Tomatopalooza - enjoyed it.

[bully]

here's mine of two years ago.
they had the exerted stigma as well.

[Fert1]

Originally Posted by bully

here's mine of two years ago.
they had the exerted stigma as well.

So yours had an exerted stigma? What exactly did it look like? Was the plant very hairy? How large were the actual tomatoes?

[carolyn137]

Bully,

Are you sure about that exerted stigma?

One can easily be fooled b'c after the blossom is pollenized the final position of the stigma is always above the anthers.

So one has to make that observation way before that.

Again, if any of you have these questions about MWC why don't you go to the info source,as it were, and ask about it by contacting Johnny's, b'c if they say it's a cerasiforme that means that stigmas are NOT exerted. and they wouldn't have gone to the trouble of making that cerasiforme determination if it weren't for the concerns about growing currant (L. pimpinellifolium) tomatoes, as I explained above.

[Fert1]

Carolyn, I don't think anyone is saying that Johnny's is selling a currant and calling it MWC, (not me anyway). I think the question is whether there is an imposter out there, and is it a currant? I think there is definitely an imposter, but Jenn says her plants are not hairy, so I have to assume what I tasted was not a currant tomato, even though it was very different than what I grew from my seeds that were from Johnny's. It seems to be a mystery thus far.

[patty_b]

Checked the two that I was concerned about. Cerise Orange....stem perfectly smooth just small marble size fruit, so that one is OK. THe other one,Sungold Select OP.....this one I am not sure of. There are tiny hair over the stem....and the blossoms has the outer petals folded back with the center protruding. ....Kind of like a 5 point star with a candle in the middle.........is that a exerted stigma?? Patty

[Fert1]

SunGold Select would not be a currant tomato. It's just the OP version of the regular SungGold, a smallish cherry that is big on flavor.

[carolyn137]

Patty,

Cerise Orange is not a currant and the fruits should be bigger than a marble.

Sungold Select is not a currant either.

But almost ALL cherry tomatoes that have that flat truss trait do have L.pimpinellifolium as part of the genetic background b'c it's used to breed in that flat truss trait.

For those of you interested in what an exerted stigma should look like why don't you go to Google, select images, select some appropriate words and take a look. I haven'done so but almost everything else is there.

You can also just Google it outright.

Patty, when the blossom is open what you see sticking up in the center is the stigma, that you say looks like a candle, and the anthers are above it. As pollenization proceeds the stigma grows upwards, as I said to Bully above, and ends up above the anthers. That's normal.

To determine if there are exerted stigmas you have to look at blossoms before they are open fully.

And seeing hairs alone can't make the call either, b'c many varieties do have hairy stems. You have to look at the foliage, as in the lighter color, the size, the shape, etc., as well as the plant habit, which is usually very open and rambling. And the fruits on the truss are far apart, not like typical small cherry tomatoes with known variety names.

And as I've also indicated above. there are stable natural crosses for many of what are called wild this and wild that. If one looked in the SSE Yearbooks in the section for other species this becomes quite apparent.

[patty_b]

Sorry.......I don't know what happened with that second post.....I hit the back bottom and it said my message had been submitted........Patty
Carolyn will have to do some more looking but I only noticed one part to the center. Maybe I am just getting extremely small fruit on some of these because of our extreme weather?? Thanks, Patty