An interesting breeding possibility

[Fusion_power]

Seed planting for my first round of seedlings which includes the cold tolerant lines is now complete. Here is what I have started to this point.


PI 120256, Barnaulskiy Konservnyi, Belye Nochi, Boney M, Erlinorth, I-2, I-3, Kemerovets, Krainiy Sever, LA0490, LA0716, LA1777, LA1926, LA1940, LA1941, LA2144, LA2175, LA2409, LA2552, LA2567, LA2574, LA2722, LA2776, LA2777, LA2781, LA2812, LA2855, LA2860, LA2861, LA2864, LA2869, LA2951, LA2963, LA3866, LA3874, LA3883, LA3969, LA4104 Sucr, LA4135, LA4231, LA4232, LA4233, LA4235, LA4236, LA4237, LA4238, LA4239, LA4241, LA4242, LA4243, LA4244, LA4245, LA4246, LA4248, LA4249, LA4251, LA4252, LA4253, LA4254, LA4256, LA4257, LA4259, LA4261, LA4262, LA4264, LA4266, LA4267, LA4268, LA4269, LA4270, LA4271, LA4272, LA4276, LA4278, LA4280, LA4282, LA4284, LA4310, LA4313, LA4314, LA4323, LA4326, Leningradskiy Skorospelyi, Nevskiy, Nikola, O-33, Picket, Sasha's Altai, Spiridinovskie, Sub-Arctic Plenty,


Some of the above are standard tomato varieties that are included to provide a control baseline against which to evaluate the cold tolerant lines. There are several lines that I will be evaluating that are not in the above list because they are standard varieties that I am growing as part of my seed starts for plant sales.

I have several more varieties of early maturity and/or cold tolerant varieties that will be planted as soon as one last shipment arrives. I expect to put in about 36 more varieties which will be one more full tray of seed.

DarJones

[bower]

I'm glad to see you have included LA2951, the one that was reported strongly resistant to botrytis in the paper you linked in 'Winter Reading' thread.

Growing in a cold, wet, low light climate here, it's botrytis that kills the plants under those conditions, before the temperature is low enough to damage the plant by freezing.

There's a substance in tomato blossoms that stimulates the growth of botrytis. I had a disaster in 2011 (coldest wettest spring and summer ever) when a plant that set a lot of blossoms also dropped them in the cold (Peacevine cherry) and the mouldy blossom drops infected foliage and stems wherever they fell. Some other cultivars did not drop their petals cleanly after setting fruit, which resulted in botrytis on the fruit blossom end. So the blossom characteristics are something I watch closely when trying new varieties that have to tolerate this climate. Besides not dropping the whole flower in the cold, petals that drop clean when fruit has set is a helpful trait (Stupice and Moravsky Div are a good example). Botrytis resistance has never been documented in tomatoes, afaik, although Black Cherry blossoms seemed to have much lower susceptibility to the mould cw others, the plant itself was just as susceptible via pruning cuts etc. The LA2951 traits would certainly be a boon for your cold weather tomato.

[Fusion_power]

Note that LA2951 is pretty much useless for breeding work. I included LA4233, LA4237, LA4242, LA4268, and LA4269 because between them they contain the most relevant genetics for botrytis tolerance and they are in introgression lines that allow relatively easy incorporation into tomato breeding work.

DarJones

[Redbaron]

Good Luck Dar

[Fusion_power]

Today I received the last shipment of seed I had requested in order to work on cold tolerance. I will be planting a second round of seed this weekend.

I have an offer for those who would like to participate in this breeding program. I have a reasonable quantity of F2 Kimberly X Eva Purple Ball seed that I can send out to up to 10 people who are interested in growing them. The objective will be to stabilize a line that produces Eva Purple Ball size tomatoes on a Potato Leaf plant and that exhibits precocious blooming.

I have a second offer for anyone willing to do some actual breeding work. I have several lines of cold tolerant tomatoes and several desired crosses. If you are willing to grow plants in 2012 and make one or more crosses, then I will provide you with seed to do so. Please note that I would appreciate seed returned to me next year, but you would be welcome to save as many seed as you desire to do your own selection for cold tolerant tomatoes.

If you are willing to do either of these, then please send me an IM stating which you are willing to do and I will set up a shipment of seed to you.

DarJones

[goodwin]

Dar -

The cold tolerant seeds you sent came today and I'm starting them this evening. It is a remarkably complete selection. I'll keep you posted on germination and numbers.
Here are photos of some of the accessions I have going so far. They are not all for the 'cold project' but show some of the diversity in related species. The fuzzy one is L. esculentum but might be useful.

Lee

[Redbaron]

Those are quite unusual looking Dar! Keep posting!

[bower]

Seeds arrived today Dar - thank you! I've been scouring the net for information about them. I'm really thrilled to try out the B. Cinerea tolerant accessions and the powdery mildew tolerant S. Pimpinellifolium looks wonderful! L. taurica was a real plague towards the end of last summer.
I found the article you mentioned about PI 120256, it is quite amazing to find L. esculentum from Turkey ranking in the top ten among the other species for cold tolerant growth. They've got some good genes going there.
http://journal.ashspublications.org/...6/679.full.pdf
You might find this interesting as well, looking at lycopene levels and antioxidant activities in different accessions including PI 120256, which describes the fruit "very large". l'm reckoning on a large, vigorous plant from this one.
http://journal.ashspublications.org/...5/704.full.pdf
Also the Pimpinellifoliums have three times the lycopene as regular tomatoes, wow!

I'm wondering how LA4233 and LA4268 are doing in your cold tolerance tests? I'm planning to do several waves of planting this year, starting with the most cold tolerant plants, get one each of them into the greenhouse when day temps are 50 F and keep data on the temperature and their progress. If they're not super cold tolerant, it'd be better to start them with the second wave. (It'll still be cold, don't worry! )

[Fusion_power]

I potted up the tomato seedlings for this project today into cell trays (48 cells per) and will be doing the first round of cold tolerance testing within the next 2 weeks. I know from experience that tomato plants do NOT handle double shocks very well. They have to recover from losing most of their roots first then hit them with cold temps.

DarJones

This is one of the trays of S. Lycopersicum seedlings that I potted up today. There is another partial tray that I will finish filling up with prospective cold tolerant lines. If you note the slight blur in the upper right corner, that is from moisture condensing on my camera lens. The temperature in the greenhouse was 41 degrees. I will expose these plants to progressively colder temps as they become acclimated.


And this is a photo of the two trays of S. Lycopersicoides, S. Habrochaites, and S. Pennelli lines that I will be evaluating. These will be potted up Monday. If you look closely at the left tray near the center of the image, there are several cells that look empty. Those are the cells where I planted pure S. Lycopersicoides lines for evaluation. They germinated over the last 3 days which is a bit over a month since the seed were planted.

[bower]

My farmer partner has offered to do a field trial of 40 plants this summer, from the cold tolerant varieties I have seed for. They must be determinates because some kind of low hoops/row cover will be used for protection. Those plants will be started latest, for transplant late may/early june. (frost free date here is June 6).

The earlier cold tolerance trial will be in my attached greenhouse, unheated but still far ahead even of the farm greenhouses. I will post my data.

[Fusion_power]

I completed potting up the 2 trays of introgression lines and wild tomato species in the pic above. There were several interesting observations along the way. Most of the wild species have unusual and repulsive odors. Anthocyanin content in the Lycopersicoides introgression lines is very high on average. This is unusual given that the repetitive parent - LA0490 - is relatively low in anthocyanin. I suspect that there are multiple genes triggering anthocyanin in Lycopersicoides. I will watch these as they grow to see how the anthocyanin pathway segregates.

DarJones

[Eirik]

This thread was just mindblowing!
I really hope you will find some good lines!

[goodwin]

Dar -

I had a bit of trouble germinating some of the seed you sent and I made the mistake of using seed starting mix left over from last year which sprouted mushrooms! However, I have at least one of each of the varieties potted up now. I'll get some photos this week.
In the meantime, the other varieties I had started earlier are bearing. Several made it through a 28 degree chill. Here's one of the Pearly Pinks setting fruit and a Koralik inflorescence. These are still in one gallon pots, but I hope to set them out Tuesday. It was down to 11 last night and is supposed to drop to 14 tonight before beginning to warm up.

Lee

[Fusion_power]

I'm getting results finally. Leaf Margin Necrosis is one symptom of cold temperatures. It appears to be linked to roots unable to absorb nutrients at low temperatures. The plants show varying levels of LMN from 100% to none. The Russian varieties are running about 30% healthy plants. The wild species are showing varying levels of damage with a few S. Pennelli lines and one of the S. Lycopersicoides lines looking best. I will try to get pics later today when the light is bright enough to show the contrast.

DarJones

[bower]

Here are some pictures of my trial plants so far, mostly started February 28.

PI 120256 was one of the first to germinate (2/2), shown below next to Stupice, with Siberian Pink in the front row next to LA1478 (Pimpinellifolium) which germinated a full 15 days later (1/2) and was just potted up 2 days ago, still quite tiny and looking a little stressed. This is a cool room with no heat source except the fluorescent light.

The second picture shows the determinate group, with PI120256 and LA1478 at the end of the row. There's a lot of difference in size, partly due to germination times but by now a fair comparison of vigour. From left to right:

1. Glacier (PL) at the back, with an RL seedling presumed Glacier cross in front of it
2. Beaverlodge Plum, very large and vigorous seedlings, at the back.
Petrusha Ogorodnik in front of it was started a week later March 6 and is catching up. It's a new Altai selection with 6 oz pointed pink fruit.
3. Danko at the back; Siletz in front was late germinating.
4. Kimberley at the back; Cold Set in front was late germinating.
5. Sophie's Choice at the back is huge; Alaska in front, also a bit slow germinating.
6. Al Kuffa at the back has a very sturdy stem. Early Cascade F1 in front, later.
7. Zolotoy Zapas at the back; Zolotoe Serdtse in front.
8. Stupice back, Siberian Pink in front.

The third pic shows one of each, of thirty varieties successfully started. The white tub are the medium sized fruit group, all started March 6: Rozoviy Flamingo, Lotos, Pale Perfect Purple, Pervaya Lyubov, Black Russian, Eva Purple Ball. Pervaya Lyubov is the large PL in the middle - way ahead of the others.
To the right of PI 120256/LA 1478 are Zolotye Kupola/Serdtse Dezdemony, Yaponskiy Krab/Indian Stripe, all started March 6, and Black Early/Oaxacan Jewel from Feb 28 at the end of the row. Overall, Eva Purple Ball and Indian Stripe are the runts of the litter - they were included in the grow for tolerance of humid conditions, rather than earliness or cold tolerance.

I had a couple of no-shows and failure to produce a viable seedling, including the Lycopersicoides accession. 1/2 seeds did germinate and produced a very fat radicle but then stopped growing, failed to emerge, and eventually perished.

This was my first time trying to germinate old tomato seeds, so I read up on it and used the method of pre-soaking in a weak fish emulsion solution, for Early Cascade, Cold Set, Siletz, and LA 4268 as well. Cold Set and Siletz germinated 1/2 with some signs of cotyledon damage but by nursing along with fish emulsion produced true leaves and viable seedlings. Early Cascade germinated 4/7 with 3/4 viable. I have no idea why the LA4268 sprout failed to grow, although it's possible the soil was too wet or cold. I read afterwards about the natural habitat of Lycopersicoides, they get a blast of rain and freezing temps in the winter and then have many months of drought. Possibly watering and/or a cold night in combination aborted the germination process by simulating a return to 'winter'.

I'm thinking to try the bleach method recommended by TGRC, and keep the soil a bit dryer than I would for a tomato.
Also thought about using a method I've used for other dormant seeds - use a handful of snow for the initial soak water as it melts, then plant and, in this case, keep watering to an absolute minimum to simulate natural conditions for the plant.
Any advice or other suggestions would be welcome.