My wild tomato breeding project

[Minnesota Mato]

I have all the seeds you have gotten from tradewind fruits and have grown them over the last several years. They all were true to the pics but as I am not a wild tomato expert I can't tell you if they are the real deal. I have been doing alot with the cheesmanii and will be planting about 60 f3 gen plants this year. Last year everyone in my area was having problems with there tomatoes not ripening and low fruit sets. My f2's between a cheesmanii and a martian giant did better then everything else. I got them in late and not only did they catch up but they by far out produced every other tomato in my rented garden spot. The cheesemanii were the size of a penny and the f1 gen were the size of a nickle. I planted 50 f2 gen plants and got quite a variety of sizes and shapes. I am trying to breed a paste tomato with high beta carotene and a few other things. I would be real interested in your results and would also share some of my seeds if you are interested.
craig

[loeb]

You have lovely wild tomatoes.. I would try crossing Black cherry and Matina if I would be on your place. I have chesmanii seeds too, but I don't know which type, I'm going to try them this year, and maybe do some crosses too. Types c and d from your list have lovely leaves, and b nice fruit Mine is probably short type a. Working with wild types sounds very exciting to me, I will watch that tread.

[smileytom]

Plant C does have amazing leaves. Do you happen to have a picture of a whole plant that you could share with us?

[TheLoud]

Originally Posted by doublehelix

Cross-species hybridization is at best very difficult. Some of these could be impossible. It would be like trying to breed a dog to a cat.

I just wanted to clarify this general point about interspecific hybrids, although I don't have any information about these species in particular. It's true that reproductive isolation defines species. However, that barrier to crossing can take many different forms. There can be a geographic barrier between two populations that prevents any pollen from getting from one population to the other. The two populations can live in different habitats, or bloom at different times, or be pollinated by different vectors. All of these barriers to hybridization are very easy to overcome by a hobbyist.

There are other barriers that are harder to overcome, that require the massive effort and fancy equipment mentioned above. The barrier between species might be that fruit don't set, or abort early, or seeds don't sprout, or seedlings are weak and die young, or hybrids are vigorous but sterile, like mules. Try the crosses in both directions, because sometimes one works better than the other.

[ethane]

I am curious if the original poster could update his progress?

[Jeanus]

I am interested too and how some of the other crosses did. Mn Mato said he had some crosses also.

[ethane]

StephenInky, where are you? I'm still waiting for that update. Perhaps he got lost in his tomato field.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by ethane

StephenInky, where are you? I'm still waiting for that update. Perhaps he got lost in his tomato field.

I just checked and he last visited Tville in September of 2014,

Carolyn

[Minnesota Mato]

I have a lot of crosses with cheesmanii in them. The plants do well and I am still finding surprises in them. The one thing I am having problems with is recovering size. I think with backcrossing and the ideas some people here have given me that I can solve this problem. I have also fallen in love with S. hirsutum. The plants are some of the healthiest I grow and the one I have has the reddest red I have seen in a tomato. With such low genetic diversity in tomatoes there must be great discoveries to be found in wild tomatoes and fun in looking for them.

[PaddyMc]

Originally Posted by Minnesota Mato

I have a lot of crosses with cheesmanii in them. The plants do well and I am still finding surprises in them. The one thing I am having problems with is recovering size. I think with backcrossing and the ideas some people here have given me that I can solve this problem. I have also fallen in love with S. hirsutum. The plants are some of the healthiest I grow and the one I have has the reddest red I have seen in a tomato. With such low genetic diversity in tomatoes there must be great discoveries to be found in wild tomatoes and fun in looking for them.

How much success have you had with L. Hirsutum x L. Esculentum crosses? Does it work any better with the wild species as the pollen donor or recipient?

[Minnesota Mato]

All my crosses so far with the Hirsutum were made by someone else. I finally got a Hirsutum to try to cross myself this year. I do believe however it works better with the Hirsutum as the pollen donor.

[korney19]

Originally Posted by geeboss

I would like to see a cross between Fred Limbaugh Potato Top and Cowlick and then the resulting F1 crossed with L. peruvianum f. glandulosum.



Minnies' Pinstripe crossed with Purple Hillbilly and resulting F1 crossed with
L. hirsutum f. glabratum


Chocolate Stripes crossed with L. cheesmanii and resulting F1 crossed with L. hirsutum f. glabratum


George

Why??

[Fred Hempel]

Steve, You are a pro.

Originally Posted by doublehelix

I kept waiting for one of the pros to respond to this, but since they haven't I felt like I should say something. I think you might be setting yourself up for a huge disappointment if all of your hybridizing efforts are placed here. Cross-species hybridization is at best very difficult. Some of these could be impossible. It would be like trying to breed a dog to a cat. There are examples of two species of tomatoes being crossed but you should know that not only is it rare, but the crosses that actually occur are quite often done on a large scale. Large as in dozens of flowers on hundreds of plants. It would not be out of the question to have 3000 to 5000 crosses before a successful fruit with seed is produced. I'm not trying to throw a wet blanket on your project, but if you don't have both a greenhouse and a place to grow 400 or 500 parent plants you're going to be a bit frustrated. If you are new to hybridizing you might want to try a few seasons of crossing two varieties of OP L. esculentum before jumping into cross-species hybridizing. I would also highly recommend that you pick up a text on plant genetics and breeding to help get a bit more understanding of what you are about to try and become familiar with the terminology and cell biology involved. I'm not saying it can't be done, but the odds against success are staggering for a home garden. I can't speak for all species of tomatoes but I do know that many other plants and animals that are the result of cross-species hybridization are sterile. It is possible that even if you get a cross to produce fruit, that fruit might not produce seed.

I think usually the approach of most breeding programs is to have a particular set of traits in mind and make crosses that would best show you the desired results. While it is not a rule set in stone, it is usually considered a good idea to use the plant that has the recessive traits as the female. Traits should be selected that you can either see (phenotype) or you have the ability to test for. If you don't have a scientific way to test for disease resistance then it wouldn't make sense for that to be a primary focus of your breeding program. There are several sources online for lists of dominate and recessive genes that you might find helpful.

I also have to say that grafting is darn hard to do and beyond the ability or desire of most home gardeners. I don't see how maintaining a root stock crop would be less expensive than purchasing a hybrid and I really don't know what one has to do with the other.

I hope you give some thought to at least trying some simple crosses of some of the varieties you have listed. Whatever you do, I wish you much luck.

[StrongPlant]

Any updates on this? I was really hoping to see results of these crosses,some of them can be done easily,without having to overcome any crossing barriers.

[FredB]

I've tried several of these crosses over the last decade or so, and I can summarize my experiences.

Solanum pimpinellifolium. The domestic tomato probably originated from S. pim. or a close relative, and this cross is very easy. The F1 between S. lycopersicum and S. pim. is sweeter than either parent, and many of the supersweet cherry tomatoes probably have S. pim. in their ancestry.

S. galapagense. This is a relative of S. pim. with tiny yellow fruit. It is also easy to cross with S. lycopersicum. The F1 is sweet but has a bad off-taste that it gets from its S. gal. parent. You can find F2 and F3 plants that are still sweet but lack the off-taste, but I haven't fully succeeding in stabilizing a line.

S. cheesmaniae. Another yellow one from the Galapagos Islands. Easy to cross, but in my experience the F1 lacks the sweet taste you get with S. pim. or S. gal.

S. habrochaites. This is from another sub-group of the tomato family, and it is difficult to cross with S. lycopersicum. I have had one successful cross out of about 30 tries. The rootstocks bred by Syngenta all seem to be S. habro. If you let a rootstock plant grow instead of using it as a rootstock, you get a huge vine with fuzzy leaves and a distinctive smell. The plants are completely resistant to Septoria and some varieties are also resistant to early blight, as well as being resistant to just about every known root and stem disease. The fruits are about 3/4" and stay hard and green. Oddly enough, crossing green-fruited habrochaites with pink-fruited Brandywine resulted in orange fruit, an interesting example of what geneticists called epistasis (when you get a particular trait with a combination of two genes but not with either one separately). Apparently habrochaites is missing one of the genes on the pathway to orange pigment, and Brandywine is missing a different gene, but when you cross them the F1 has all the necessary genes and can make orange pigment.

S. peruvianum. Difficult. I had one apparently successful hybridization, but the F1 plants all seemed to be sterile as both male and female parents. One of the genes for blue fruit comes from peruvianum, so it must be possible to do this cross, but so far it is beyond my skill.

Fred