Growing out Moreton Hybrid

[lkittle]

Hi All; A few years ago I found some old Moreton Hybrid seed and decided to try to grow them out to open pollinated seed so far we are on generation 5 of the grow out. Some plants are still making minor changes. I can't tell if its genetic or just growing conditions.

I started because the seed was hard to find. The variety has since been made available from Rutgers University. I am growing some new seed to compare and see the changes.

[MissS]

What changes have you noticed? Has taste changed too?

[lkittle]

Hi MissS No I can't detect much change in taste or physical appearence other than some of the grown out tomatoes sizes were smaller and one plant produced a paste shaped tomato. I only keep seeds of the ones that best represent the original hybird plants fruits in taste and all the physical things as possible.

larry

[carolyn137]

Moreton Hybrid was one of the earliest hybrids bred by Harris seeds and like other of the early ones such as Big Boy F1 and Better Boy F1 and Ramapo F1 has probably jsut tow parents.

I dehybridized Ramapo F1 and it wa stable at the F3, much to my surprise, and I distributed lots of seeds. Barkeater, who posts here, used to grow tomatoes commercially in NJ and Ramapo F1 was one of the main ones he used and he felt that my OP version was about the same as the F1 in all ways.

Larry, I am a bit surprised that you're at the F5 and it isn't stable yet, but I have no idea what the parents of Moreton Hybrid are, any more than I know the parents of Jet Star F1 and Supersonic F1, two other Harris hybrids that I like.

I do know the parents of Ramapo F1 b'c that info has been posted publicly, but of course doesn't relate to Moreton F1.

[lkittle]

Hi Carolyn; The seeds and plants and tomatoes seem to have satbilized from the f3 generation. I am now checking to see if the differences are due to the conditions during the growing season. Along with soil differences. The Late Blight caused some problems two seasons ago and so I felt obligated to regrow that seasons generation again. Each year I am growing a few plants from each previous years generation for compairison to present year. I am using a plant ident description. I also purchased some F1 seed from Harris seed. I also have some old seed from Uncle Waynes. I plan to use the seeds from UW to do my final comparison.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by lkittle

Hi Carolyn; The seeds and plants and tomatoes seem to have satbilized from the f3 generation. I am now checking to see if the differences are due to the conditions during the growing season. Along with soil differences. The Late Blight caused some problems two seasons ago and so I felt obligated to regrow that seasons generation again. Each year I am growing a few plants from each previous years generation for compairison to present year. I am using a plant ident description. I also purchased some F1 seed from Harris seed. I also have some old seed from Uncle Waynes. I plan to use the seeds from UW to do my final comparison.

When I dehybridized Ramapo F1 I planted some F1 plants at each generation, and this was when Ramapo F1 was no longer avaialable, but I had two sources of F1 Ramapo.

One was a 6 pack of plants sent to me by a friend in NJ who had sandbagged some F1 seed and raised plants and the other source was actual F1 seed I was able to obtain from the good folks at Rutgers U.

I think it's always good to compare any selections made from saved F2 seed from the F1 fruits with true F1 plants at each generation so a good comparison can be made.

And I also tried to dehybridize Big Boy F1, got just so far and then kind of lost interest, but it was quite doable and at that time I had the help of Dr. Oved Schifriss who when at Burpee bred Big Boy F1.

I did get both red and pink fruited plants with F2 seed, actually I was going for the one parent Teddy Jones which is a large pink, but Dr. Schifriss told me that I could only get out maybe 70% of Teddy Jones and he said the size of the fruits I got on the pink fruited plants was too small and to keep selecting and growing, but I never did.

[lkittle]

Hi Carolyn; I am also growing F1 plants each year for comparison. The taste does not seem to have changed as far as I can tell. The changes I can tell were do the flesh grainy texture. I think that can be also caused by water content. The reason I think that is I find the same differences in F1 plants in different soil locations with different water content to have similar differences. I also think the same can be said for skin tuffness. the resistanse to cracking and splitting.


larry

[Alfredo]

Originally Posted by lkittle

Hi All; A few years ago I found some old Moreton Hybrid seed and decided to try to grow them out to open pollinated seed so far we are on generation 5 of the grow out. Some plants are still making minor changes. I can't tell if its genetic or just growing conditions.

I started because the seed was hard to find. The variety has since been made available from Rutgers University. I am growing some new seed to compare and see the changes.

Hello lkittle,

Just found this thread you started, did you ever dehybridize the Moreton Hybrid tomato variety? I'm growing it this year/season from seed I purchased through Rutgers University and am very impressed with how early maturing and productive it is.

~Alfredo

[lkittle]

Hi Alfredo I have the seeds thru the 6 generations and they are well stabilized and hard to tell from the F1 Hybrid seed plants. I had to grow the gen 4 seeds twice because ov late blight and didn't want any week seeds in the line. When I get my first gen 7 tomatoes i am going to eat it no salt or any topping so all I tast is the tomato. Right now the tomatoes are still green and about the size 1.75" in diameter. 3-4 weeks from vine ripe.

[Alfredo]

Originally Posted by lkittle

Hi Alfredo I have the seeds thru the 6 generations and they are well stabilized and hard to tell from the F1 Hybrid seed plants. I had to grow the gen 4 seeds twice because ov late blight and didn't want any week seeds in the line. When I get my first gen 7 tomatoes i am going to eat it no salt or any topping so all I tast is the tomato. Right now the tomatoes are still green and about the size 1.75" in diameter. 3-4 weeks from vine ripe.

Hey lkittle,

Thanks for responding. I know this thread hasn't been posted on in quite a while so wasn't sure if you would read my post.

Wow that's pretty amazing. From reading through the thread you started, you had it pretty much stabalized by the 3rd generation? That's not too long then. And the only variations you saw were some smaller tomatoes at times, and a paste variety...

Hmm I think i might try something similar, though I'm not sure whether to try to stabalize the Moreton F1 Hybrid tomato variety or the other Rutgers released KC-146 tomato variety i'm growing this year (KC-146 was originally from the Campbell's Soup Company). I guess i'll decide once I try how the KC-146 tastes (and I think i remember someone on Tomatoville saying KC-146 might already be an open-pollinated variety already, just not sure at the moment) ...the description of it has it as a "Semi-Indeterminate" in growth but to my surprise it's become a fairly large plant already, one of my biggest plants at the moment too. The KC-146 plant is as big as my Pruden's Purple plants, so 7 ft or so. It's not as early maturing as the Moreton though, but the foliage is pristine still, with no signs of any diseases.

How old was the Moreton seed you had originally that you eventually germinated, in order to start getting it stabalized? And if you don't mind me asking a bit more about your process, how many plants for each generation did you grow out for comparison to the original Moreton F1? I find this whole stabalizing hybrids into Open Pollinated seeds fascinating. I didn't even know it was possible until i found tomatoville.

Congrats on getting it stabalized.

~Alfredo

[lkittle]

Hi Alfredo: The first generation was from plants started by Uncle Waynes they were transplants he shipped all the way from his green house starts on the west coast 12 plants in all. I saved the seeds from two tomatoes off each plant. A few years & generations later Rutgars started their breeding program with seeds from a known parent line and some rediscovered seeds from the other parent in a trade for bean seed. So the seeds I an growing out are from the original hybrid cross. I have very few original seeds left from a dozen I got from Uncle Waynes. I am keeping them dry and cool so if I need them in the future. The seeds are at least 20 years old. Uncle Wayne bought them while they were still available. You can contact Carl at Uncle Waynes tomatoes dot com.

[Alfredo]

Originally Posted by lkittle

Hi Alfredo: The first generation was from plants started by Uncle Waynes they were transplants he shipped all the way from his green house starts on the west coast 12 plants in all. I saved the seeds from two tomatoes off each plant. A few years & generations later Rutgars started their breeding program with seeds from a known parent line and some rediscovered seeds from the other parent in a trade for bean seed. So the seeds I an growing out are from the original hybrid cross. I have very few original seeds left from a dozen I got from Uncle Waynes. I am keeping them dry and cool so if I need them in the future. The seeds are at least 20 years old. Uncle Wayne bought them while they were still available. You can contact Carl at Uncle Waynes tomatoes dot com.

Good Morning lkittle,

Thanks for the background info, that's quite a story of how far those plants traveled. Amazing you can get seeds to germinate that are 20 yrs old. I still have a good amount of Moreton F1 Hybrid seeds that I purchased from the Rutgers Agricultural Station earlier this year. So If I do a grow out with saved seed from the Moreton tomatoes I have now (the two Moreton plants I have growing currently are pumping out tomatoes like nothing) I'll just use the leftover F1 seed to grow alongside for comparison. But I'm going to check out that site regardless, thanks for the info.

Please post some pics if you can of those Moreton open pollinated tomatoes. That would be very nice to check out.

~Alfredo

[lkittle]

Hi Alfredo; As soon as I can get some pics I will post them. I would send you a sample tomato if when the tomatoes are ready so you can compare them. I would be interested in your comments as to tastes.

[Alfredo]

Cool...that would be great, thanks for the offer, maybe i have some seed variety i can give you in exchange that you would be interested in...i'll send you a PM with what i have.
~Alfredo