SFT x with ?

[cdntomato]

Phffft Stupice. It tastes great when compared to Silvery Fir Tree. :wink: How about proposals for what to cross SFT with to get a more palatable (to me) tom with that beautiful foliage?

Why are there apparently no other varieties with this ornamental foliage? Is Russian 33 another perhaps or is it SFT with yet another name?

Jennifer

[nctomatoman]

Keith, Silvery Fir Tree is not the Wooly (fuzzy) one, but the variety with the carrot-like, very finely divided foliage (it is also called Carrot Like - it was under that name I trialled it in the early 1990's).

[Fusion_power]

Smoky Mountain Red is one example of a fuzzy variety with heavy pubescence on the leaves and stems. The fruit are not fuzzy.

[Fusion_power]

I think it comes closes to Wom.

I will try to take a few pics when my plants get going.

Fusion

[bowtie]

Here's SFT (Martino's Roma is to the right, for comparison):



Also, from the korney19 seed page, SFT:

[travis]

I received a little pack of SFT from Bully and germinated about a dozen seedlings. I think I have ten remaining after giving a couple away. All my SFT seedings' foliage looks identical and all are growing with identical characteristics similar to the ferny looking foliage shown here and at commercial catalogs for SFT.

When I was looking through thousands of seedlings at big box stores and nurseries for potato leaf seedlings in Early Girl six-packs, etc., I came across a single ferny looking seedling in a four pack of Husky Red Cherries.

I now have that seedling at home still potted up only to a four inch cell and waiting until it stops storming to put it out in a large container with three SFTs I have in 5-gallon pots.

So far the unknown Ferny One has foliage that looks very much like the 10 SFTs, but the individual leaf segments are about half the width of any of the SFTs' and the overall appearance is slightly "grayer," and much wispier or even "fernier" than the SFTs. It also has not spread out quite as much as the SFTs seem to want to spread. Like it is more erect and wants to hold its leaves a little closer to the main stem.

Otherwise, the Ferny One appears about the same age as the SFTs I germinated, and I would've thought it would look pretty much identical if it were SFT.

Anyway, time will tell. I will have pictures, but I haven't had time to upload any of my other pictures to a hosting page on my Website, so it may be a while.

Other than the slight foliage variation, and other than when it bears fruit, is there any other way to determine whether this single plant is other than SFT?

PV

[travis]

Update.

The one SFT from Bully's seeds that is showing absolutely rampant growth, I put in a pot and kept it here at home. I planted a few others out in a plot behind a friend's construction shop. And I gave several away to friends which I'll check on from time to time.

The SFT in the pot at home is growing rampantly and I've had to sucker it repeatedly, although I've let several suckers and side shoots grow out. It's absolutely covered with flowers right now. Basically it looks like the SFT pictured in this thread above, but a little more twisted ... I mean the stems have more bends in them I guess since it's growing so rampantly and all the growing tips are lookin' for sun.

The very wispy thing that looks like SFT I found in the tray of cherries is sitting in a pot right next to the SFT. It's equal in height and growing totally erect, arrow straight, and on a single central growing stem with no side shoots. Only very diminutive suckers have appeared and they didn't grow enough to even pinch off. I've left them alone and they are only about a half inch long even though some of them are over two weeks old. By comparison, the side shoots and suckers on the SFT grow so rapidly that I have trouble keeping it sufficiently suckered.

On the wispy thing, a small cluster of diminutive flowers appear every second leaf, and the flowers have only five pedals each while the SFT flowers are very robust with six and seven thick pedals each and a much huskier anther cones.

Also the foliage of the SFT is much more verdant, thicker, and denser than this little wispy thing, but both have almost identical leaf shapes with the only difference being that the SFT's leaves are thicker, greener, and more abundant and the wispy one has grayer, thinner, and much fewer leaves.

Both are in the same soilless mix and have been fertilized and watered the same.

As to the original question ... what to cross SFT with ... I say cross it with Variegated. Does anyone have Variegated in the garden? Have you noticed how the stems are pale green, nearly cream colored on the side of the stem leading up to the same side of the plant that has the cream colored leaves? And the other side of the stem is regular green? This would be doubly weird in SFT.

I have one Variegated with what I think is an extreme amount of cream foliage. In fact, everyone who has seen it thought it was sick or something. But the leaves are all healthy lookin' with the exception of its pale, sickly color. I'll try to do a cross. Wish me luck.

PV

[Patrina_Pepperina]

Good luck PV

[travis]

"What I think would be interesting and completely plausible would be to cross SFT with a multiflora trait variety such as Rose Quartz Multiflora." [Keith]

Keith, I really think I have one great SFT because of its extremely bushy appearance. The others I started just didn't express like this one particular one did. Hopefully, its exuberance will carry on in the seeds. It should produce some really great stock for containers. It's currently thriving in a 4 - 5 gallon container and completely covered in blooms and buds.

But I don't think my RQM is all that multifloral. At least it hasn't expressed it yet (unless I mixed it up when I planted it because the Sun Gold sittin' right next to it is covered with flowers ... does SG produce long trusses?)

I only have one RQM at home, one at the construction shop, and a couple at friends' homes. Maybe one of the others will express more multifloral and I can give it a shot at crossing with the SFT.

But I do have several dwarves available to try a cross with SFT ... Lime Green Salad, mixed Long Island Seed Project dwarves, Pixie Peach, and Heartland F1. I'll give it a shot, Keith. I wasn't all that nimble with crossing last year. I'll be more diligent this year.

Keith, regarding crossing SFT with Variegated you say, "likely but with such fine leaves would the variegation even show up that much?"

With the one plant I mentioned that is showing a large amount of cream foliage, and lookin' real close at it, I'd say that large portions of single SFT leaves and possibly significant areas of foliage would express the cream splotching if the gene were expressed across the SFT foliage even at 50% of what it's showing on the original Variegated. And if the cream-green striations would express up the sides of the SFT stems, they would be very visible since the SFT stems are really much thicker and stumpier than the Variegated stems.

Again, I should be taking pictures of these things I'm trying to describe. I'll do it this weekend. But I may need some help gettin' them posted up. Hate to say it but I really detest my new Dell and the photoshop it came with. My old Compact and its photoshop was so darn easy.

PV