Crnkovic Yugoslavian x Jaune Flammee

[jmsieglaff]

May 2018 was very warm here, May 2019 and June have been cool. In looking through this thread, I see pictures from similar dates in 2018 and my plants compared to last year are half as big and only the first flower clusters are setting fruit, compared to multiple clusters having set fruit by this time last year. Things are growing nicely and setting fruit, just much slower than usual. It does look some warmer weather ahead, so growth should speed up, especially with the longest days of the year.

[jmsieglaff]

Fruit set on the various plants 6/25/2019

Awesome! I love F2 hybrids. I'm also very interested in your cross. Did you say what the F1 tasted like? I missed it, if so.

If you want someone else to grow out more F2s (or F3s) next year, I could probably do at least one to three plants and return seeds I save to you. We definitely need more large, prolific tomatoes with the beta carotene gene out there.

[briancook]

keep it up!!!!!

[jmsieglaff]

The F1 was delicious--much like Jaune Flammee, with a bit more sweetness from Crnkovic. Texture was very good with plenty of juice, which I like. I'm growing a plant of the F1 again this year because it was so delicious and also as a comparison point. I'll keep you posted if I want anyone to grow more out.

[jmsieglaff]

A few notes on plant observations thus far.

All F2s have very similar habit, fruit size, and number of fruit per cluster, very similar to the F1 in fact. I'm sure I'll get some subtle differences in size from the various plants, but nothing that looks like it will be getting close to tennis/baseball sized. Not that I expected that with only growing 5 F2s.

4 of the F2s have dark green shoulders, 1 F2 are uniformly light green (like JF).

I'm excited to see what the F2s bring, I suspect I'll start getting ripe fruits starting in about 7-10 days given the cool start to the growing season here, although the last 7 days have been very warm and humid.

[hl2601]

I love the dark green shoulders! Thanks for keeping us up to date with all your pics. It is fun to follow.

[jmsieglaff]

Boy oh boy did reporting on these get away from me in 2019. I grew 1 F1 and 5 F2s. The F2s were in general rather similar, all orange-ish, like the F1, except 1 was much more red. The fruits were all tasty but nothing was knock your socks off incredible--I guess I'm a tough judge. One issue with the F1 in 2018 was it put on tons of tomatoes but was somewhat susceptible to foliage fungal issues. In 2019 the F1 and all the F2 exhibited similar behavior, good early flushes of fruit, then susceptible to foliage issues and production really dropped off a cliff. I did not save seed from these in 2019, as I found nothing especially unique or remarkable. I'll continue to grow some F2s going forward, although I don't know if I'll devote as much of my limited indeterminate space to them. Just wanted to drop an update for anyone interested.

[bower]

Sorry to hear it didn't work out. Sounds like you didn't get a full Beta orange this time. I've had that happen, where 5 isn't enough to get the "one in four". It's a bit of a lottery really. You may grow two plants another year and get lucky!

[Nan_PA_6b]

Originally Posted by bower

Sorry to hear it didn't work out. Sounds like you didn't get a full Beta orange this time. I've had that happen, where 5 isn't enough to get the "one in four". It's a bit of a lottery really. You may grow two plants another year and get lucky!

I've done the math (yay, math!) on this. For something that happens 50% of the time, or 1 out of 2, you should grow 6 of them to be (virtually) assured of getting what you want. For something that happens 25% of the time, or 1 in 4, you might need to grow 16 to be virtually assured of getting what you want.

I was breeding lovebirds in a past life, and the 15th baby from one pair turned up blue, when all the rest had been green. I went back to the source of my breeding pair, and asked if they had any recessive blue genes; turns out they did. (Meaning, the blue babies should occur on average 25% of the time) He marveled that I had gotten no blues until the 15th baby, but the statistics support it.

Nan, bower, and jmsieglaff,

This reminds me of how there are multiple kinds of random.

There's a kind which doesn't really seem to exist much, if at all, in nature (in the context I mean; it perhaps exists in other contexts). It's kind of like an even distribution with a randomized order. So, no number gets generated a disproportionate amount of times, and so basically all numbers eventually get generated. And you're very unlikely to ever see the same number 3+ times in a row (if it's even possible). I'm not sure why this methodology is considered more random than the next method, but it is. I can, however, see why it's popular (it makes fairness a lot easier, in many contexts), but to me, it's less random because it's more predictable (in that you can essentially rule out a number of outcomes); plus, it requires planning and memory (to know which things have already been generated).

Another method is basically the same one you get with a physical dice roll. It's technically possible to roll the same number an infinite number of times (were it possible to roll them infinite times), but the odds are pretty slim. So, with this method, you have a chance at getting the absolute best and worst outcomes. With the other method, you always get something in between, wherein you have more than a certain number of generations.

[jmsieglaff]

I love the parents and the flavor of the F1, so I'm not going to shut the door, but I'll slowly continue to grow a couple F2s each year and eventually something will come along that will grab my attention. I like to think I have many decades left on this rock, so I've got the time to be patient. Who knows maybe 2020 will bring that winner!