Are all Indian Stripes black?

[mysidx]

This was my first time growing I.S. in which I planted four plants this fall in containers. I gave one plant to my mother, and kept the others. Ripe fruit on three of the plants are wine colored with the brown/green shoulders, however one plant my fruits are ripening to a orange/red color. The unripe fruit look just like the other plants, green shoulders and they even have the striping. The fruit that is turning orange/red in color don't even appear to keep the green shoulders after they turn. I bought the seeds from Knapps, which I have been please with. I'm just confused why these seem not to be turning into a black tomato...

[tam91]

I had a red "Indian Stripe" also. I think the seeds were mixed up with an unknown red variety, this seems to be a known problem now. They were pretty good tomatoes though.

Any vendor can have a mistake sometime, all the the other seeds I got from Knapps were just fine.

[Wi-sunflower]

Yes, I apologize for the fact that I sent out some packs of a mixed seed.

I have since taken IS off my site when I saw that what I had growing this year was also mixed. I'm not sure if some stray off type fruit got mixed in my processing bucket or if IS is a bit unstable.

I do have seed from another source I will be growing out this coming year and hope they will ALL be correct for type so I can collect proper seed.

Carol

[mysidx]

Carol, I'm not upset or anything. I know there is a possibility for stray seeds to get into packs, I'm just confused because the unripe fruit look identical to the other unripe fruits from the other plants. They were all RL too. I really enjoyed the flavor from the black ones that grew from the other plants. I haven't tried the red maters yet as they are just turning now. I hope the remaining seed from the I.S. pack will grow true this spring.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Wi-sunflower

Yes, I apologize for the fact that I sent out some packs of a mixed seed.

I have since taken IS off my site when I saw that what I had growing this year was also mixed. I'm not sure if some stray off type fruit got mixed in my processing bucket or if IS is a bit unstable.

I do have seed from another source I will be growing out this coming year and hope they will ALL be correct for type so I can collect proper seed.

Carol

Carol, as you know I'm the original source for Indian Stripe and it was already stable in Mr. Burson's garden in Arkansas for many decades and since I got the seeds from Donna, my TX friend who found this variety in Mr. Burson's garden it's been perfectly stable as long as there were no natural cro pollinations.

So I think your thought about some mixed seeds getting into your IS envelopes was correct, either some X pollinated IS or seeds of another variety.

I think it's happened to almost all of us at one time or another,meaning X pollinations of a variety or stray seeds of another variety getting into our seed stocks.,

[travis]

The very first time I grew Indian Stripe it was from seed bought from one of the only two commercial vendors who carried Indian Stripe at that time. Luckily I planted several vines because two of them had off-type fruit, one pink and one purple that ripened without the characteristic green shoulders.

It is important to rogue out your off-type plants, or to save seeds separately from off-types if you feel they give you something worth saving. After several years of roguing and selecting for the best examples of Indian Stripe, I was able to arrive at a very satisfactory pure line.

There is no reason to completely ditch a commercial seed source for a few off-type seeds, unless your results are completely off the rail with no correct examples of the intended variety. I've gotten off-type seeds in packages of F1 hybrid seeds as well. Just be vigilent in observing, roguing and selecting.

[Wi-sunflower]

I wasn't aware of Indian Stripes history other than it being another relative of Cherokee Purple.

For me, sometimes my pickers/workers aren't as careful about where a variety begins and ends in the row as they should be. It's easy to "get on a roll" picking and not pay attention to the stakes. I've been trying to supervise more when we are picking for seed and stress to them to be careful, but as they say "$h!t happens".

And yes it's possible for a cross pollination too.

And when trading with lots of people I don't always know what their growing conditions are. Some home growers try to fit too many varieties into too little area and if the plants tangle up, crossing is almost an inevitable result. I have several other varieties I have not been able to use at all yet as I've gotten too many different plant and fruit types from the seed.

Tho I think more possible is that a tomato from another variety got into the IS bucket and contaminated the batch..

Whatever happened, I hope to have correct seed next year.

Carol

Carol

[cloz]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

I think it's happened to almost all of us at one time or another,meaning X pollinations of a variety or stray seeds of another variety getting into our seed stocks.,

I was recently doing a germination test of a regular leaf variety that I had saved seed from. I had 5 seeds germinate so I let them grow a bit. Didn't pay much attention to them but when I looked close I found 4 regular leaf and 1 potato leaf. When I process seeds, I only handle 1 variety at a time so mixing seeds is not the problem. I suspect a cross with a potato leaf variety that was growing next to the regular leaf. It might be an interesting cross if I could keep it alive through spring with cuttings. I have no place to grow 7' tall plants during the winter.

[mysidx]

I look forward to eating these red maters, what ever they may be. I will continue to order from Carol, as I had great service and my other seed varieties turned out fine.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by cloz

I was recently doing a germination test of a regular leaf variety that I had saved seed from. I had 5 seeds germinate so I let them grow a bit. Didn't pay much attention to them but when I looked close I found 4 regular leaf and 1 potato leaf. When I process seeds, I only handle 1 variety at a time so mixing seeds is not the problem. I suspect a cross with a potato leaf variety that was growing next to the regular leaf. It might be an interesting cross if I could keep it alive through spring with cuttings. I have no place to grow 7' tall plants during the winter.

And there is a PL variant of Indian Stripe. I SSE listed it and hope to be offering it here in my seed offer. Seeds were sent to me by a fellow Tville member.

So just as there's Cherokee Purple RL, there's also Cherokee Purple Potato Leaf ( Jere Gettle find) and Spudakee ( Bill Malin find), so it was possibly to be expected that Indian Stripe would also show up at some time with a PL variant and it did.

I didn't grow both IS and IS PL in the same season last summer, but having grown IS quite a bit they looked to me to be about the same in all ways except for leaf form. And I mention this b'c there's morre than one way that a PL can show up that has to do with how the DNA was affected and there are DNA mechanisms that can lead to more than one gene being affected when going from RL to PL.

Those who have grown out CP RL and the two PL variants in the same season don't always agree that the two PL variants are the same as the original RL CP or indeed if the two PL variants are the same. Which is why I don't always assume that any PL variant of an RL is exactly the same as the RL except for leaf form.

[travis]

There are so many ways that a stray seed can get into a batch of presumably pure line seeds regardless of how careful one is during the seed saving process.

There are very few ways that a regular leaf variety can "change" into a potato leaf variety that I will continue to believe that those potato leaf sprouts that show up as "F1" plants in an otherwise regular leaf batch are stray seeds.

A suggestion: You say you had 5 seeds germinate in your test batch with one being the potato leaf sprout. Plant enough of those seeds to get 40 sprouts and see whether you get 10 potato leaf examples, more or less. If you get a 3:1 ratio regular leaf to potato leaf, I'd consider those seeds F2 rather than F1. If you get zero additional potato leaf sprouts, I'd expect it was a stray seed.

[cloz]

Originally Posted by travis

There are so many ways that a stray seed can get into a batch of presumably pure line seeds regardless of how careful one is during the seed saving process.

There are very few ways that a regular leaf variety can "change" into a potato leaf variety that I will continue to believe that those potato leaf sprouts that show up as "F1" plants in an otherwise regular leaf batch are stray seeds.

A suggestion: You say you had 5 seeds germinate in your test batch with one being the potato leaf sprout. Plant enough of those seeds to get 40 sprouts and see whether you get 10 potato leaf examples, more or less. If you get a 3:1 ratio regular leaf to potato leaf, I'd consider those seeds F2 rather than F1. If you get zero additional potato leaf sprouts, I'd expect it was a stray seed.

I will try that since I have plenty of seed. The seed was from 2 Granny's Heart tomatoes. The Granny's Heart grew next to a Marianna's Peace which is potato leaf and I didn't bag blossoms.

[travis]

Originally Posted by cloz

I will try that since I have plenty of seed. The seed was from 2 Granny's Heart tomatoes. The Granny's Heart grew next to a Marianna's Peace which is potato leaf and I didn't bag blossoms.

But I don't think the potato leaf spout is F1, meaning specifically I don't think you can get a potato leaf vine the very first growing season after and accidental Granny's Heart x Marianna's Peace. Although I'm not even thinking Marianna's Peace is the definite pollen donor since pollen can arrive of a bee belly from many plants distant from the seed plant.

I don't know anything about Granny's Heart. Is it a red tomato or a pink tomato? Anyway, I assume it's heart shaped, and Marianna's Peace x a heart shaped tomato would give you a round shape or an oblate shape, not a heart shape in the F1. So, you would've noticed the wrong fruit shape before saving seeds.

Come to think of it, since you are dealing with a heart shaped tomato from which you took the seeds, try to keep that sprout alive and examine the fruit shape. If it is not heart shaped, then you have for sure got a stray seed or F2 plant, because a mutation away from heart shape AND leaf shape (a double mutation) seems even more unlikely than leaf shape alone.

[cloz]

Originally Posted by travis

But I don't think the potato leaf spout is F1, meaning specifically I don't think you can get a potato leaf vine the very first growing season after and accidental Granny's Heart x Marianna's Peace. Although I'm not even thinking Marianna's Peace is the definite pollen donor since pollen can arrive of a bee belly from many plants distant from the seed plant.

I don't know anything about Granny's Heart. Is it a red tomato or a pink tomato? Anyway, I assume it's heart shaped, and Marianna's Peace x a heart shaped tomato would give you a round shape or an oblate shape, not a heart shape in the F1. So, you would've noticed the wrong fruit shape before saving seeds.

Come to think of it, since you are dealing with a heart shaped tomato from which you took the seeds, try to keep that sprout alive and examine the fruit shape. If it is not heart shaped, then you have for sure got a stray seed or F2 plant, because a mutation away from heart shape AND leaf shape (a double mutation) seems even more unlikely than leaf shape alone.

Granny's Heart was new to me this year and the plants (I grew 4) did produce some fruit which looked more like a beefsteak than a heart although others were very much heart shaped. Maybe it's possible that a cross had occurred before I received the seeds. This picture is not your typical heart shape. I did not check the epidermis to see if it was clear or yellow so I can't answer that. It is a great tasting tomato with very few seeds. It was also one of the earliest large tomatoes to ripen in my garden.
This picture is not the tomato I saved these seeds from. They were saved later in the season. I have another package with a few seeds only that were saved from the first tomato to ripen.

[travis]

Pretty tomato. Yes, it looks a bit more blunt that what some people might call a heart. Looks more like a boat shaped beefsteak type. The tomatoes in Barkeater's seed offer thread do loom a bit more heart shaped. http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=16557

The tomatoes in Suze's post #49 of that thread look pink in the photo, but I'd rather see the skin in hand before saying for sure. Yours looks more yellow-skinned, but pink tomatoes often can look like that in photographs when not fully ripe.