Looking for help in growing out tomato crosses

[FredB]

I breed tomatoes and other vegetables for a hobby, and I’m finding that I have a lot more going on than I can deal with as a backyard gardener. I would like to find collaborators who could grow out some of these crosses. Here is what I would propose:

It’s clear that the time and effort that would be required to commercialize my crosses is far beyond what I have available, so I’ve decided that whatever I send out will be “open source”, in other words, you can keep whatever you grow out and do what you want with it. If by some miracle a variety does go commercial, I’m sure there should be an equitable way to divide all the windfall profits.

When I send out a cross, this is what I would expect in return:
1. Report back on how the cross performed, including appearance, taste, disease resistance, variability, etc.
2. If one or more plants meet the breeding objectives, save seed and send some back to me. If possible, bag or otherwise self-pollinate the plant to avoid cross-pollination.
3. If you find something unexpected, it’s up to you what to do with it, but I would of course like to hear about it and/or get seed. Many of the crosses are between different colors and sizes, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see unusual colors, shapes, etc.
4. I’ll be listing a few stable varieties. In these cases, you can do whatever you want with them, although I would appreciate any feedback you might have.

I can’t guarantee that these lines will always be what I think they are. In some cases, I ran out of time and couldn’t bag them, so I just saved fruit and counted on natural self-pollination, which in my experience is a bit iffy even for varieties with internal stigmas.

Rather than starting a bunch of different posts, I thought I would add posts to this thread describing different varieties. Tomatovillians can either reply publicly or PM me. Does this sound reasonable?

[FredB]

Sumo

Sumo is a very large red beefsteak. It comes from a cross between two heirloom varieties, Enormous Plum and Florida Pink. I have grown it in isolation for 10 generations, each year taking seeds from the plant with the largest fruit, and at this point it seems to be stable. I get tomatoes up to 3 lb under crowded, suboptimal conditions, and I would bet it could get considerably larger when thinned and given plenty of space and sunlight. It is meaty with very few seeds.

I would like people to try it and let me know what they think.

[FredB]

Due to some recent distractions (among other things, I became a grandparent for the first time), I dropped the ball on listing the varieties/projects I would like to share. For many people, it’s probably too late to grow these varieties this year, but I would like to at least get the ball rolling by listing them, if only as a preview of next year. I’ll describe each variety/project as a separate reply to this thread.

[FredB]

Sweetest Volunteer

Every year I get thousands of tomato plants that come up volunteer from fruit that fell the previous year. One year, I let a bunch of volunteers grow and kept seed from the plant with the sweetest fruit. I have self-crossed the line 9 times since then, and the variety seems quite stable. It is a ½” cherry tomato, red with orange skin, extremely sweet with a touch of honey-like flavor.

Early blight cut short a lot of varieties in my garden last year, but Sweetest Volunteer kept going. The leaves still had damage, so the perseverance of this variety might come from ability to outgrow the disease as opposed to actual disease resistance.

This might be a good parent for crosses. When crossed with a large variety like Rose or Big Zac OP, the F1 gives a saladette sized fruit that seems halfway between the two parents in terms of sweetness.

I’m provisionally calling this variety Sweetest Volunteer based on its origin. I’m not wild about the name (it sounds like it’s describing a nice lady who works for the United Way campaign), so if you try it and can think of a better alternative, I’d like to hear it.

[FredB]

Sungold dehybridization

I haven’t been satisfied with any of the available open-pollinated versions of Sungold Hybrid, so I’ve been working on developing my own lines. The original F1 would appear to be a cross between an orange (dominant gene) and a red (recessive gene) variety, because red-fruited plants often show up in the F2 and later generations. For some reason, I have had better luck stabilizing the supersweet flavor in the red lines than in the orange ones, so what I have after self-crossing 6 times is a ¾” red cherry. I rate it as at least as sweet as the Sungold F1, with some of the distinctive Sungold flavor. The foliage doesn’t have the typical fruity Sungold smell. Based on 2014 results, I believe the variety is finally stable and would welcome feedback on this point.

I think this variety could be an excellent parent for making hybrids. In 2013, I crossed this line with Djena Lee’s Golden Girl (a largish orange heirloom); the F1 was 1 ¾”, red, and very sweet. [By the way, I have F2 seeds of this cross if anyone is interested in growing it out. I am interested in selecting for sweetness, flavor, and larger size.]

[FredB]

PI 422397 (S. pimpinellifolium) X Brandywine cross

This cross has produced a multitude of different types, some of which I’ll describe below. I originally made this cross because PI 422397 was described in the USDA database as having resistance to Septoria leaf spot. In my hands, the Septoria resistance of the F1 wasn’t that great, but the breeding project veered off in a different direction when I noticed that the F1 was unusually sweet, reminiscent of Supersweet 100. Apparently many of the commercial supersweet cherry tomatoes are crosses between S. lycopersicum and S. pimpinellifolium, and I had unwittingly duplicated this result. However, because I used Brandywine instead of a cherry as the S. lycopersicum parent, my F1 had saladette-size fruit. The tomatoes were unusual in other ways: the color was a very intense red, and there was also a very intense tomato flavor, more like tomato paste than fresh tomato. I set about trying to stabilize these traits.

Line #1. At the F3 generation, I had one plant with small beefsteak tomatoes. The flavor was even sweeter than the F1, and the intense tomato taste was also present. It also had the soft, melting texture of Brandywine. The color was a very bright red, coming from a combination of intensely red flesh and red skin. Because the color looked almost like red enamel, I tentatively named this line “Fire Engine”. Unfortunately, this combination of traits has been difficult to stabilize, and several sub-lines have run into dead ends, usually from inability to maintain the supersweet trait. I still have some sub-lines that might be worth continuing, but in the meantime I have gone back to the F2 to try to reboot the project (see Lines #2 and 3 below).

Line #2. Starting from a regrow of the F2, I found an F3 that was round, 2”, with the intense taste and color of Line #1 and with fairly good sweetness. The objective here will be to stabilize the above traits and if possible to select for even greater sweetness, like in Line #1.

Line #3. This F3 had 4” beefsteak fruit with clear skin and intense red flesh. The result was a spectacular red lipstick color. Unfortunately, an attempt to bag the flowers to prevent cross-pollination failed, so the only seeds I got were from an open-pollinated fruit that seems to mostly have cross-pollinated. I’m going to try more of the F4 seeds to see if any came from self-pollination, and I’m also going to grow more plants from the F2 that this variation came from, to see if I can repeat the same combination of traits.

It looks like I am going to need to try out larger numbers of plants from all three lines, so let me know if you would like to grow out one of these.

[FredB]

Sweetest Volunteer X Big Zac OP

The F1 of this cross was a 2”, round red tomato. The taste was sweeter than any commercial variety of this size that I am aware of. As with the parent Sweetest Volunteer, there appeared to some ability to tolerate early blight. I have F2 seed, and the objective would be to stabilize the above traits.

[FredB]

Sweet Pea (S. pimpinellifolium) X Brandywine

Sweet Pea is a very sweet currant tomato, about ¼” in size. I crossed it with Brandywine with the purpose of incorporating the sweetness into a larger size tomato. I have F3 seed from a plant with ¾”, dark red, very sweet fruit. The objective for the current year is to get a larger size while maintaining the sweetness. I would also be on the lookout for the soft texture of Brandywine, and there may be some plants with pink fruit.

[FredB]

Sungold Red OP X Djena Lee’s Golden Girl

I mentioned this one under the Sungold dehybridization project. I have F2 seed, and the objective would be a supersweet tomato of saladette size. From the F1 results, it appears that the orange color in Djena Lee comes from a recessive gene, so there may be some plants with orange fruit in the F2 generation. I would like to find lines with each color.

[LindyAdele]

Fred, how many plants would you require each person to grow out? I have liited garden space, but could probably manage two plantsof one variety. I realize that isn't much.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by FredB

I breed tomatoes and other vegetables for a hobby, and I’m finding that I have a lot more going on than I can deal with as a backyard gardener. I would like to find collaborators who could grow out some of these crosses. Here is what I would propose:

It’s clear that the time and effort that would be required to commercialize my crosses is far beyond what I have available, so I’ve decided that whatever I send out will be “open source”, in other words, you can keep whatever you grow out and do what you want with it. If by some miracle a variety does go commercial, I’m sure there should be an equitable way to divide all the windfall profits.

When I send out a cross, this is what I would expect in return:
1. Report back on how the cross performed, including appearance, taste, disease resistance, variability, etc.
2. If one or more plants meet the breeding objectives, save seed and send some back to me. If possible, bag or otherwise self-pollinate the plant to avoid cross-pollination.
3. If you find something unexpected, it’s up to you what to do with it, but I would of course like to hear about it and/or get seed. Many of the crosses are between different colors and sizes, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see unusual colors, shapes, etc.
4. I’ll be listing a few stable varieties. In these cases, you can do whatever you want with them, although I would appreciate any feedback you might have.

I can’t guarantee that these lines will always be what I think they are. In some cases, I ran out of time and couldn’t bag them, so I just saved fruit and counted on natural self-pollination, which in my experience is a bit iffy even for varieties with internal stigmas.

Rather than starting a bunch of different posts, I thought I would add posts to this thread describing different varieties. Tomatovillians can either reply publicly or PM me. Does this sound reasonable?

Fred, For several years I have had an Experimental section in my annual seed offer here and folks such as Steve Whiteaker ( Double Helix, Travis, Sam Womack, Lee, of J and L gardens, etc., have sent me seeds to distribute.

If you look at my 2014 seed offer of 2014 you'll see that I send out 6-10 seeds, if fresh, and more if needed.

http://tomatoville.com/showthread.ph...014+seed+offer


My 2015 seed offer should have gone up this past january but for medical reasons I couldn't do it so I hope to get it up early this summer and there will be four wonderful crosses from Paddy included.

With few exceptions I have been underwhelmed with feedback, and of course also the persons who did the crosses are as well and I always put up a Fall feedback thread as well.

All to say that I think you are being perhaps too optimistic in the requirements you posted.

And nowhere do you say that if someone follows through with a selection then gets to name it and that's a concern of mine, and a large one since one can get stable selections with all different names from a single original cross.

You also said you wanted to get some of them commercial, in time, and that's an even larger barrier IMO, but there are a few ways of possibly circumventing that.

So basically you want folks to do the growouts for you b/c you don't have the space to do so yourself. Is that it? and you will be the one naming stable selections, I'm not sure about that b'c you said nothing about folks taking what they like of selections and growing them out to stability.

Some folks only have room for a couple of plants each year, as you saw in that seed offer, but is it acceptable to you if they do a couple of plants each year.

Having been through all of this before, as regards my seed offers, as well as making selections of my own from known or accidental X pollinations, I thought it might help to share with you what to expect and what not to expect.

Hope the above helps,

Carolyn

[carolyn137]

Having been through all of this before, as regards my seed offers, as well as making selections of my own from known or accidental X pollinations, I thought it might help to share with you what to expect and what not to expect.

&&&&&&&&

Fred, since I haven't seen you come back and post here I certainly hope you didn't think I was discouraging you from wanting to do as you outlined above.

I was trying to alert you to some problems that might arise since for you it's the first time doing this and for me it's been many times doing it.

Carolyn

[crmauch]

Fred,

I'd like to help out, contact me via PM.

Chris

Originally Posted by FredB

I breed tomatoes and other vegetables for a hobby, and I’m finding that I have a lot more going on than I can deal with as a backyard gardener. I would like to find collaborators who could grow out some of these crosses. Here is what I would propose:

It’s clear that the time and effort that would be required to commercialize my crosses is far beyond what I have available, so I’ve decided that whatever I send out will be “open source”, in other words, you can keep whatever you grow out and do what you want with it. If by some miracle a variety does go commercial, I’m sure there should be an equitable way to divide all the windfall profits.

When I send out a cross, this is what I would expect in return:
1. Report back on how the cross performed, including appearance, taste, disease resistance, variability, etc.
2. If one or more plants meet the breeding objectives, save seed and send some back to me. If possible, bag or otherwise self-pollinate the plant to avoid cross-pollination.
3. If you find something unexpected, it’s up to you what to do with it, but I would of course like to hear about it and/or get seed. Many of the crosses are between different colors and sizes, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see unusual colors, shapes, etc.
4. I’ll be listing a few stable varieties. In these cases, you can do whatever you want with them, although I would appreciate any feedback you might have.

I can’t guarantee that these lines will always be what I think they are. In some cases, I ran out of time and couldn’t bag them, so I just saved fruit and counted on natural self-pollination, which in my experience is a bit iffy even for varieties with internal stigmas.

Rather than starting a bunch of different posts, I thought I would add posts to this thread describing different varieties. Tomatovillians can either reply publicly or PM me. Does this sound reasonable?

[FredB]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Fred, For several years I have had an Experimental section in my annual seed offer here and folks such as Steve Whiteaker ( Double Helix, Travis, Sam Womack, Lee, of J and L gardens, etc., have sent me seeds to distribute.

If you look at my 2014 seed offer of 2014 you'll see that I send out 6-10 seeds, if fresh, and more if needed.

http://tomatoville.com/showthread.ph...014+seed+offer


My 2015 seed offer should have gone up this past january but for medical reasons I couldn't do it so I hope to get it up early this summer and there will be four wonderful crosses from Paddy included.

With few exceptions I have been underwhelmed with feedback, and of course also the persons who did the crosses are as well and I always put up a Fall feedback thread as well.

All to say that I think you are being perhaps too optimistic in the requirements you posted.

And nowhere do you say that if someone follows through with a selection then gets to name it and that's a concern of mine, and a large one since one can get stable selections with all different names from a single original cross.

You also said you wanted to get some of them commercial, in time, and that's an even larger barrier IMO, but there are a few ways of possibly circumventing that.

So basically you want folks to do the growouts for you b/c you don't have the space to do so yourself. Is that it? and you will be the one naming stable selections, I'm not sure about that b'c you said nothing about folks taking what they like of selections and growing them out to stability.

Some folks only have room for a couple of plants each year, as you saw in that seed offer, but is it acceptable to you if they do a couple of plants each year.

Having been through all of this before, as regards my seed offers, as well as making selections of my own from known or accidental X pollinations, I thought it might help to share with you what to expect and what not to expect.

Hope the above helps,

Carolyn

Carolyn –

Thanks for the comments, I was hoping you would chime in. You bring up several important issues.

Expectations. I tried something like this with some of my melon breeding projects about 15 years ago through a note with my listing in the Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook. I got a few responses, but they tended to be one-offs and I often didn’t get much feedback. I was hoping that the community aspect of Tomatoville might lead to better engagement. So far, I have seven PMs, which exceeds my expectations.

Commercialization. I sent several varieties to Johnny’s last year and was disappointed with the feedback I got. Johnny’s is interested in commercial characteristics such as crack resistance that are beyond the scope of what I’m trying to do as a hobby. So I decided to forego any aspirations toward commercialization and go “open source”. I suppose I should never say never, but commercialization doesn’t look like an option at this time.

Naming. I hadn’t thought of the issues you bring up. It does seem fair that the person who finds and stabilizes a particular type should get to name it, but as you say this could lead to confusion if several lines from the same cross end up with different, unrelated names. My suggestion would be to post the proposed name on Tomatoville so there could be public discussion and a written history of where the variety came from.

If people can only grow a couple of plants, I would suggest they try one of the stable or near-stable varieties. It would be helpful to learn how they perform in different locations and whether they are truly stable. There are three listed: Sumo, Sweetest Volunteer, and Sungold Red OP.

I would definitely like to list various breeding lines in your offering. I presume it’s too late for this year, but I anticipate having plenty of interesting stuff at the end of the 2015 growing season.

Thanks again for the advice,

Fred

[bluee19]

FredB ~ Congratulations on being a GRANDPA!! Enjoy the grandbaby because from my own experience, babies grow up too fast. Take care!!