yellow prue

[Darwin_NT]

here's two more photos, this one is not as yellow as the first lot of ripe ones.
both red and the yellow are very nice tasting with the yellow a bit sweeter and the red ones in the photo had a slight salty taste i suppose but at this stage of the tasting both tomatoes are up there with the best in taste.

all the first lot of yellows were all eaten and no seeds saved. seeds will be saved from now though.
i don't know how many days it took to first ripe but it was a long time.
the plants did have that water starved droopy look during the growing stage but is now overgrown with other vines so harder to see now. i can get a photo of the leaves if you want.

i have got a lot of the saved seeds from the 09 season .
and will eventually have seeds from this lot 2010 season.

Tom if you are interested in these id be only to happy seems the original is your baby as Caroline says.
or i could which i will just keep on growing these and see if they will stabilize if that's the word. and keep all informed of progress.
Keith.

[Darwin_NT]

better luck with photos this time.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Darwin_NT

better luck with photos this time.

Keith, above Tom had asked what I thought and what you posted seems to make the most sense to me.

That is, save seeds from your red ones and yellow ones now, and put out plants for your upcoming season , hopefully several plants of both presumed reds and presumed yellows, and see what you get.

As courtesy I think you should send some seeds for both the reds and yellows that you have now to Tom. You and TOm can communiacte via PM as to how many seeds Tom might want and then he can decide who he wants to send seeds to for trial if he wants to do that.

I think it's premature to make a general offer of seeds or to grant requests for seeds now and I think it's best if you carry on and Tom does as well, and Tom can gift those he wants to with seeds.

As I see it, it needs to be determined WHAT is going on genetically and determined first if what you have is stable. Once those questions are answered and then if it is genetically stable, you and Tom can go from there as to seed availablility.

Tom, Keith, how does that sound?

And I have to confess that I'm chuckling a bit right now, but just as Prue is Tom's tomato kid, I also have introduced a lot of my tomato kids as well, and I like being involved when it's MY tomato kids that do something unexpected, that's for sure. No human kids here, just two feline ones and neither one likes tomatoes.

[tjg911]

yes that sounds good to me. i agree it is too early to distribute seeds to the general public and i was uncertain whether to say that so thanks carolyn for doing it. i have to admit i am very curious to grow seeds from the yellow fruits and the red as well to see how they taste. i'll pm you keith. thanks carolyn for your input and help.

tom

[Darwin_NT]

Thank you Carolyn for your interest and help. I am now in talks with Tom and things will progress from here.
and hopefully there will be a new nice tasting tomato out there in a few years, by the way im a fan yours and have had your book since 2005 having now grown several varieties from the book.

[Ruth_10]

To me, the yellow fruits do not look like the typical Prue shape (they are too blocky). The reds do.

My two cents.

[tjg911]

ruth,

prue has variable shapes and the yellow do look like some prue i have grown. typically my prue are a bit longer than the yellow based upon the width at the shoulders and have more pronounced tip/nipple. but these are crossed by ybw (?) so any change in shape wouldn't surprise me tho they sure are not shaped like ybw at all.

tom

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by tjg911

ruth,

prue has variable shapes and the yellow do look like some prue i have grown. typically my prue are a bit longer than the yellow based upon the width at the shoulders and have more pronounced tip/nipple. but these are crossed by ybw (?) so any change in shape wouldn't surprise me tho they sure are not shaped like ybw at all.

tom

Tom, I still don't think it was an accidental cross pollination with Yellow Brandywine b'c as I said above, if any ovules in the tomato ovary of Prue are not self pollenized, which would give rise to true Prue seeds, the pollen of YB fertilizing the unfertilized Prue ovules would give rise to F1 seeds that would be give red fruited plants and I doubt that the fruit size and shape of those F1's would mimic Prue so closely.

let's just see what happens with the growouts.

[Ruth_10]

How about the possibility that Darwin's 2009 seeds were in fact F1 seeds? He grew out the seed, saved seeds from his 2009 fruits, and in 2010 is seeing the F2 generation.

If 2009 were his first year growing Prue, then comparing fruit shape and leaves to Prue would have to rely on memory and photographs, which is difficult for most of us to do accurately.

[doublehelix]

I want to put in my bit here too. I think that it is mathematically improbable for this to be any kind of cross, even if this is an F2. I say that because of 1.color, 2.fruit shape, 3.nipples, and 4.foliage. There might even be more. That's a lot of luck to ask for from a genetic standpoint. Also, as Carolyn said, somatic mutations are rare, rare, rare. As also noted, a somatic mutation would not affect the whole plant. I also might add that while accidental crossing does happen, even that is not common. It's even sort of difficult to cross pollinate(hybridize) when it is controlled and deliberate.

This is a mixed up seed or plant of some sort. I would suggest going back and looking at some of your trades from years past and either you will find a yellow heart, or someone that sent you seeds grows a yellow heart. I pick math and science when human hands are involved with any project. Laws of genetics and math never falter. If an errant cross and a somatic mutation are eliminated, which I think they should be, then we are left with human error. I bet there are literally hundreds upon hundreds of named varieties of tomatoes that exist by multiple names just because someone could not accept having a seed mix-up.

Take a look at this list and see if you remember wanting seed from any of these varieties. I bet the tomato in the pics you posted is on this list.

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Heart-Shaped_Tomatoes_by_Color

And just so you know, lots of us, self included, have had errant seeds or in my case completly forgotten that I planted a particular variety

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Ruth_10

How about the possibility that Darwin's 2009 seeds were in fact F1 seeds? He grew out the seed, saved seeds from his 2009 fruits, and in 2010 is seeing the F2 generation.

If 2009 were his first year growing Prue, then comparing fruit shape and leaves to Prue would have to rely on memory and photographs, which is difficult for most of us to do accurately.

Ruth, Darwin got the seeds from Ray in Australia and knowing Ray as many of us do, I doubt that the seeds for Prue that he sent to Darwin were F1 seeds.

All that he grew in 2009 were red and he assumed, I think probably correctly, that they were Prue based on what his knoweldge of Prue is.

If his saved seeds from 2009, the F2 seeds, now give two plants that many of us agree with are Prue and a yellow that many of us who have grown Prue think resemble the shape variability inherent with Prue, then I doubt that what he's seeing is genetic segregation.

Having dehybridized a few hybrids myself, I wouldn't expect F2 seeds to give me 2/3 plants the same as what we know the OP Prue to be.

it's a possibility, that's for sure, and it would all go back to what Ray sent him and only Ray could speak to that, not Darwin, and not any of us at this point.

Have to love a mystery, yes?

[carolyn137]

=original;183592]I want to put in my bit here too. I think that it is mathematically improbable for this to be any kind of cross, even if this is an F2. I say that because of 1.color, 2.fruit shape, 3.nipples, and 4.foliage. There might even be more. That's a lot of luck to ask for from a genetic standpoint. Also, as Carolyn said, somatic mutations are rare, rare, rare. As also noted, a somatic mutation would not affect the whole plant. I also might add that while accidental crossing does happen, even that is not common. It's even sort of difficult to cross pollinate(hybridize) when it is controlled and deliberate.

********

I just posted to Ruth and also said that I wouldn't expect F2 segregation to give what those three plants looked like and gave my reasons why.

Yes, I did say that somatic mutations were rare, and gave some examples that I've had in my tomato field, but I didn't say that a somatic mutation could not affect a whole plant. I said it was a theoretical possibility. It all depends on the position of the plant cell in which the mutation occurs .

But why not? A single branch of a plant can be different as a result of a somatic mutation, a single fruit, ala Yellow Riesentraube, can be different, so why not a plant cell lower down on the plant that then affects all subsequent stems that bear blossoms on that plant?


(This is a mixed up seed or plant of some sort. I would suggest going back and looking at some of your trades from years past and either you will find a yellow heart, or someone that sent you seeds grows a yellow heart. I pick math and science when human hands are involved with any project. Laws of genetics and math never falter. If an errant cross and a somatic mutation are eliminated, which I think they should be, then we are left with human error. I bet there are literally hundreds upon hundreds of named varieties of tomatoes that exist by multiple names just because someone could not accept having a seed mix-up.)

Please see my comments on what you wrote in the above paragraph in above posts that I did.

I am not convinced that human error is at work here.

And yes, there are varieties , especially older commercial varieties and the name has been lost and then renamed. The only way to dissect those types of issues is with DNA sequence analysis and since heirloom tomatoes are orphans, if you will, no one would pay the money to have that done. Although it has been done with some recent hybrids when a claim has been made by some commercial farmers against the seed provider that the variety sent wasn't the variety ordered.


(Take a look at this list and see if you remember wanting seed from any of these varieties. I bet the tomato in the pics you posted is on this list.

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Heart-Shaped_Tomatoes_by_Color

And just so you know, lots of us, self included, have had errant seeds or in my case completly forgotten that I planted a particular variety )

I don't think looking at Tania's list of heart varieties is going to help b'c those of us that know Prue well, I don't know if you've grown it yourself, and have grown it in some cases several times, seem to agree that SOME of the fruit shapes might well be heart shaped, but not that many. And Tom, whose family heirloom this is, also agrees with that interpretation in terms of variable fruit shapes being a feature of Prue.

I don't think Darwin got confused with any other varieties he might have grown in the past b'c these seeds were sent to him by Ray. And many of us here have known Ray, also in Australia, for many years.

I've never forgotten a variety I planted, never, b'c I keep very good records and make a plot plan of the plants in the field, but when starting seeds, which I used to do in those 20 row professional inserts when I was growing hundreds of plants and varieties each season, I have had seeds jump, if you will, when watering those trays.

Thus my continual admonition to everyone to know ALL the traits of ANY variety they grow, or plants they buy, as to plant habit, leaf form, fruit color, size and shape. Only by knowing that can one know if a variety is correct.

I see from your thread on the crimson gene that you appear to have a scientific background quite similar to mine. Sure, I taught human genetics as one of the many courses I taught, but not tomato genetics, that I've had to learn myself. And yes I've taught human diseases and immunology and more to med students, and even though I was raised on a farm where we had acres of tomatoes, I still had to learn a lot about tomato diseases and was blessed that the head of the local Cornelll Coop Ext was who she was b'c she had learned same from Dr. Tom Zitter at Cornell who is a well known tomato disease expert.

And onward we go.

[doublehelix]

Well Carolyn I guess I'm busted. Yes, I'm a lab rat. And yes, human genetics is not the same as tomato genetics. Too bad, or I would have taken a cutting from my busted up foot and rooted myself a new one. I won't hijack this thread with my history, but I might PM you so you can know a bit more about me. I wish I could PM you some dark chocolate too. Perhaps the people at Microsoft are working on that.

My statement to check the yellow hearts at Tatiana's was based solely on the photographs that were posted in this thread. It looked like a heart to me so I thought that would be a good place to start since I didn't think this was a mutation or a cross. Also, there is the old saying that if you hear the sound of hoofs don't think Zebras. Before I did a bunch of transhemispherical grow outs, I think it would be a good idea to at least take a look at the possibility of a mix up and the easy first step would be to look at yellow hearts at Tatiana's.

Here is what I think and it is not based on anything that I can prove and yes it is tainted by my understanding of human genetics and not tomato genetics but you asked "why not?" so here goes...I think in order for a somatic mutation to occur at such a level that the entire plant would show a different phenotype it would have had to occur very early on in cell division. In mammals this would result in a deleterious mutation almost 100% of the time. I am extrapolating, but I think if this occurred during the initial differentiation stages of the germplasm we would not be having this discussion because the plant would have died. But that is just speculation and we all know what speculation is worth. However, I still think that a stray seed turned up in a trade. I see hundreds of posts all over the internet where something someone got in a seed trade did not grow true to form. Mutations in any species is a rare thing. Accidentally mixing up a seed in an envelope, not so rare. I don't think this is a Zebra.

I too map out my growing area when I plant so I don't forget. However, when I mentioned the "forgotten" variety it was actually a little plant of Yellow Pear that I had picked up at the local hardware store and I completely forgot that I had planted one. I grow everything from seed but made an impulse buy with the little lonely Yellow Pear that no one wanted. I didn't remember until I saw the fruit that I had stuck it in the ground. I ran a retail nursery for several years so I learned quickly about working with seeds. I was very meticulous at planting times because a mix up means either a non sellable item or an upset customer. Now I'm just a home gardener, but I never work on more than one variety at a time and clean up my area before I start on another variety. I always water from the bottom until the cotyledons emerge.

Doc I like our little exchanges. You are SO helpful and very often funny. I like that in a human. Not so much in a tomato.

[fortyonenorth]

I'm curious if there are any observations regarding Yellow Prue following 2011 grow outs.

[Suze]

Originally Posted by fortyonenorth

I'm curious if there are any observations regarding Yellow Prue following 2011 grow outs.

IMO, and I could be wrong about this - Craig L/nctomatoman to my mind probably has the best selection to go forward with on this "Yellow Prue."

I got correct/expected plant habit, fruit shapes and the yellow color, but not quite the taste that Craig did. (and Craig and I tend to have fairly similar opinions/palates on tastes of yellows, so I really think what he grew was not = to what I grew). What I got was rather mild. And I had a darned good season for taste, no excessive rain (in fact really no rain at all!), well amended beds, the rest of the varieties in my garden (for the most part) tasted great.

I personally think that "yellow prue" is a cross of Prue with something else, and is segregating at this point. Meaning I do not think this is any sort of mutation. Various reports I have heard about on this grow out indicate differences in flavor even if the shape and color is correct, some bicolors, other results too that I don't quite recall at this point...

Hopefully others who have grown Yellow Prue (working name) will chime in and share their impressions and results as well.

Edit- here is a photo of fruits from my grow out (edit x 2 / for the record -this had a yellow epidermis too):