of the fruit with fruit of the RL original is probably the best clue
to whether the seed that the PL plant grew from was simply a
stray seed of a different PL cultivar or a mutation of the RL
original.

If the multiple plants are all slightly different from each other,
then the parent plant that the PL seeds were saved from was
probably a bee-made chance F1 cross, and the PL plants are F2
hybrids: Cherokee Purple x unknown PL F2.

(On some big farm that has low-paid farm labor getting paid by
the pound to harvest fruit, the harvesters are likely to toss
anything in the row into the same baskets and not particularly
care if any of the plants or fruit look unusual for that row. If
whoever separates the seeds from the pulp also does not notice
or care about odd-looking fruit in the batch, they are going to
end up with some F2 seeds in their seed stock.)

[Wi-sunflower]

As far as the purchased plants being different from what they should be, that's not all that unusual either, especially if the plants come from a large nursery / greenhouse operation. It's well know in my area that the part time high school kids that do a lot of the transplanting work like to purposely mix up varieties. It's kind of a game with them and they don't care that people actually want specific varieties. They especially seem to like to mix up sweet peppers with hot peppers.

Carol