Sokolades PL or RL ???

333.okh · April 15, 2011

Well I ordered seeds for Sokolades and the first 5 seeds that I germinated are all regular leaf and not the advertised potato leaf! Should I be concerned or is this typical.

Seeds come from Adaptive Seeds...

Suze · April 15, 2011

I am not familiar with Sokolades, but did do a quick google search.

From what I could find, it's definitely supposed to be PL. Edited to add, I'm sure this isn't news to you of course. It does sound like a rather interesting variety.

**carolyn137** · April 16, 2011

Do you remember the long thread about this at the SSE message site where I referred you to Tania's site and discussed with you about where your seeds came from etc.? Your last post in that thread was on April 14th, 2011 when you said that all your seeds were giving you RL plants.

I'm not going to transfer that whole thread here but will just cut and paste my comment to you from one of several posts I did about this variety:

(What you have is Sokolades, first listed in the Yearbook in 2009, source was an SSE member in OR and described as pink/black fruit, ind.,4-10 oz and says RL. Another person lists it and says indet, PL, large beefsteak plant, brown red fruit, not prolific, from Irish Seed Savers Association and said to be a Latvian heirloom, which I would disagree with rather vigorously, actually.

So maybe not quite stable as to leaf form right now, since the person listing it as RL is a VERY experienced grower whom I know well.
Aha, I looked up the SSE member from whom this person got seeds and it's the owner of Adaptive Seeds in OR, a site I'm not all that comfortable with, just my opinion. So what Adaptive seeds may be sending out is a genetically not yet stable variety with respect to leaf form, so it seems.)

This all came up in a thread where folks were posting their growout lists and I asked about Sokolades b'c I had a variety from Andrey that was spelled almost the same. But in doing some background research I disovered that Sokolades and what I had were two quite different varieties.

So if the owner of Adaptive seeds is sending out seeds for this variety that are RL and not PL, or one or the other, I think he's the one you should be interacting with and the other info I posted in that SSE thread as well as the above does indicate, at least to me, that this variety is still genetically unstable.

Hope that helps.

333.okh · April 16, 2011

Sure does Carolyn....They have not responded to my emails...hmmm...surprised? I think they are off my list of seed sources, but I did get Galina's yellow and another small red from them that are supposed to be PL....I will be starting them soon.

**carolyn137** · April 17, 2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by 333.okh

Sure does Carolyn....They have not responded to my emails...hmmm...surprised? I think they are off my list of seed sources, but I did get Galina's yellow and another small red from them that are supposed to be PL....I will be starting them soon.

Yes, Galina's Yellow is PL and what's the name of the small red that's supposed to be PL?

333.okh · May 3, 2011

Deutsche Fleiss

333.okh · May 7, 2011

Funny stuff....My second batch of Sokolades is all PL.................BUT I decided to grow some more Soldacki recently [3rd round] and they are really whispy RL?

These Sokolades this time have heavy stalks and nice PL leaves.....I definitely have a batch of unstable genes like Carolyn said.

**carolyn137** · May 7, 2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by 333.okh

Funny stuff....My second batch of Sokolades is all PL.................BUT I decided to grow some more Soldacki recently [3rd round] and they are really whispy RL?

These Sokolades this time have heavy stalks and nice PL leaves.....I definitely have a batch of unstable genes like Carolyn said.

Where are the Soldacki seeds from?

It should be indet, with PL leaves, large pink beefsteaks, seeds to me from Carmen Artino, a fellow faculty member where I last taught and seeds brought from Krakow, Poland to the US in about 1900 by his wife's family.

So yes, I know it very well.

333.okh · May 8, 2011

Honestly? I think I got them from WinterSown SASE two years ago. I just had a handful of them left and planted them. Different batch than the ones I planted from Tomato Growers. They are weeping willow looking with RL. It will be interesting what they turn out to look like...

**carolyn137** · May 8, 2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by 333.okh

Honestly? I think I got them from WinterSown SASE two years ago. I just had a handful of them left and planted them. Different batch than the ones I planted from Tomato Growers. They are weeping willow looking with RL. It will be interesting what they turn out to look like...

Yes, honestly.

All the seeds offered at wintersown are excess seeds sent to Trudi and she clearly says that she's not responsible for the varieties being true. There's no way she could b'c some folks bag blossoms, some not, some help to ensure seed purity by grographic isolation, most don't.

As a matter of fact most folks don't do anything to help ensure seed purity, and this is a general comment, so when in doubt about a variety or seeking more info start out at Tania's Data base and if she hasn't got a page for it then I'd go a Googling if it were me.

Soldacki does not have wispy foliage, it has sturdy PL foliage. So there's no way you're going to know what you have with the wintersown seeds as I see it.

333.okh · May 9, 2011

Personally I love Trudi and what she is doing so I do not mean harm or see the need to defend such a great project. Why would I in some way hold her responsible for the purity of FREE SEEDS??? When stating HONESTLY? It was because I was unclear where they had come from not trying to offend honestly!

At this stage I will take off and let everyone know on a different thread how things turn out this year.

**carolyn137** · May 9, 2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by 333.okh

Personally I love Trudi and what she is doing so I do not mean harm or see the need to defend such a great project. Why would I in some way hold her responsible for the purity of FREE SEEDS??? When stating HONESTLY? It was because I was unclear where they had come from not trying to offend honestly!

At this stage I will take off and let everyone know on a different thread how things turn out this year.

OK, you've misread me completely.

When you said "honestly" I thought you were referring to the traits of the variety Soldacki itself and had nothing whatsoever to do with Trudi or wintersown.

So why would I even think that you were holding wintersown responsible for anything? I've known Trudi for over 10 years and I think she's doing a service by distributing seeds that folks send to her and I was simply pointing out in an above post that some of them may not be true to type, which she knows as well which is why she puts her disclaimer there for all to see.

There's no reason for you to take off at all. THe problem was you thinking that I interprested your word honestly as related to Trudi's wintersown when indeed all I was doing was reviewing the traits for Soldacki as you can see if you go back and read what I posted.

So you can use this thread to update folks on what you do get this year, not a problem with me and shouldn't be a problem with you at all either.

Misunderstandings happen all the time.

dice · May 9, 2011

As far as bee-made chance crosses in not bagged seeds, I have
2 seedlings out of 200 that are definitely wrong (wrong leaf
type in what should be a PL plant, my own saved seeds). I have
2 more where out of 4 seedlings of nominally the same variety
(from a trade), I have 2 that have standard RL leaves, and
2 more that seem to have a "semi-RL" leaf (serrations but on
wider leaves on a shorter seedling).

4 out of 200 seems to me a reasonable percentage for chance
crosses. In those cases, I also have other seedlings with the
correct leaf type for the cultivar, which is what usually happens
with bee-made crosses. When you plant the seeds and every
one comes up with the wrong leaf type, something else has
happened.

Either there was a seed mixup in the history of those seeds
somewhere, or someone at some point saved seeds from
a plant of a different cultivar (or from a chance F1) and marked
it with that name. If the fruits on the plants with the wrong leaf
type vary from one plant to another, someone probably grew
a chance F1, did not realize it was wrong, and saved seeds
from it. If the fruits are all the same on all of the wrong leaf
type plants, someone grew a plant of some other stable
cultivar and simply mis-marked the seeds with a wrong name.

It could have happened last year or 10 years ago.

**carolyn137** · May 9, 2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by dice

As far as bee-made chance crosses in not bagged seeds, I have
2 seedlings out of 200 that are definitely wrong (wrong leaf
type in what should be a PL plant, my own saved seeds). I have
2 more where out of 4 seedlings of nominally the same variety
(from a trade), I have 2 that have standard RL leaves, and
2 more that seem to have a "semi-RL" leaf (serrations but on
wider leaves on a shorter seedling).

4 out of 200 seems to me a reasonable percentage for chance
crosses. In those cases, I also have other seedlings with the
correct leaf type for the cultivar, which is what usually happens
with bee-made crosses. When you plant the seeds and every
one comes up with the wrong leaf type, something else has
happened.

Either there was a seed mixup in the history of those seeds
somewhere, or someone at some point saved seeds from
a plant of a different cultivar (or from a chance F1) and marked
it with that name. If the fruits on the plants with the wrong leaf
type vary from one plant to another, someone probably grew
a chance F1, did not realize it was wrong, and saved seeds
from it. If the fruits are all the same on all of the wrong leaf
type plants, someone grew a plant of some other stable
cultivar and simply mis-marked the seeds with a wrong name.

It could have happened last year or 10 years ago.

Dice, your X pollination percentage is exceedingly low but I think that's b'c of where you live in the PNW.

Cross pollination percentages can range from 0 to up to 50% and there are many many many variables.

There's a great article at SESE written by Dr. Jeff McCormack, the former owner, that discusses NCP ( natural cross pollination) in detail and another really good one that's a FAQ at GW, which I'll link to here, but the SESE one is much more detailed.

http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/t...852004159.html

No two seasons are the same b/c insects that do the crossing, sweat bees primarily but others can do it, don't fly much in bad weather and it depends on the specific pollinator frequency in an area and so much more.

While it's true that for the most part tomatoes sef pollenize, that doesn't always happen and there are weather factors that cause a normally placed stigma to exhert which then makes it to be located above the pollen bearing anthers making those blossoms more susceptible to X pollination.

my own rate here in the East is about 5% and has stayed pretty stable through the years, and to me that's good news b'c of all the years I was growing hundreds of plants and varieties each season and there was no way I could bag blossoms on that many plants.

So be lucky you do live in area where in general the Xing rates are low.

dice · May 10, 2011

It could be partly an electric toothbrush effect. I often
get to just opened blossoms before the bees. But I had
low cross-pollenation numbers before I ever heard of
artificially vibrating the flowers, too, so it is probably mostly
environmental.

There could still be a couple more RL x RL crosses, too, which
I would not notice until the fruit ripened.

April 15, 2011	#1
333.okh Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2010 Location: NorCal Posts: 110	Sokolades PL or RL ??? Well I ordered seeds for Sokolades and the first 5 seeds that I germinated are all regular leaf and not the advertised potato leaf! Should I be concerned or is this typical. Seeds come from Adaptive Seeds...

April 16, 2011	#3
carolyn137 Moderator Emeritus Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Upstate NY, zone 4b/5a Posts: 21,169	Do you remember the long thread about this at the SSE message site where I referred you to Tania's site and discussed with you about where your seeds came from etc.? Your last post in that thread was on April 14th, 2011 when you said that all your seeds were giving you RL plants. I'm not going to transfer that whole thread here but will just cut and paste my comment to you from one of several posts I did about this variety: (What you have is Sokolades, first listed in the Yearbook in 2009, source was an SSE member in OR and described as pink/black fruit, ind.,4-10 oz and says RL. Another person lists it and says indet, PL, large beefsteak plant, brown red fruit, not prolific, from Irish Seed Savers Association and said to be a Latvian heirloom, which I would disagree with rather vigorously, actually. So maybe not quite stable as to leaf form right now, since the person listing it as RL is a VERY experienced grower whom I know well. Aha, I looked up the SSE member from whom this person got seeds and it's the owner of Adaptive Seeds in OR, a site I'm not all that comfortable with, just my opinion. So what Adaptive seeds may be sending out is a genetically not yet stable variety with respect to leaf form, so it seems.) This all came up in a thread where folks were posting their growout lists and I asked about Sokolades b'c I had a variety from Andrey that was spelled almost the same. But in doing some background research I disovered that Sokolades and what I had were two quite different varieties. So if the owner of Adaptive seeds is sending out seeds for this variety that are RL and not PL, or one or the other, I think he's the one you should be interacting with and the other info I posted in that SSE thread as well as the above does indicate, at least to me, that this variety is still genetically unstable. Hope that helps. __________________ Carolyn Last edited by carolyn137; April 16, 2011 at 05:47 AM. Reason: can't spell at 5 AM

May 9, 2011	#13
dice Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: PNW Posts: 4,743	As far as bee-made chance crosses in not bagged seeds, I have 2 seedlings out of 200 that are definitely wrong (wrong leaf type in what should be a PL plant, my own saved seeds). I have 2 more where out of 4 seedlings of nominally the same variety (from a trade), I have 2 that have standard RL leaves, and 2 more that seem to have a "semi-RL" leaf (serrations but on wider leaves on a shorter seedling). 4 out of 200 seems to me a reasonable percentage for chance crosses. In those cases, I also have other seedlings with the correct leaf type for the cultivar, which is what usually happens with bee-made crosses. When you plant the seeds and every one comes up with the wrong leaf type, something else has happened. Either there was a seed mixup in the history of those seeds somewhere, or someone at some point saved seeds from a plant of a different cultivar (or from a chance F1) and marked it with that name. If the fruits on the plants with the wrong leaf type vary from one plant to another, someone probably grew a chance F1, did not realize it was wrong, and saved seeds from it. If the fruits are all the same on all of the wrong leaf type plants, someone grew a plant of some other stable cultivar and simply mis-marked the seeds with a wrong name. It could have happened last year or 10 years ago. __________________ -- alias Last edited by dice; May 9, 2011 at 10:58 AM. Reason: clarity

May 10, 2011	#15
dice Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: PNW Posts: 4,743	It could be partly an electric toothbrush effect. I often get to just opened blossoms before the bees. But I had low cross-pollenation numbers before I ever heard of artificially vibrating the flowers, too, so it is probably mostly environmental. There could still be a couple more RL x RL crosses, too, which I would not notice until the fruit ripened. __________________ -- alias

April 15, 2011	#2
Suze Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Texas Posts: 3,027	I am not familiar with Sokolades, but did do a quick google search. From what I could find, it's definitely supposed to be PL. Edited to add, I'm sure this isn't news to you of course. It does sound like a rather interesting variety.

May 3, 2011	#6
333.okh Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2010 Location: NorCal Posts: 110	Deutsche Fleiss

May 7, 2011	#7
333.okh Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2010 Location: NorCal Posts: 110	Funny stuff....My second batch of Sokolades is all PL.................BUT I decided to grow some more Soldacki recently [3rd round] and they are really whispy RL? These Sokolades this time have heavy stalks and nice PL leaves.....I definitely have a batch of unstable genes like Carolyn said.

May 8, 2011	#9
333.okh Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2010 Location: NorCal Posts: 110	Honestly? I think I got them from WinterSown SASE two years ago. I just had a handful of them left and planted them. Different batch than the ones I planted from Tomato Growers. They are weeping willow looking with RL. It will be interesting what they turn out to look like...