Interesting Article from Scientific American

[barkeater]

I grow both heirlooms AND hybrids, and found great ones and lousy ones of both.

And, isn't an "OP cross" just another term for hybrid, or should I call it "genetic mumbo jumbo"? ;-)

[organichris]

I think it can be good for any variety to have some genetic diversity introduced. It doesn't even have to be from an entirely different variety, just from another seed source of essentially the same tomato.

But the article seemed to speak about the possibility of genetic engineering:

"So researchers like Tanksley have to work backward, crossing tomato varieties and species in order to understand how various genes influence shape and size. Once isolated, Tanksley later inserts those genes into other tomato varieties to make his case with a dramatic transformation."

[amideutch]

And, isn't an "OP cross" just another term for hybrid, or should I call it "genetic mumbo jumbo"? ;-)

Barkeater, sorry to disappoint. Once an OP cross has been established and grown out, it will stay true generation after generation. No mumbo jumbo here. If your interested get a copy of Carol Deppe's book, Breed your own Vegetable Varieties. And if you look in the forums "Cross Talk" and "Tomato R&D" you will see what I'm talking about. We also have the Dwarf program as well run by Craig which are OP crosses . Hybrids are a different animal composed of several crosses and will not grow true from saved seed. Ami

[barkeater]

amideutch,
You didn't answer my question. Does or does not a cross between 2 tomatoes produce a hybrid?

[feldon30]

Originally Posted by barkeater

Does or does not a cross between 2 tomatoes produce a hybrid?

Originally Posted by amideutch

Once an OP cross has been established and grown out, it will stay true generation after generation.

Hybrids are a different animal composed of several crosses and will not grow true from saved seed. Ami

barkeater, I think maybe your question was not quite understood.

When you cross two varieties, you have a hybrid. At this point you have two choices:

Maintain the Hybrid - You can repeat this cross between those 2 parent plants every year henceforth and sell those F1 hybrid seeds (Lord knows nobody would do this for free!). The seed companies set up large plots in third world countries and train workers to cross thousands of tomato plants to produce hybrid seed every year. Burpee, Parks, etc. have to grow both parent plants A and B each year so that they can produce hybrid seed.

Dehybridize - The other choice is what we are talking about here. Once we've got our F1 seed, we grow a bunch of plants and get many different results in the F2 offspring. We do taste tests and find the best ones on the best plants which are most desirable. Repeat in the third year (F3), fourth year (F4), etc. until F5-F7 you are satisfied that you now possess a stable OP which can be freely distributed.

All heirlooms and OPs originally started as some sort of OP cross and then were chosen by farmers until they had something stable. Remember the original tomato all those years ago was a small yellow cherry. Everything since then is a mutation or cross of some sort and nobody had the manual labor and land to maintain hybrid lines each year, so these accidental (or intentional) crosses would be dehybridized out to F5-F7 until the breeder was satisfied and then they made those seeds available to the world.

Seed catalogs from the late 1800's through 1940 were entirely OP varieties, most listed as accidenial crosses.


And just to add another level of complexity, some of the modern hybrids like Sungold are obviously not just a cross between two stable OP parents. So each year, we are talking about more than just growing parent A, parent B, crossing them, and saving seeds and presto you have your F1 hybrid. We're talking about growing Parent A and Parent B this year, then next year crossing the offspring AB with another variety C. This makes dehybridization more difficult because you now have the genes of 3 different varieties "settling out". This is why Sungold is so hard to dehybridize. You get an almost limitless variety of plants in the F2.

[remy]

I posted this over on GW, and figured I should post it here.
If anyone hasn't seen the documentary 'The World According to Monsanto' you should.
You can see it here http://wideeyecinema.com/?p=105
Remy

[barkeater]

Thanks feldon,

That's what I was taught, "When you cross two varieties, you have a hybrid."

[HakaiRah]

Among the many elements this article ignores or gets wrong is the actual nutritional value of the fruit that you're eating. Unripe tomatoes that are harvested from super-producing plants can be nutritionally barren.

There is an older book from 1992 Super Nutrition Gardening that has interesting information on how to get the most out of your garden nutritionally.

Plants need protection from disease and pests because they are struggling to live in depleted soil that has been abused for generations in some cases. The problem isn't just that people aren't eating enough fruit and vegetables, they aren't even necessarily getting what they should be out of what they are eating.

Monsanto doesn't want to provide a better tomato, they just want to create a more profitable system and seed-savers aren't profitable. I understand why they hate heirlooms, because they have helped destroy the hybrid is always better myth they were using to con people into to buying seeds and plants each year. With that slipping away their new super plant with custom genetic code is the new myth they want to sell.

My brandywine that lost its mainstem to frost even produced a dozen big pink juicy tomatoes. This article is trying to create a modern myth, just like the seven cities of gold or the fountain of youth. Why would a trust a scientist's opinion on what the perfect tomato is over the choices of generations of farmers and gardeners?

[amideutch]

Thank you Feldon for the detailed explantion. I have always differentiated the two as a hybrid will not grow true from saved seed and a established OP cross will. I guess thats because in our hobby we always differentiate the two by calling them Hybrids or Heirloom/OP.
I think a better definition for Hybrid as we call it would be a cross from MORE than two varieties. But Barkeater is correct as the term hybrid can be a cross from two varieties only. Ami

[Mischka]

Here's the article.

I've converted it into a PDF document for folks to read and download.

Please use it to spread the word about this deliberate campaign of misinformation, no doubt somehow sponsored by Monsanto.
3 words: heirloom tomato heresy.

[dice]

How the mighty have fallen. (I thought these SciAm articles
were supposed to be peer reviewed. Maybe all of the "peers"
were on the take, too.)

[Barbee]

Reading between the lines, it looks to me like the seeds of this tomato won't be sterile but patented. Which means you can't use them without paying Monsanto a "patent fee"

Which is exactly what they did with the super crops. I'm sending this article on to an extension horticulturist from Ohio State and letting him know how disappointed I am that OSU is linked to this article.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Barbee

Reading between the lines, it looks to me like the seeds of this tomato won't be sterile but patented. Which means you can't use them without paying Monsanto a "patent fee"

Which is exactly what they did with the super crops. I'm sending this article on to an extension horticulturist from Ohio State and letting him know how disappointed I am that OSU is linked to this article.

Barbee the link to OSU is b/c the article discusses the work of Dr. Esther van der Kaamp, whom I know, who did a lot of work on the genes that alter shape and size of tomatoes in an effort to better understand how they developed. There's a series of academic books being done on Solanaceae and I was asked to help write a short piece on heirlooms b'c many researchers still don't know what they are. And it was in Dr. van der Kaamp's section of one book that what I wrote will appear, so we got to know each other quite well.

Also at OSU although not mentioned in the article is Dr. David Francis, who is the person who is heading up aquisition of tomato varieties for those who are involved in SolCAP.

SolCAP, meaning the Solanaceae Coordinated Agricultural Project has as its mission:

"......bringing together an integrated team of researchers, educators and extension specialists at Michigan State, Ohio State, Cornell, U of CA at Davis, and Oregon State to incorporate emerging DNA sequence data into efforts to improve vegetable crops. Potato and tomato are the two most important vegetable crops in Solanaceae, a taxonomic family that includes peppers, eggplant, and petunia. The project will identify DNA sequence variation in genes associated with with high value traits such as carbohydrate and vitamin content and link these traits with breeder friendly markers. SolCAP will support centralized facilities ( at Ohio State and UC Davis) for generating transcribed sequence data and then characterizing DNA sequence variation in tomato and potato lines. Colleagues at Oregon State, USDA/ARS Idaho, Harris Moran, U of FL, Ohio State, USDA/ARS WI, Cornell , U of MN, NC State and USDA/ARS Maryland will manage the field trials of these potato and tomato lines........" and that's the most relevant part, I think.

I was referred to Dr. Francis at OSU, where Dr. Van der Kammp also is, by a researcher at the Geneva Station at Cornell. Craig and I have been listed as consultants for grant requests by these two researchers doing DNA sequence analysis for several years now. And it was Joanne who put me in touch with Dr. Francis.

And what was he looking for re germplasm? Great tasting OP's, mainly heirloom varieties. He already had a list and we went through it on the phone and I suggested that I didn't agree with many of them, but he said they were included b/c they had a certain gene marker important to them.

So he asked me to submit a list to him of what I thought was tasty, I did, and he selected several from that list. I sent him seeds for what I could and told him where he could buy the seeds for the others. And I ended up sending 12 varieties to his wife for their own home garden.

And I wrote all of the above b'c it offers an alternative way to go in terms of improving tomatoes that doesn't have the stigma, if you will, of the Monsanto name.

The list of SolCAP participants is broad and deep and some names that some will recognize are Jay Scott at U of FL, Roger Chatelet at UC Davis, Dani Zamir at the Hebrew U of Jerusalem and I know that Dr. Randy Gardner is also involved, probably for a source of germplasm as well as his expertise in using heirloom varieties in breeding hybrids.

I thought it was important for me to discuss SolCAP as an alternative to what was written about in the article currently under discussion.

[ContainerTed]

If you google Scientific American, you can work the screens down to finally get to "Contact us". This gives an Email address of "editors @ sciam . com". I sent the following email last night.

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How could anyone with the intelligence of a sandflea put out such "hogwash" under the disguise of something scientific. I had always had a lot of respect for this magazine, but this was simply malicious misinformation at its very worse.

The so-called information presented as fact is nothing short of an attack on the American Public who grow their own vegetables. It prompts me to ask the question, "Did Monsanto, who is trying to corner the world seed markets, edit or dictate this article?"

You have lost one reader in me and many hundreds, if not thousands, who grow their own from Open Pollinated seed.

You folks must not get out of the house much. You should be ashamed of such unsubstantiated garbage.

Come out of your roundup induced trance to the internet tomato forums and read how the "real" world grows healthy food for themselves and their families. But then, you may not want to hear anything truthful if Monsanto is paying your bills.
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I'll let you folks know if I get any response (which I doubt).

Ticked-off Ted

[Barbee]

I appreciate the info about SolCAP. It's always nice to have background information about how things begin.

I realize that OSU and other universities have to get their funding from somewhere to keep going. I realize that Monsanto provides a lot of fellowships and scholarships, along with large $$ grants to these universities. It's what Monsanto does with these field trials and studies that bother me terribly. And that's all I'm going to say on the subject, because it bothers me that much.