Husky Red Dwarf and Gold

[BVGardener]

Anyone grow these before? I'm growing both this year and have grown Husky Red Dwarf a few times. I found the red version to be near bullet proof and super high on fruit production. I'm thinking about growing these out to a stable version while trying to keep the attributes associated with growth habit and fruit numbers. Then maybe cross with another variety to enhance the flavor.

Jay

Edit: I just realized that this post does not belong here.

[nctomatoman]

Moved it for you, Jay.

I've known about the Husky series for years - really the only recent development in Dwarf varieties, and released as hybrids. I've not tried them, but playing around with them may be fun....not for me, though - too much on my plate already!

[jcmorse33]

Last year I grew Husky Gold in a 4 gallon self watering container with a 1/2 gallong reservoir that I filled twice a day. For me it was enormously productive and fairly tolerant of early blight (the only disease I saw last year) until things got really hot and I couldn't keep up with the watering. At that point it (and all other container plants) pretty much shut down and started looking really ratty. In addition to overall production, fruit size was actually much better than the tag at the nursery stated for me. I was getting 1 lb fruit on a regular basis from it. Of course that could partially be due to the self watering container set up, the favorable location (full sun from sun up to sundown), and the extremely good weather we had in Central VA last year. Flavor was fairly good... better than Lemon Boy to my taste buds. But not as good as Kellog's Breakfast or Pruden's Purple which were the two OP varieties I was growing last year.

I actually saved some seed from it with the thought that I might try stabilizing it someday, but with all the favorable reports coming out of the dwarf project and my own limited growing space I put it on the backburner in favor of helping with growouts of some of the more interesting dwarf project varieties.

--Justin

[Wi-sunflower]

If anyone is interested, I have F-3 seed for Husky Pink and Husky Cherry Gold. I also have F-2 seed for H. Red, H. Gold, and H Cherry Red.

I have grown all of them in 2-3 gallon nursery pots at 1 time or another and they are OK to good plants.

I also have F-2 and F-3 seed for several other commercial Dwarfs including Pixie II and Orange Pixie. Personally I think Orange Pixie has better flavor than H C Gold.

I will be continuing to grow them out but I don't do any crossing myself.

[jackdaniel]

Wi,

I'm definitely interested to hear your experiences dehydridizing. I'm trying to do something like this myself. Right now I'd growing out pure strains to determine my favorite taste/flavors, then will cross. Do you have any notes or recommendations for dwarf crosses or dehybridizing?

[Wi-sunflower]

I have not done any deliberate crosses myself. I've gotten a few accidental crosses that I mostly just discarded as they weren't anything to speak of.

But with the growing out , just keep growing and rouging out anything that doesn't look right. Personally for most of the hybrids I've grown out, I've seen little to no segregating. That leads one to believe that many hybrids aren't true hybrids at all but stabilized hybrids. I put up a page on my web site about that with quotes from the book Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties by Carol Deppe - http://knapps-fresh-vegies.netfirms....mato-info.html

If possible collect from several plants and keep some of the F - 2, 3, 4, etc, seed if possible, including some F-1 if still around. You want to be able to check the growing characteristics against something known. The reason is also you can go back if you have a problem.

Personally I was growing out Early Cascade for several generations. This year I started getting some PL plants in the latest seed I have. I think it's from mixing 2 batches of seed and 1 might have been mis-labeled. So I planted something from the 5 other batches of seed I have. I will grow them all out to compare and will save only from a batch with NO PL plants. I will have lost a grow-out or 2 but should still have something beyond F-2 seeds.

Good Luck growing,
Carol

[jackdaniel]

Originally Posted by Wi-sunflower

That leads one to believe that many hybrids aren't true hybrids at all but stabilized hybrids.

Can you elaborate on this? Awesome link. Probably deserves its own thread!

I'll have to make some more room for this project and make sure to segregate. Good advice. Thanks!

[Wi-sunflower]

If you read the linked page, that pretty much says it all.

Basically when a seed company has a popular hybrid, it has to be produced in a third world country with cheap labor for the hand polination. But since tomatoes generally don't show "hybrid vigor" as crops like corn do, there really isn't a reason to make the F-1 every year. So the companies grow the cross out to stability but don't bother to tell the general public. That way they still get the higher price for the "hybrid" but don't have the higher cost any more.

As usually it's ALL ABOUT THE MONEY.

In the quotes from Carol Deppe's book I believe Sweet Million (maybe Sweet 100) was one of the first varieties found out. There are a couple of cherry tomatoes that are the "de-hybridized" offspring. Peacevine I think is one.

I'm going from memory on this as I'm not sure where my book is right now.

Carol

[jackdaniel]

Great article. Surprised no one posted this before. Or, at least, I haven't read it before! Thanks.

[Wi-sunflower]

Thanks.

You really should get the book.

The quotes I took are from the original edition. There is a newer version out that I don't have. I'm pretty sure SSE lists it and I know it's on Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Breed-Your-Own...9960661&sr=8-1

I'm not Carol Deppe, but I am the one that wrote the page listed above, in answer to "how can I sell seeds saved from hybrids".

I'm sure I generalize a bit about hybrids not always being true hybrids. Most of us have seen that Sun Gold and Sun Sugar ARE true and complex F-1 hybrids. Also many newer F-1s haven't been grown out to stability YET. But if a variety has been around for at least 10 years, chances are good that it's been stabilized by the seed company itself already.

JMO, YMMV,
Carol Knapp

[carolyn137]

Carol, I'd like to offer a different point of view.

Carol Deppe wrote that first edition what, about 10 years ago and she was a strong collaborator with Alan Kapuler as you kbnow from her book.

My point? Both are quite anti-hybrid. Now I'm not saying that there weren't some hybrids from way back that might have been basically OP's, that was then, this is now.

(Also many newer F-1s haven't been grown out to stability YET)

Such as? I don't know of any released hybrids that aren't stable. And I mean ones that are released by the likes of Tokida, Taketa, Harris Moran, Goldsmith, petoseed and on and on. Their reputation is based on the genetic stability of their hybrid tomato varieties. I can't say the same for some hybrids released by amateur home growers, some of them any way, but heck, that's lots of fun to do.

I've successfully dehybridized Ramapo F1, an older hybrid and fooled around with dehybridizing Big Boy as well, to get out the,one parent Teddy Jones. I also dehybridized an F1 hybrid from an accidental cross that led to the selection OTV Brandywine. And I attempted to dehybridize a deliberate crosss between Galina X Black Krim.

But getting back to the more common hybrids that so many know of, there's no way that I would equate an F2 or F3 or whatever with an original hybrid b'c one can only LOOK at it and taste it, taste being individual and perceptual, but genes segregate and new combos are made and you can't see the gene segregation unless you grow out a lot of plants.

Right now Reinhard Kraft in Germany is making some selections from some deliberate crosses he made to get some new colored hearts. He sent me the F2's for just a quick look, but at each selection he grows out at least 20 plants to compare before making the next selection.

And the new dwarf varieties that folks here have been working on that are stable or close to it were sent to two folks with lots of land to grow out many many plants of each one for genetic stability assessment.Have you had a chance to read the excellent article about gene segregation that Keith Mueller wrote and has at his website?

Gene segregation happens when saving seeds from a hybrid, whether it's a commercial variety or a home developed one or an accidental one.

I just made a seed offer for some very new hybrids in the Trade section of the seed exchange and I wrote a short paragraph there in my last post talking about saving F2 seeds since a couple of folks had asked me about it in their e-mails to me. In short, I said that F2 seeds don't come true, meaning, gene segregation separates chromosomes and puts them back to gether in new arrangements in the F2 and subsequent selections, and since those new varieties have some very special disease tolerances bred in there's no way of knowing what anything beyond the F1 might have.

I know what I've said is contrary to what you've posted and based most of what you say on Carol Deppe's comment, but as I said, she was and probably still is quite anti-hybrid and at the time it was said that the big seed companies were ripping off the public by releasing basically OP's and passing them off as hybrids at a higher price. I don't think many would agree with that assessment now/

And I'm not the only one who thinks as I do about trying to equate F2,3 4, whatever generation, with an original hybrid until every seed saved gives the same exact plant and fruit at which time it can be named with a new name b'c it no longer what it once was. And that usually takes 4-10 years to do depending on the specific parentage of the original hybrid and the specific genes being selectged for.

Please just read Keith Mueller's explanation of gene segregation in tomatoes and maybe think about the experiences that I and others have had making selections from accidental X pollinations, known F1 hybrids or the many folks now who are doing deliberate crosses.

Two good examples are the natural cross between Brandywine and Tad that gave us Lucky Cross and Little Lucky, and several folks are still working on selections from that cross and I'm growing one this year called Striped Sweetheart. And then there's the deliberate cross between brandywine and Neves Azorean Red that's also giving lots of interesting selections from the hybrid, all based on gene segregation..

Just some stuff to think about.

And here's the link to Keith's website:

http://www.kdcomm.net/%7Etomato/index.html

Click on Tomato Culture and look at the bottom two links. There's lots and lots of resource information at his site that you won't find elsewhere as easily as you will there.

[Wi-sunflower]

Hi Carolyn,

I know I rather generalized about the Hybrids.

But (Also many newer F-1s haven't been grown out to stability YET) by that I didn't mean the Hybrids themselves. I meant that those newer hybrids haven't been around long enough that they have been grown out to "OP stability". Sorry for not being clear about that.

I don't have time right now to read all the references you posted. But I will some evening.

I know it's a complicated issue.

The hybrids that I've grown out myself have largely seemed to grow the same as the parents. I know that doesn't mean they are identical to the original hybrid. But close enough for people looking for something the seed companies have discarded such as your Ramapo.

I have seeds for about 1/2 dozen varieties you can't get any more. I've grown many plants for those varieties as I have plenty of land available to me, 100+ acres. Are they EXACTLY like the original ? Maybe, maybe not. But they are varieties some people are still looking for but the seed companies don't want to bother with any more. That's where some of us "amature" growers fill a gap.

The Huskies, the original subject of this thread, are some varieties that seem to be on their way out if not already discontinued. There were 5 varieties at 1 time, but now it's hard to find more than 1 in any of the catalogs. I've grown several of them to F-4 and saw no difference so far. Perhaps I will in the next grow-out, maybe not.

Carol