Question about tomatoes getting smaller

[matilda'skid]

I visited a seed vendor's page who had both Casino and Casino Chips for sale. I remember when the member wrote about those two tomatoes. Is Casino Chips a mutation or a cross?

The reason I ask is I had two tomato mix ups last year and both were tomatoes that were big cherries that should have been medium sized tomatoes. I assumed that it was crossed seed, one of my mix ups, or maybe no rain and 110 degree weather. After being reminded by the Casinos, I wondered how often that happens.

[amideutch]

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthrea...ghlight=Casino

[WVTomatoMan]

1) Re: Possible mix up. One possible way to distinguish what happened would be to determine if the tomatoes were borne on cherry like clusters. Cherry tomato clusters form differently and look differently than regular tomatoes.

2) Re: Casino/Casino Chips. Somatic mutations are quite rare.

3) Mix ups and crosses happen more frequently than we would like. Although in my garden accidental tomato crosses happen maybe 5% of the time at most...peppers on the other hand are a different story. Ugh.

I hope this addresses your questions. If not please ask/rephrase.

Good luck.

Randy

[casino]

Sounds like a tomato seed mix up to me or some other unexplained reason.

I introduced Casino and Casino chips to Tomatoville members and to repeat a long story.
My Italian neighbor Pat Cici and his family only grew this one paste tomato in their garden for generations. A few years ago Surprise Pat found a branch growing on one of his paste tomato plants that produced a truss with cherries on it. Pat has never seen this before and saved the seeds. Pat and myself grew the seeds out and found the cherry to be rock solid stable, and we are very happy that it did.

Somatic mutations are very rare.
In all the years Pat has been growing his family heirloom (large) Italian Paste tomato he was very surprised to find one of his large paste tomato plants with a cherry growing on one of the suckers. Neither one of us knew what to expect when we planted the seeds for a grow-out. We were hoping for that same cherry because it was so delicous and lo and behold the seeds grew and there were cherries here. We grew them for 2 more years and the seeds saved also produced cherries. The plant Never reversed back to the original Large Italian paste tomato size. Now Pat Cici grows 2 tomatoes in his garden.

I have received seeds from tomatoville members in a trade that were labeled one variety but when they grew it was something else. Last year I received seeds for Brazilian Beauty and one of the plants produced the most delicous green tomatoes. I am thinking there could have been a stray seed that got mixed in or it was a bumble bee cross. Either way I saved the seeds and will grow the green tomato out this year. Fingers crossed.

The vendor who is selling the Casino and Casino chips is a good friend of mine. He asked for permission before listing it in his seed catalog. This guy is first class all the way.

I got long winded here but to get to your original question. One year I grew MEXICO (seeds purchased from totally tomatoes) and the huge plant grew very large tomatoes. I saved the seeds and the next year this huge plant grew medium size tomatoes, for me and all my friends who grew MEXICO from my seed stock. You ask an interresting question can some large tomatos grow small tomatoes the next year. I am beginning to wonder when we save seeds is it possible that a tomato variety can self adjust to its growing location / conditions.

I have read that some super giant tomatoes that grew 3 or 4 or 5 pounds in the northern states and the seeds were saved and sent to their buddies in the southern states that these giant tomatoes only grew to a normal large 1 1/2 pound size fruit. Can location location effect the size of a tomato fruit and can the new size tomato fruit become its new standard. From my MEXICO experience I have always wondered about that.

[matilda'skid]

Thanks I guess I could have searched that because I got some of the Chips seeds. It is clearly a mutation.

I have mix ups every year somehow. One time I dropped my whole pan of seedlings and they were mixed. One time a flood washed away labels. It's always something.

Mine were supposed to be Azoychaka I know the spelling is wrong and Eva Purple Ball. Both produced small tomatoes pink pong ball size and smaller, both were the correct color. Could weather make them that small? Most of my tomatoes planted in May didn't set fruit but I got quite a few in very early because of the unusually warm spring. The yellow one was covered in tomatoes all summer. Its taste was not great.

They were not in sprays like Sungold cherries.

[WVTomatoMan]

Originally Posted by casino

...Can location location effect the size of a tomato fruit and can the new size tomato fruit become its new standard...

Not only can location affect the size of tomatoes, but growing conditions within an area (location) can affect the size of fruit. For example during good growing years I can get 2+ pound Brandywine tomatoes. On less than optimal growing years I don't. The same is true for several other varieties.

As far as it being the new standard, no not really. Either the variety is capable of producing large fruit or it isn't. It's a genetic thing. BTW, small fruited is the dominant gene.

Hope this helps.

Randy

[matilda'skid]

Thank you all. I have lots of flies, wasps and little bees and plant tomatoes too close. If small is dominant that is probably what happened to the Eva. Someone gave me the seeds for the yellow fruited tomato. I should bag every tomato anyway to keep the stinkbugs off.

[WVTomatoMan]

When a variety is stable it can produce tomatoes as large as what is genetically capable for that variety to produce or smaller. When a variety is crossed is when dominate and recessive genes are a factor. When getting small fruit for a variety then look at environmental factors. Or examine the selection factors when saving seed.

Let's say you have two plants of a specific variety. One of the plants produces tomatoes that are true to type in both maturity dates and size. One of the plants produces earlier but smaller tomatoes. If you save seeds from the early, but smaller fruited plant and you do that for several years then that is what you'll get (i.e. plants that produce earlier and smaller fruited tomatoes for that variety). It's called selective breeding.

I've included a picture of an Early Girl and Eva Purple Ball plant side by side. These variteties are similar in production and fruit size. In the picture the plant on the far left is of course a cherry tomato (Sungold as I recall) then the Early Girl then the Eva Purple Ball is on the right. The picture was taken in 2006. As I recall we had a normal growing year that year so they are fairly well grown plants. The picture was taken sometime in early July because you can see an Early Girl tomato ripening at the bottom of the plant. The tomatoes from both plants were in the 4-8 ounce range with 6 oz. being the average. One of the Eva Purple Ball tomatoes as you can see is pretty large, but that was from a fused (double) blossom. The plants were planted about 3 ft. apart and the six foot chain tall link fence in the background should give an idea of the height of the plants.

The Eva Purple Ball was true to type so I think this is basically what your plants should look like.

Randy