Yellow Currant???

[Gardenrube]

Last year our gardening organization planted 100 red currant seeds and grew to plants, out of that lot we planted probably 10 in our garden.

The weird thing was that 1 plant out of the bunch gave us small yellow/golden tomatoes. The plants and fruits on the other nine next to them looked exactly the same, except they were red. The yellow plant also was a considerably smaller and had a bit of disease on it.

I first thought they were just unripe when I saw the gold color so I picked some and let them sit in my office for a few days to see if they would pick up any red....they didn't. I tasted them and they were quite good. I had to wait about 2 weeks for the reds to ripen and did a side by side taste test. The yellows seemed a tad bit less acidic than the reds but almost identical flavor wise.

I saved seeds from some of the yellows and grew out 5 of them. So far they all seem to look exactly the same and have the same looks as last years reds.

I have 2 questions: Will the fruit on these be red or yellow? and is this just simple mix up of one seed at the seed company? (I don't remember the source although it came from a Martha Stewart pack sold at K-mart.)

Any insight on this will be appreciated!

[Gardenrube]

Originally Posted by Gardenrube

Last year our gardening organization planted 100 red currant seeds and grew to plants, out of that lot we planted probably 10 in our garden.

The weird thing was that 1 plant out of the bunch gave us small yellow/golden tomatoes. The plants and fruits on the other nine next to them looked exactly the same, except they were red. The yellow plant also was a considerably smaller and had a bit of disease on it.

I first thought they were just unripe when I saw the gold color so I picked some and let them sit in my office for a few days to see if they would pick up any red....they didn't. I tasted them and they were quite good. I had to wait about 2 weeks for the reds to ripen and did a side by side taste test. The yellows seemed a tad bit less acidic than the reds but almost identical flavor wise.

I saved seeds from some of the yellows and grew out 5 of them. So far they all seem to look exactly the same and have the same looks as last years reds.

I have 2 questions: Will the fruit on these be red or yellow? and is this just simple mix up of one seed at the seed company? (I don't remember the source although it came from a Martha Stewart pack sold at K-mart.)

Any insight on this will be appreciated!

I see i didn't mention it but the yellow variety had identical fruit size and the leaf shape/structure was also identical.

[remy]

Hi GardenRube,
There is a Gold Currant tomato so it is quite possible that was a stray seed mixed in with the red ones last year.
This year, you may get all yellow, or a mix of red and yellow if there was cross pollination in your garden last season. Currant types are known to cross pollinate easier with each other than regular tomatoes. Probability is low that they would all be crossed so I can't see you getting all red.
Hope that helps,
Remy

[Gardenrube]

Originally Posted by remy

Hi GardenRube,
There is a Gold Currant tomato so it is quite possible that was a stray seed mixed in with the red ones last year.
This year, you may get all yellow, or a mix of red and yellow if there was cross pollination in your garden last season. Currant types are known to cross pollinate easier with each other than regular tomatoes. Probability is low that they would all be crossed so I can't see you getting all red.
Hope that helps,
Remy

I only picked 6 or so fruits off the yellow plant so they should only be F2's. Last years seeds were purchased from a commercial seed vendor, not seed that I saved, so I didn't cross them. If they are all yellow it is probably just a stray seed, no?

[remy]

Hi again,
I think you misunderstood me. Last year you would of gotten a stray seed of probably Gold Currant being they looked exactly like the regular red currant. You saved seed from that. You will probably get Gold Currant again, but last year you grew both the red and gold together. Currants are know for easy cross pollination. So you might of had some hanky panky going on between your plants. If this happened, you would get red and gold this year. The reason you would get red and gold is one, like I said before, not all the seeds would crossed so some would still be yellow, and two, red is dominant so any crossing would show up as red.
Hope that clears it up,
Remy

[Gardenrube]

Another update: I grew out 5 plants from seed i saved and all five are yellow/gold. They still look just like the red currant in size/shape/leaf type. They have a nice flavor too!