saving seeds from "sports"

[lumierefrere]

I'm too new at this to know how to ask, nor do I have any clue about the answer.

Last year I grew a variety that was supposed to be an orange round tomato. It didn't resemble the seed pack at all so I don't know what it is whether a mix-up of seeds or a sport (is that what it's called?)

I saved seeds because it was a delightful tomato. When I grow this out this year, what will I get? The same fruit as from the original plant or something perhaps reflecting what it was supposed to be?

How do I keep getting the delightful and unknown tomato?

Barb

[nctomatoman]

If it is a stray seed, and as long as it was not crossed when you grew it, it may turn out to be the same. If it was a cross, all bets are off and you could get anything!

[lumierefrere]

Thanks Craig, that's as I suspected. Should I try to grow out a number of them playing tomato roulette and hope that my number will come up a 2nd time? Is that how this is done?

Tell us how you wound up with Lucky Cross. How does this process work. If Brad walks thru his tomato patch and sees the original BTD hanging there, how do we go from that one plant to something that is "stable".

A discussion of this will help me understand where we're going with the dwarf project.

[carolyn137]

Barb,

there's a lot to say here so I'll try to be brief.

As Craig has said, if it was just wrong seeds in the pack and they were pure, then what you'll get is the same as you grew last year. But you don't know, so you play roulette .

A sport is not really the term you want to use, for that refers to what's called a somatic mutation where the DNA in a plant cell mutates, rather than a DNA mutation in the seed, and sports are usually seen as one branch having different fruits, either in color or shape from what rest of the true fruits on that plant are.

That's not what you saw last year.

You either had crossed seed or a mutant or true seeds of another variety, but I don't know what you expected so i can't tell you if it was possible to get something orange following a single spontaneous mutation.

So to cover the bases as to possibilities you probably want to sow seed for as many plants as you have room for from those saved seeds from the orange ones.

If all orange it says either that the wrong pure seeds were in the pack or that the level of X pollination was low and that it would take more plants to know if there was a cross or that if you had just one wrong plant that, as Craig has said, it could have been a stray seed in the pack.

A single fruit can have both pure seed from self pollenization and crossed seeds from cross pollination.

Do you want to wait until you see what you have before going through the whole discussion of how to dehybridize a hybrid from crossed seed b'c at this point you don't know what you have.

I thought you had a copy of my book, at least that's what I remember, and if so, all of this is discussed in detail there.

Craig got Lucky Cross and Little Lucky from a chance X pollination between Brandywine and probably Tad, as he has explained before, and then had to dehybridize the initial hybrid formed from X pollination.

The same exact thing is descirbed in my book for the chance X pollination that occurred in Craig's garden between Yellow Brandywine and an unknown other parent and I dehybridized that one to what we now know as OTV Brandywine.

So do you want the whole thing now about dehybridization, or maybe it's best to wait and see what you have before even considering that.

Your choice.

[lumierefrere]

Okay. I'm with you. It wasn't a sport. All the fruit were the same, a light rosy orange.

Sow as many seeds as I can from the faux orange, am I correct? This is really going to take my mind off TRW. This was really a nice little tomato or I wouldn't even bother. (I better go to the Dollar Store and stock up on panty hose.)

I thought you had a copy of my book, at least that's what I remember, and if so, all of this is discussed in detail there.

Your memory is better than mine and I'm envious! Andrey has it now. He seemed to want a copy. I wasn't thinking ahead! I read it three times...

No, don't go into the entire dehybridizing process now, my mind won't be able to hold all that information. Sleep deprivation is a terrible thing! I think the general idea is you keep growing out as many as you can and keep selecting for the traits you want.

If I'm really lucky, it's a mix-up in seeds.

How many years did it take to dehybridize the OTV (which I have for this year)?

It's very generous and patient of you to keep covering this ground for those of us new to all this.

[carolyn137]

Barb,

Craig sent me the F2 seeds that had been returned to him with a picture of a large PL red beefsteak b'c I had lots of room to be able to grow lots of plants for the dehybrtidization. He had sent seeds of Yellow Brandywine to this person and the large red PL resulted from those.

It looked stable at the F4 but I grew it out one more year to the F5 just to be sure.

[lumierefrere]

So Carolyn, not that long--4 or 5 years for us. If like Tom Wagner you can get 3 generations in 1 year, the process can go quite speedily.

We might be able to stabilize those dwarfs in 2 years or so.

Barb

[markferon]

Have there been any scientific studies one way or the other that tell if sports branches or plants produce seeds consistent with the sport or the original.

[Mischka]

Originally Posted by markferon

Have there been any scientific studies one way or the other that tell if sports branches or plants produce seeds consistent with the sport or the original.

You already know the answer to this question.

Nobody here is obligated or expected to prove anything to you, personally.

FINAL WARNING

[Mantis]

I think I may have a sport, heres what gives. I had two seedlings of Tondino Maremmano from GrowItalian seeds. I grew one out and got fruit like what I expected from the picture and description on the pack. Later in the year I decided to plant out the second seedling that I had kept alive in a small pot. It grew a bit then flopped over and put out one small truss of normal fruit. It sprouted some healthy looking green shoots from near the base of the plant growing straight up, so I decided to cut off the original shoot and let these grow.
Now, two things about these shoots are different. They are showing indeterminate growth with 6 fruit trusses on one stem where the original is a determinate. The fruit although small are elongated sort of roma shaped.
Could this be a sport. It may not be worth keeping yet, I am just curious.
Mantis

[carolyn137]

Mantis,

It isn't clear to me if you're talking about two changes with this second plant or one.

You say that it's switched from det to indet, and I assume for all growing branches that's true, and then you describe a fruit shape.

Is the fruit shape on this second plant consistent with what you should be getting?

The point being, that sports are due to single spontaneous mutations in plant cells, as I discussed above, and the statistical probability that two independent mutations has occurred at the same time is so remote as to not be a viable alternative.

So, just the one change in plant habit, or two changes with a different fruit form?

And I assume your backup position if there are two changes is that it could be a stray seed of another variety? :wink:

[Mantis]

Carolyn
There seem to be the two changes but the more obvious one is the fruit shape. The originals were small slightly flattened and ribbed globes but these are tear drop or roma shaped.
Could be a stray seed but that doesn't accont for the plant putting out the correct looking fruit on its original stem that was pruned off.
The plant is still small and no fruit has ripened yet so I will get a pic when they do, and try to post a pic of what they should look like.

[nctomatoman]

I will have to find Barbara Lund's original note (which I have), but she indicates that Potato Leaf Yellow was a sport off of a red or pink variety - one branch gave golden fruit.

[carolyn137]

Keith,

I didn't say single gene, I said single spontaneous mutation, and sure there are the other molecular mechanisms that you referred to.

Mantis, somehow I missed the point that one branch on the plant did bear fruit but that subsequent branches appear to have different fruits.

Look to see if all branches with new fruit are coming from a point above where the original branch was.

Craig, I don't think you ever mentioned before that you had that note and that YB might be from a sport. Verrrryyyyy interesting as Artie used to say.