HX-9 Tomato Clade

[joseph]

HX-9 tomato thrilled me more than any other among the 62 F2 hybrid tomatoes that I grew this year. It has many traits that are expected to be stable because they are due to recessive genes. I'm expecting to share seed later this fall as part of the Open Source Seed Initiative. I'm creating this thread as a public place to discuss the variety and it's evolution.

Breeding Goal

The primary goal of the breeding project that created HX-9 Tomato, was to obtain short-season promiscuously-pollinating determinate bicolor tomatoes that can ripen in Cache Valley.

Origin of Material

The tomato variety Jagoka was identified during a frost/cold tolerance trial as being a variety that grows very well and is highly productive in Cache Valley. Its flowers were highly attractive to bumblebees. It is determinate and bears very early red saladette sized fruits. Jagodka was originally developed in Russia. It is currently my main market tomato.

The heirloom tomato variety Hillbilly (or Virginia Sweets) is a super-long season indeterminate beefsteak that has bicolor (red/yellow) fruits and an open flower structure, making it in theory more susceptible to promiscuous pollination.

A Hillbilly flower was manually pollinated with pollen from Jagoka. The F1 was selfed.

Description and Selection Process

HX-9 Tomato originated from one F2 plant. This plant was selected from the F2 offspring because it combined a whole string of recessive traits that the project was hoping to achieve: Determinate growth habit, bicolor fruits, open flowers, and exerted stigma (all fixed recessive traits). Additionally, the plant was the earliest to produce fruit, and the most productive overall. The fruits were large. It had a showy floral display, and big flower petals. Days To Maturity, fruit size, and productivity are QTL traits, so ongoing segregation in those traits is possible.

HX-9 Tomato

[nicollas]

Great news !

I dont want to hijack your thread so feel free to answer by PM or new thread if it is the case, but, if the OSSI fits well with your ethic, it seems contradictory to your sense of giving priority to genetic over labels (be it variety labelling or paperwork burden). If your seeds are OSSI, you'll have to share seeds with the OSSI pledge, as all others creating varieties or sharing seeds from it. As an IT guy i'm a big advocate of OS software and standards, but sticking on seeds and genetic material makes me feel uncomfortable.

[joseph]

I'll be paying close attention to how cumbersome the OSSI pledge is to me.

I feel perfectly fine about donating my varieties to the public domain. I don't like the part of the OSSI pledge that purports to bind the recipients of seed to the pledge... OSSI asked me to donate some varieties. I have had close ties with some of the members of the board for years, and I respect the members I know immensely. Others on the board are legends in the seed breeding culture: The kind of people that I like to associate with. As far as I can tell, the pledge is not legally binding. It's more of an ethics statement made by seed breeders and by the seed companies that collaborate with them. It provides a simple mechanism to share varieties and royalties.

[bower]

Joseph, the HX-9 is a great find. I'm wondering if it is fully determinate, ie the same leaf-cluster-leaf pattern and number as Jagodka parent, or whether it is 'semi-determinate' ie having terminal buds (sp/sp) but longer stems with 6 or more clusters on the main before termination.

I'm asking because my determinate X indeterminate crosses produced semi-determinate offspring in F2 and the F3 I grew this year was also continuing to segregate for growth habit - each plant having a unique cluster/leaf pattern. I haven't seen any F2 or F3 that were simply determinate. However I didn't have a large number of F2's as you did.

[joseph]

In this clade, I had 2 plants out of 18 which I classified as determinate. There were 3 plants which, for lack of a better name I called "Compact Indeterminate". They had indeterminate growth habit, but very short internodal distances.

Next time I'm in the garden I'll try to compare/contrast the growth pattern of the F2 with Jagodka.

[joseph]

The inflorescence pattern on HX-9 Tomato at the end of a stem is Fruit-Cluster, Leaf, Leaf, Terminal-Fruit-Cluster.

Another plant from this clade has a less clear pattern. The above pattern exists on some branches, but one branch also has a pattern of Fruit-cluster, Leaf, Fruit-Cluster, Leaf, 2 Fruit-Clusters and a Leaf.

Jagodka also has a mixed pattern, with 2 to 4 fruit clusters per stem, with leaves in between the fruit clusters, terminating with a fruit cluster. But then many of the leaf nodes sent out shoots, and those shoots had 2 to 3 fruit clusters on them following a Fruit-Cluster, Leaf, Terminal-Fruit-Cluster pattern. It's like it's lacking apical dominance... No wonder it is so productive!!!

[bower]

Yes, this is something I noticed with several "determinate" or "semi-determinate" types - that there's a base pattern followed by the "terminal bud" pattern, and then another axillary shoot forms and repeats the pattern.

It sounds like your F2 have a diversity of growth habit going on, as I saw in mine.

I've been thinking about different ways of visually representing the patterns (without getting it done to my satisfaction yet); anyway here's one representation of the jagodka pattern in my growout this year.
The "N" column is the number of leaves before the first cluster on the main stem - this I've read elsewhere is under separate genetic control.
My Jagodka had seven leaves, then cluster-leaf-cluster, followed by 5 leaves, cluster - terminal cluster (with a leaf). And the side shoots had the same pattern of 5, cluster-terminal cluster.

I didn't get more repeats on the main stem, but it sure did crank out the side shoots without end.

[joseph]

In my notes I was using a similar nomenclature:

L for leaf,
F for Fruit-Cluster.
LS for leaf with a shoot coming out of it...
Then for the ones were several things seem to originate from the same node I munged them together...


So (perhaps the main) stem I listed as

LS,LS,LS,LS, F, LS, FFL

One of the side-shoots was:
L, LS, F, LS, F, LS, F

Another side-shoot was:

L, LS, F, L, L, F, L, FFL


It worked OK for simple cases, but sometimes a leaf and a flower cluster came out of the same node, or the flower cluster came out of the petiole of the leaf...

[bower]

LS- cool and useful. I didn't make note of the placement of shoots in the leaf axils, but it's important to get a better picture overall of the productivity of a plant like Jagodka. I was assuming that most leaves would sooner or later produce a shoot from the axil (other than terminal leaf, which was a wrong assumption since they sometimes produce a shoot from the axil after all). I also noticed that some leaves on the main stem prior to the first cluster didn't produce a shoot in semi-determinate plants... this surprised me, I expected them all to do it.

I hear you about the simple cases vs the not so simple. And the exceptions.
I now understand why the genetics of growth habit haven't been studied in so much depth. Counting internodes is a really hard job. And then there are exceptions, variations, etc. which can't be covered by a simple notation. Forks are another one that turned up here...

[joseph]

I have seed available for sharing of HX-9 tomato. Send me a SASE to obtain seeds. Send me a personal message to get my address if you don't have it already.

HX-9 tomato is the star-child of my attempts to breed a population of promiscuously pollinating tomatoes. The anther cone is open and the anthers are loosely attached to each other. The stigma is exposed. It has a bold floral display, and the flowers are open to the sky and not buried in foliage. It is determinate. The extra-large fruits are bi-colored: red and yellow. Taste is great. One of the parents of the cross from which HX-9 was derived is Jagodka, a Russian variety that took the grand prize a few years ago in my trials of cold tolerant tomatoes. Jagodka is my primary market tomato. HX-9 takes after Jagodka by being early and highly productive. HX-9 is highly susceptible to cross pollination. Promiscuous pollination is what makes this variety unique. Closed flowers are a dominant trait. Therefore any offspring that have closed flowers are off-type and should be culled. Bred by Joseph Lofthouse.



These seeds are pledged to the Open Source Seed Initiative. Only request them if you agree to the pledge. The OSSI Pledge: You have the freedom to use these OSSI-Pledged seeds in any way you choose. In return, you pledge not to restrict others’ use of these seeds or their derivatives by patents or other means, and to include this pledge with any transfer of these seeds or their derivatives.

[joseph]

duplicate post, sorry

[bower]

Joseph I'd love to grow this tomato of yours, but not yet clear if there's a fit for the plan next year.

I actually have a lot of work to do on the greenhouse this winter, won't really know before february how well along that is and what I'm going to fill my containers with.
I bet my Mom would like to try a promiscuous pollinating tomato in her garden though.

[joseph]

I have an abundance of seed, so don't be shy. If not this year, then maybe next.

[bower]

Good to know. I'll send you a PM when I figure it out.

[Keen101]

Originally Posted by joseph

I have seed available for sharing of HX-9 tomato. Send me a SASE to obtain seeds. Send me a personal message to get my address if you don't have it already.

HX-9 tomato is the star-child of my attempts to breed a population of promiscuously pollinating tomatoes. The anther cone is open and the anthers are loosely attached to each other. The stigma is exposed. It has a bold floral display, and the flowers are open to the sky and not buried in foliage. It is determinate. The extra-large fruits are bi-colored: red and yellow. Taste is great. One of the parents of the cross from which HX-9 was derived is Jagodka, a Russian variety that took the grand prize a few years ago in my trials of cold tolerant tomatoes. Jagodka is my primary market tomato. HX-9 takes after Jagodka by being early and highly productive. HX-9 is highly susceptible to cross pollination. Promiscuous pollination is what makes this variety unique. Closed flowers are a dominant trait. Therefore any offspring that have closed flowers are off-type and should be culled. Bred by Joseph Lofthouse.



These seeds are pledged to the Open Source Seed Initiative. Only request them if you agree to the pledge. The OSSI Pledge: You have the freedom to use these OSSI-Pledged seeds in any way you choose. In return, you pledge not to restrict others’ use of these seeds or their derivatives by patents or other means, and to include this pledge with any transfer of these seeds or their derivatives.

Joseph, I understand the intent of this to be promiscuously pollinated and highly attractive to pollinators and i support that goal wholeheartedly. But, since it is meant to be promiscuously pollinating and most tomatoes out there right now are not, then shouldn't closed flower types be a sign that it has naturally crossed to another variety and that those plants should instead of being culled they should be isolated and screened in future generations for something new but that eventually regains the recessive open flower trait?