Naming PL, other variants to avoid confusion w/RL varieties

[spudleafwillie]

After reading tomstree's post about saving variants and mysteries, and reading past posts about PL variants of RL varieties in the past including Black Krim, Black From Tula, Russian 117, Manalucie, Cherokee Purple, Early Girl, SF Fog, and I'm sure quite a few others, there is much confusion about naming new PL or other variants.

Naming new PL or other variants has always troubled my scientific mind greatly!! Many of us here on T'ville are guilty of it, including myself, calling the new PL type by its old RL ancestors name, Example: Manalucle PL instead of a new name.

Maybe its the easy way out, naming it like its ancestor and not a new variety that is different ( in leaf form or color,fruit color or other changes due to inadvertant , accidental. or deliberate crossing, or mutations of some type.)

I am suggesting the following naming convention to stop this confusion:

To avoid confusion in the future the person first finding the PL or other variant variety should give it a distinct, new, unique name to distinguish it from the RL or other type. That way nobody is confused whether a variety is originally RL or PL or other type.

Example:I am growing out a PL variant of Manalucie this year which is normally RL. I received PL seed of Manalucie from a person whose privacy I will honor. In a personal conversation with him when inquiring about the history of the PL variant he said "have you thought up a new name for it yet? I said yes, "Spudalucie", Spudalucie it is, The "Spud" from "Spudleaf Willie" and the "alucie" from the RL ancestor "Manalucie

I will be renaming all PL variants of RL varieties that I have in my extensive collection of PL varieties in the following way: "Spudalucie" (PL variant of Manalucie RL). New name, then old name and normal leaf type. I hope all T'ville members will do it also

I hope this will lessen the " is it RL or PL" confusion when discussing varieties with BOTH leaf types. Please chime in with your comments and thoughts.

Best regards,
Bill Malin (AKA "spudleafwillie)

[spudleafwillie]

Keith,
That would be OK as you have said in the new name that the "Improved Park's Whopper" was in some way changed from the original. "even though the so called "improvement" made the new one less disease resistant.

Finding a PL variant of Park's Whopper, however, would require a new name, how about "Potato Whopper"

Including a word or two of the old name might help identify the parentage of the new PL

Hope this answers your question.

Regards,
Bill

[feldon30]

Knowing nothing about tomatoes...

If it's a mutation that changes the leaf type but the tomatoes are otherwise very similar to the original, then I don't see a problem with amending PL or RL to the name. It suggests "this isn't the normal leaf type" and implies otherness. It's been said that PL can be more foliar disease tolerant so that might be desireable to someone.

If it's an accidential cross, then many characteristics of the tomato have probably changed since it's an infusion of different DNA. Then at the very least I'm thinking "(unknown cross)" at the end of the name until it is stabilized to F-whatever and then a new name is given if the tomato was desireable enough to keep growing out.

Just your friendly tomato n00b.

[nctomatoman]

Feldon, the problem that I have with that is that it implies that reg leaf to potato leaf "mutations" are common - and they are just not. My view is that the appearance of potato leaf in regular leaf is indicative of crossing or mix ups at a much much greater ratio than mutation. There are lots of assumptions...that it is a mutation instead of a cross or mix up (that is several assumptions) - that because the fruit look alike they are similar, where flavors, maturity, other things may be different. Think of all of the varieties that are definitely different, but differ only by leaf shape...or not at all (Wins All vs Ferris Wheel vs Ponderosa, etc - all different varieties of different origin, but pretty much identical in all respects to the naked eye).

So, because, without DNA testing we just don't know, I think it is better to give them completely different names.

[feldon30]

Knew I shouldn't stick my nose in this one.

Ok, new names it is.