Joseph's Tomato Experiments

[joseph]

I haven't grown Bison tomato. At 70 DTM, it seems like it would require just a bit more heat than my farm is able to provide. I generally pick 70 DTM tomato fruits as green fruits the night before our fall frosts start.

[ContainerTed]

I do understand that. But this one was the second earliest in my garden this year. I'll leave the seed option open to you. There's no hurry. I'm listing it at Heritage Seed Market this year, so it'll be around if and when you need it.

[joseph]

Here's what the HX-13 clade looked like a few minutes ago. Each row represents the YTD harvest from one plant. The plants are siblings. Highly likely selfed. They are F3 plants from a cross between Hillbilly and Jagodka. Where there is a break in the rows, it is between the early harvests, and the most recent harvest. The third row from the left was susceptible to a mosaic disease, and will be culled. Nice to know that the disease exists in my garden...



Here's a high resolution version of the same photo.

And a general look at some of my other tomato breeding lines. The orange tomatoes near the front/center of this photo, and in the back corner are from other lines of the HX clade.


The HX clade was originally created in a search for open flowers. That goal was achieved in the HX-9 line, but not in these lines. However, I am really pleased with the combination of yellow/red bi-color fruits and determinate growth habit. So I'm intending to grow them out for another year.

[PhilaGardener]

Interesting stuff, @joseph ! Third row from the left looks interesting in that you seem to have a range from red to orange colors from the same plant. Are those just not fully red, or like the 3 orange lines in color?

[joseph]

Originally Posted by PhilaGardener

Interesting stuff, @joseph ! Third row from the left looks interesting in that you seem to have a range from red to orange colors from the same plant. Are those just not fully red, or like the 3 orange lines in color?

I think that it's due to a mosaic virus, which afflicted the fruits that were harvested later, but not the earliest fruits to be harvested.

Edited to add that I just cut open a couple of the mottled fruits, and there is abnormal looking tissue under the yellow areas of the fruit. Kinda corky looking.

[joseph]

We had our first fall frost on Friday night. That makes this year's frost free growing season 67 days long. It's no wonder that so many tomato varieties fail in my garden. That's some tough growing conditions.

Of the 72 new varieties that I trialed this year, only 4 of them produced ripe fruit, and that in meager amounts. One of them produced fruits not much bigger than a current tomato. So it was culled. One was early enough to produce two fruits weighing about 10 ounces, and the flowers had exerted stigmas, so it has been invited into the promiscuously pollinating breeding project next year.

The other two varieties are being added to what I'm thinking of as The Neighbor's Landrace. People keep giving me fruits from tomatoes that they grew in their gardens. I'm collecting the seeds into a common lot, and intend to grow them out next season. Just to see if anything works for me.

I've been tasting every fruit before saving seeds from it. The taste of orange and red/yellow bi-color tomatoes is really working well for me this year. A lady gave me a Cherokee Purple fruit to try. I was not impressed.

I planted a lot of WildX-5 tomato. I also shared it abundantly this spring as potted plants. I've been taking lots of fruit to the farmer's market for taste testing. So far it has had glowing reports regarding taste. Nobody has badmouthed it. It needed a name that people could remember, so I'm calling the family "Wild Zebra". I've collected around 1000 seeds, so if germination is OK, I expect to share seeds this winter. It's an indeterminate, which I don't care for, but it has produced lots of early tasty fruit.

One nice thing about using orange tomatoes in a promiscuous pollination project, is that it makes it trivial to locate naturally occurring hybrids when red fruits show up among descendants of an orange fruited mother. This year, the off-type plants are about 10% among the lines that I have been selecting for promiscuous traits. I'm saving those separate to replant, so that I can reselect for promiscuous traits. The natural hybrids that I identified this season also brought the closed flower traits with them, so re-selection will focus first on getting rid of closed-flower traits. The nice thing about using natural hybrids, is that by the time I identify a hybrid plant, it has already produced F2 seed. So I just have to plant it and select.

Best time of the year to be a tomato breeder! The results of so many experiments are becoming visible this month.

[joseph]

I made a mistake this year while planting tomatoes. I forgot to plant production tomatoes. Oops!!! I made up for it by planting about 300 experimental tomatoes from breeding projects. Oh well, I still had plenty of modern-landrace tomatoes to take to the farmer's market. I'm really having a lot of fun with promiscuously pollinating tomatoes. And, it's wonderful that the frost-tolerant breeding project that I've been working on for so many years is merging so well into the promiscuous pollination project.

Here's the type of tomatoes that I took to the farmer's market last Saturday. I skipped picking the cherry tomatoes due to heavy rains. We got 5" in one storm.


In the greenhouse, I'm growing out F1 hybrids of crosses between domestic tomatoes, and S. habrochaites. They are currently flowering. So there is a good chance that I will be able to keep them alive long enough to set seeds. I was able to harvest seeds over-winter the past few years, so I'm hoping that the pattern will continue, and that I'll be able to get another generation or two grown out before spring. In the greenhouse, I'm also growing a few crosses between some of my favorite domestic varieties. And I collected (I presume F2) seed that looks like it came from naturally occurring cross pollinations.

I identified a few more lines of the HX clade that have segregated to determinate growth habit and bi-color red/yellow fruits. I'm excited about those for next year. They seem like a dead end in the promiscuous pollination project, but they are nice tomatoes.

I didn't get many manual/documented crosses made in the field. I was more productive at making crosses in the greenhouse. My equipment is close at hand. It's easier to check on the plants every day. I had hoped to make many more crosses than actually happened. It's hard with only a few plants in pots to get overlapping flowering times: Gotta have the farmer, the pollen, and a recipient mother all in the same place at the same time.

Nevertheless this summer, I got a lot done on the frost/cold tolerance project and on the promiscuous pollination project. I feel really good about how things turned out, and I'm looking forward to winter growing, and to planting more fun things next summer.

[joseph]

Results of the frost tolerance trial are as follows. The plants were snowed on, and exposed to radiant freezes on a number of occasions.

Labels disintegrated on the plant in the coldest field. Nevertheless, I though it was interesting that of the 26 domestic varieties that were trialed, 3 of the 4 survivors had yellow fruits. Only 6 of the 26 that were trialed were from yellow fruited varieties.

In the warmer field, 4 of 10 survivors were descended from plants with yellow fruits. (Two of them had red fruits, and were from the promiscuous pollination project, so they seem to be natural hybrids.)

So only 23% of what was planted came from yellow fruited mothers, but 75% and 40% of the survivors came from yellow fruited plants.

I don't know if that's just chance, or if yellow fruits are somewhat closely linked with better frost/cold tolerance. I suspect that 2 of the survivors in each field contain genetics from S. habrochaites. One of the survivors in the warmer field contains the blue gene.

S. peruvianum, S. habrochaites, and S. pimpinellifolium, showed good frost/cold tolerance. This is two years in a row that my population of S. pimpinellifolium has survived the frost/cold tolerance test. Too bad that the flowers are so tiny and hard to work with.

In the warmer field, 3 of the 7 survivors are descended from Jagodka, which won the grand prize in my cold tolerance trials a few years ago. Discussions about Jagodka's traits inspired the promiscuous pollination project and the self-incompatibility project. Jagodka was part of this trial, and failed the frost part of the test as expected. I feel content that it's genetics for cold tolerance are still part of this project.

[loulac]

Great work, as usual. The variety of your production on the stall shows that we are far from industrial tomatoes, customers surely appreciate.

Aren't you a bit severe when you condemn a variety after just one attack of mosaic disease ? No second chance allowed ?
You don't write anything about late blight. Are you lucky enough not to have a whole plantation killed in one week or do you know a miracle remedy, the best snake oil of Cache Valley ?

All the best loulac

[bower]

Joseph, really love the diversity in those trays of fruit for market.

One thing I wondered about, is how you will deal with the really awful taste traits coming from wild parents, especially if the whole point is to get their big blooms into the promiscuous pollination project. This would potentially risk a return from your crop, and maybe introduce bad tastes into the lines you've already established.

I grew a Pimpinellifolium one year and found the fruits were inedible. I know some of them are not bad but this one was awful. I can only imagine that the road to introduce desired characteristics from something that's not a decent food would be long and hard, and require a fair bit of control to select the undesired traits out of the pool.
BTW I had an extra row of tomatoes outdoors this year that extended towards the herb/flower garden. Being close enough to the major bee action I guess, these plants and the ones near the house were ALL worked over diligently by bumblebees. I took some time to watch a bee early one morning before it got crowded - the bee zipped around looking for open flowers and worked it back and forth visiting every plant several times. The only flowers rejected by the bumblebee were the ones it had already visited! Apparently they can tell.

[joseph]

Loulac:

Thanks. I'm a subsistence level farmer. If a plant succumbs to disease this year, I may starve next year. Therefore, if a plant is susceptible to mosaic or other diseases this year, it's not welcome on my farm next year. I would make an exception if all 300 plants were sick or dying, but as long as some thrive while others die, I will continue to save seeds only from the healthiest plants. I cull plants/families for being susceptible to Colorado potato beetles, blossom end rot, sudden-death-syndrome, etc... I cull for being too long season, for taste, etc. I'm generating hundreds of new varieties per year. I don't care about giving tomato varieties a second chance. If I'm going to grow a tomato, it has to produce fantastically every year.

I don't try to memorize the names and symptoms of plant pests and diseases. If a plant dies prematurely, (without sufficient productivity), then I don't replant seeds from it. I don't have the inclination to be staring at tomato plants trying to identify whether a brown spot on a leaf is a virus, bacteria, fungus, or bug bite. I look at the big picture: Did it produce sufficient food to give me a decent return on my investment? Yes, save seed for next year. No. Cull it.

It is very arid here. Moisture loving diseases don't propagate or grow very well.

[joseph]

Bower:

Thanks. Last year, out of a few hundred tomato plants I had one that tasted poisonous, one that tasted insipidly watery, and one that tasted like a hard bland grocery store tomato. They were culled.

I am tasting the wild tomato species. If allowed to ripen fully, they are typically sweet and aromatic. Fully ripe means two or three weeks after they fall off the plant. I suspect that my tomatoes will eventually follow the path that I took with muskmelons, they will end up very fruity and smelly. I like my fruit to taste like fruit!!! I like it to smell like perfume.

I am not impressed with the flavor of S. pimpinellifolium. It's pretty close to a grocery store tomato. It keeps passing the frost/cold tolerance tests, so I'll continue to grow it until I can get it crossed with something else, or I find other things that are more frost tolerant.

I'm tasting a fruit from every plant before saving seeds from it, even with the wild tomatoes. As I move closer to truly promiscuous tomatoes, and eventually to self incompatible tomatoes, the risk increases that a nasty tasting tomato will spoil a batch of seed. Thanks for bringing it up now... It's easier to avoid contamination than to clean it up later. There will be funky things coming out of the wild crosses. I have 5 isolated fields. I suppose that I aught to give some thought to protecting my current genetics while I play around with the wild stuff. I already do that with squash, corn, and peppers. Might as well add tomatoes to the list.

Bwah ha ha!!! Look at me, fussing over finding enough isolated fields to plant tomatoes! This promiscuously pollinating tomato project is starting to get real.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by joseph

Loulac:

Thanks. I'm a subsistence level farmer. If a plant succumbs to disease this year, I may starve next year. Therefore, if a plant is susceptible to mosaic or other diseases this year, it's not welcome on my farm next year. I would make an exception if all 300 plants were sick or dying, but as long as some thrive while others die, I will continue to save seeds only from the healthiest plants. I cull plants/families for being susceptible to Colorado potato beetles, blossom end rot, sudden-death-syndrome, etc... I cull for being too long season, for taste, etc. I'm generating hundreds of new varieties per year. I don't care about giving tomato varieties a second chance. If I'm going to grow a tomato, it has to produce fantastically every year.

I don't try to memorize the names and symptoms of plant pests and diseases. If a plant dies prematurely, (without sufficient productivity), then I don't replant seeds from it. I don't have the inclination to be staring at tomato plants trying to identify whether a brown spot on a leaf is a virus, bacteria, fungus, or bug bite. I look at the big picture: Did it produce sufficient food to give me a decent return on my investment? Yes, save seed for next year. No. Cull it.

It is very arid here. Moisture loving diseases don't propagate or grow very well.

(Did it produce sufficient food to give me a decent return on my investment? Yes, save seed for next year. No. Cull it.)

The above is to me the most important phrase in your post, as in it's all about you and your own livlihood,also discussed below..Now let me go back to some of your other comments.

You speak of Colorado Potato Beetles, but they are equal opportunity pests and have no specific attachment sites on the plants,they appear wherever the moths lay their eggs.OK

BER. No one has completely solved the BER problem and it's a multi billion $ problem for the commercial tomato industry, let alone a problem for home growers..If you have plants that NEVER get BER wouldn't it be helpful to save seeds from those and send them somewhere where they could look into the genetics?

Sudden death.That can be due to many things via pests,weather,environmental issues,diseases,and so much more,so again,I can't comment on that.

Foliage Diseases.Maybe that was part of your etc.remark, but worldwide foliage diseases are THE most common tomato diseases. We still don't have varieties that are consistently tolerantof Early Blight (Alternaria solani)or Septoria Leaf Spot. Nor the two most common bacterial ones of Bacterial Spot and Bacterial Speck

So if you have plants and their offspring that are consistently tolerant to to those diseases,from saved seeds,I would think you could make a major contribution saving seeds for those as well.

Soilborne diseases? I don't know which ones you might have, but same issues as above to possible tolerant ones.

But instead your comment

(I don't try to memorize the names and symptoms of plant pests and diseases. If a plant dies prematurely, (without sufficient productivity), then I don't replant seeds from it. I don't have the inclination to be staring at tomato plants trying to identify whether a brown spot on a leaf is a virus, bacteria, fungus, or bug bite. I look at the big picture: Did it produce sufficient food to give me a decent return on my investment? Yes, save seed for next year. No. Cull it.)

Indicates you don't want to be concerned with diseases and whether due to viruses or viroids or bacteria or fungi/

.

I do understand why you said it was all about you and making a living, I do understand why you feel you have no time to do that,but I also know that in many of your crosses you are using LA accessions. I also know you have saved certain seeds and shared them,maybe for cold tolerance and possibly to Darrel?

Finally, IMO I also think you could make some wonderful contributions for everyone , commercial and home growers alike.

Please give it at least a little bit of thought and maybe set some priorities as categories discussed above?

Carolyn

[MendozaMark]

"Finally, IMO I also think you could make some wonderful contributions for everyone , commercial and home growers alike.

Please give it at least a little bit of thought and maybe set some priorities as categories discussed above?

Carolyn"

I totally agree with the good doctor, I think its an excellent idea to get your unique and impressive tomato breeding work out into the tomato world. Just don't share any seed with Craig L. and his dwarf tomato cohorts. I am already 15 + years behind in their dwarf tomato project.

@Carolyn

I tend to think Joseph has already made some wonderful contributions to everyone (especially as he offers seeds for sale or silver), and he lends a lot of descriptions of his experiences (which have even made it to Mother Earth News). However, you're right—more wonderful contributions are always possible, and maybe you were thinking of stuff that would benefit corporations more, too (who would be more likely to the rigorous tests required to certify this stuff to the satisfaction of some).

> … So if you have plants and their offspring that are consistently tolerant to to those diseases,from saved seeds,I would think you could make a major contribution saving seeds for those as well. …

I get the impression that while the tolerances might hold true in Joseph's fields, with the way that he gardens, that doesn't necessarily mean they'll hold true in a different area with the way another person gardens (especially, but not exclusively so, if different strains of the diseases and such are present), right away, at least. Nevertheless, it's always possible that the tolerances could hold true in multiple conditions, right away, still, and it could be worth testing if Joseph wants to do it.

I have yet to find a first-year anthracnose-tolerant watermelon I've purchased that tolerates our anthracnose on a foliar level the first year (the fruits may tolerate it, though; I've only ever had one watermelon fruit that definitely had anthracnose beyond the stonewashed look that is probably caused by spider mites as much as it is anthracnose); anthracnose pretty much kills every watermelon plant on our property at about the same rate. However, a second-year Ledmon watermelon I grew from saved and zapped seeds outdid all the first-year ones with foliar anthracnose tolerance, for sure (the plant is actually still alive, too, with a large and almost ripe watermelon on it, even with squash bugs starting to take an interest in it, too). The foliage still has anthracnose heavily, though.

Anthracnose is a problem on our property, probably because of our apple and pear trees (some apples and pears tend to drop and rot, and it's probably anthracnose that is the rotting pathogen). The spider mites (which also like our apple trees) probably spread it around the yard. We'll have to be more diligent about picking up those fallen fruits in the years to come. Anthracnose isn't a big problem for tomatoes here, though (except for post-harvest, on the fruit, which is probably pretty common for a lot of people, and maybe if/after it gets rainy in the fall, too).

Anyway, my hypothesis is that at least some of the watermelons really were anthracnose-tolerant to start with (maybe even to our strain of anthracnose), but that they weren't used to tolerating it in our growing conditions (which conditions are atypical for most modern watermelons, and most first-year watermelons are pretty small—Moon and Stars is the one that has gotten the largest on the first year, however), and the lack of familiarity with the growing conditions may have made them extra susceptible to disease.

I think this might be akin to the reason that the Legend tomato tested positive for late blight tolerance, but that a lot of people say it's not tolerant to late blight (it's possibly because it's still a fairly new tomato, and it was bred in western Oregon, and probably still fairly used to western Oregon, and western Oregon is probably pretty different from a lot of places where late blight is a big problem, where reports of it not being tolerant are common: e.g. out east). I have a suspicion that once Legend is in wide-scale circulation for a long time that more people will start to prefer it to Siletz. It could be because people mistake other fungi for late blight, too, though, or because they might think tolerant means 'not affected at all'.

FYI: I grew both this year, but both Siletz and the ground-grown Legend were at a disadvantage due to the growing setup (however, I have other Legend tomatoes in a raised bed that are fine); so, I don't have much to report in the way of comparison (other than that Siletz seemed to have a smaller plant and it set a fruit slightly earlier; Legend also had more robust foliage and probably stems). I haven't noticed late blight problems with either variety (but it's not a common disease in my area, to my knowledge).