Marglobe's child -- Break O' Day

[JLJ_]

This year I planted my Marglobes in a block of four rows, each row Marglobes from a different source, and at the end of each row (separated by a space from the Marglobes), one or two plants of a Marglobe child -- this year, two rows got Break O'Day and two had Rutgers.

Something interesting happened with the Break O'Day that might interest some -- some of the fruit ripened yellow.

This is a known property of Break O'Day. In the Proceedings of the New Jersey State Horticultural Society from December 2, 1931, they mention a tendency to sometimes ripen lemon colored as a serious commercial flaw in the otherwise promising Break O'Day, which was a cross between Marglobe and Marvana. (Marvana is a cross between Marvel (one of Marglobe's parents) and Earliana.)

http://books.google.com/books?id=bdd...put=text#c_top

Several thoughts about this:

1) This does indicate that Sand Hill Preservation has Break O'Day seed that represents the original type, not a variety that has changed over the years. (Though somewhat altered Break O'Days might easily exist as it sounds as if there were efforts planned to try to eliminate the yellow fruit.)

2) The thought in 1931 seemed to be that the appearance of lemon yellow fruit was a sort of sunscald effect, resulting from hot days and too light foliage, but the fruit here was not exposed to particularly hot sun, was picked mature green and ripened indoors out of direct light, and the effect did not look like sun damage, just looked like healthy fruit, some of which ripened lemon yellow.

3) The 1931 suggestion was that yellow fruit was more of a problem for Northern commercial growers than for Southern growers because the southern fruit was more apt to be picked green and thus not show the effect. As my green-picked fruit *did* show the effect, it suggests that the difference that was being seen between Northern and Southern appearances of the effect was not due to sun-ripening, but may have been due to some other Northern/Southern differences . . . temperature? day length? soil composition? water? some variation in the plant's metabolism because of the lighter foliage? . . . something that produces the effect in some, but not all, fruit on a plant and, I suspect, may not perform identically from year to year.

4) While one could see why yellow fruit was a major problem for 1931 commercial growers, home growers might see this as an desirable trait. With a relatively small yield and only one year's experience with this line, one couldn't expect reliable color expectation statistics, but between 10 and 20% of this year's fruit were yellow, the majority was red. The yellow fruit were lemon yellow on the outside, lighter inside, more like pineapple yellow. The taste of yellow and red fruit seemed the same to me. I thought the yellow fruit were very attractive fresh, less attractive than the red fruit when cooked.

5) Break O'Day production was definitely not earlier this year than any of the Marglobes, and was less abundant than most of the Marglobes, but the difference was small enough that year to year variation in this would not be surprising.

6) My tomatoes grew upright on supports -- tomatoes allowed to sprawl might perform differently -- but I did see a difference in foliage abundance between Marglobe and Break O'Day. Where I planted two Break O'Day together, so their foliage mingled, they were more productive -- that *might* be a good approach for this plant.

7) Break O'Day does not appear to be quite the workhorse tomato that Marglobe is -- which fits with the historical performance -- that Marglobe made it as a dominant commercial tomato (in the days when commercial tomatoes were required to taste good) -- and Break O'Day did not. But Break O'Day was a good tomato, the performance difference I saw was not large and I saw some indication that Break O'Day might show some of Marglobe's disease resistance. It will be interesting to see what future years' performance shows . . . and Break O'Day will certainly be included in the mix.

[travis]

"Something interesting happened with the Break O'Day that might interest some -- some of the fruit ripened yellow."

Some of the fruit on one plant, some of the fruit on all of the plant, or all of the fruit on some of the plants, all of the fruit on one of the plants?

If it was some of the fruit on one of the plants, were the yellow fruit confined to one stem or randomly on all of the stems?

If some of the fruit on all of the plants, I assume random pattern, right?

If all of the fruit on one or more of the plants, can you show side-by-side photographs of the foliage of all of the Break O'Day plants?

Can you show cutaway photos of the interior of the yellow fruit side-by-side with the red fruit?

[travis]

"1) This does indicate that Sand Hill Preservation has Break O'Day seed that represents the original type, not a variety that has changed over the years. (Though somewhat altered Break O'Days might easily exist as it sounds as if there were efforts planned to try to eliminate the yellow fruit.)"

Instead of assuming, based solely on seeing off-type tomatoes 80+ years after the first observation, that Sandhill maintains the 1931 original line, why not contact Sandhill and ask if they've observed the same off-types over the extended time they've maintained the variety, or if they've received feedback from other customers more recently.

[JLJ_]

I believe there is some misunderstanding of what is described.

The 1931 report isn't a first observation of an off type of an established variety -- that is something entirely different and would of course call for different treatment.

But the 1931 report concerns a widespread observation of a property of Break O'Day that diminished the commercial viability of a then promising new commercial variety. It's clear that in 1931 the thought was that Scarlet Topper was now the more promising commercial newcomer -- and of course Rutgers eventually was what one might call the victorious Marglobe child in the sense of taking much of its parent's commercial market dominance.

Mentioning Sandhill is simply so that anyone interested knows one place to look for Break O'Day seed that may possess this property.

Whether people want to try Break O'Day and see if they see this and if they like it if they do see it is up to them . . . my purpose was simply to point out that this original property is still around . . . that those seeing it needn't dismiss it as a manifestation of some dysfunction or variation from type . . . and that it might be something some home gardeners would see as a desirable characteristic.

Or not [g]

Just an observation about Break O'Day, with some historical context, for the use of anyone who is interested.

[travis]

Was the off-trait expressed on just one, more than one but not all, or all the Break O'Day plants you grew?

[carolyn137]

I've grown Break O Day many times , and consider it to be much better for taste, yields about the same, but also softer than Marglobe, which we grew on the farm when I was a kid.

I just scooped up the 1994 SSE Yearbook where I first listed it, seeds from Edmond Brown in 1992.

I then went back to a 2008 where Glenn Drowns was listing it, he stopped SSE listing varieties a couple of years ago, and his source was a Mary Ann Fox, Bean Patch Heirloom Seed in Indiana, so he didn't get seeds from the USDA as original seeds. Whether she did or not is not known.

I also listed it in my book and said that I'd forgotten the name of the SSE member I got it from, but it could have been Dennis Sherwood, who was doing brix levels on over 400 varieties and sent me leftover seed for about 300 of them.

In the 2013 Yearbook only two people listed it, one cited no source and the other person said Baker Creek.

I could look in other previous yearbooks, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone mention yellow fruits for break O Day, I know I never saw any.

When I have time and remember I can also look in the Michigan State Bulletin of 1939 which is a treasure of information on the earlier commercial varieties.

Carolyn

[JLJ_]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

I've grown Break O Day many times , and consider it to be much better for taste, yields about the same, but also softer than Marglobe, which we grew on the farm when I was a kid. . . .

I know you really like Break O'Day, that's the reason it's in my Marglobe-child comparison and, based on your regard for Break O'Day and upon its performance this year, why it will probably stay there.

I don't think this yellow-fruit thing deserves a great deal of attention, EXCEPT that I think the information should be out there that:

1) Break O'Day should not be expected to show yellow fruit always, or perhaps even often, as if it did Pritchard would have been unlikely to have released it for widespread testing.

2) When widespread testing was done about 1930-31, having some fruit ripen "lemon color" was a widespread occurrence and was seen as a serious commercial disadvantage. (That does not suggest what proportion of growers saw the yellow fruit, just that it was seen enough to raise concern about it as the best choice for commercial producers.)

3) When it was grown in 2013 in Wyoming, 10 to 20% of the fruit, picked at mature green stage and ripened indoors at room temperature out of direct light ripened "lemon color" but seemed otherwise normal, causing its startled tomato-valet to recall having seen something about Break O'Day having been associated with this wardrobe variation in the past, to check saved notes of old reports, and to find that indeed, this had happened.

I'm not sure whether there is likely to be much more data available. It seems unlikely that there was much more widespread testing of Break O'Day as a commercial variety, as Pritchard seems to have believed that Scarlett Topper showed more promise, and other commercial varieties, ultimately Rutgers, proved to be vigorous competitors for the commercial market.

In that situation the "lemon colored" fruit issue probably was not pursued, and when/if seen, was probably dismissed as sun damaged fruit.

Now, however, yellow fruit isn't necessarily a disadvantage. If people are aware that this may happen, and doesn't represent diseased fruit, they are more likely to report on it and perhaps, eventually, it will become clear under what circumstances it happens.

I did also notice a few red fruit that had persistent dark green shoulders, and noticed from the picture in your book that your Break O'Day seemed to be sometimes showing this . . . though of course I couldn't tell from that whether the green shoulders ever persisted for you, even when the tomato was thoroughly ripe.

Again, I don't suggest any deep significance to this, just interesting.

And perhaps, if attention is drawn to Break O'Day, the variations in its ripening will fit together into some explanation of when and why it does what.

At least it might gain a reputation as the "in" tomato to grow if you want to be surprised, but confident you will end up with a good tomato.

I believe I saw a discussion just recently about another tomato suddenly being widely grown just because it was suddenly interesting enough to become fashionable


P.S. Since you said you liked Break O'Day better than Marglobe, perhaps I should say that Marglobe overall still performed better for me, though I was interested to see considerable variation in "original" Marglobe performance with seed from different commercial sources. If I'm able to garden a few more years, perhaps I'll have more meaningful data regarding performance of Marglobe and some of its children in what can only be described as challenging conditions for tomatoes to overcome.

[carolyn137]

Despite falling again last night, getting to love the ambulance men,details to be posted in that thread,I was able to find some, but not all of the pages in that 1939 Bulletin that I referred to.

First, they listed varieties as belonging to various groups, such as Marglobe, Globe, Bonny Best, Ealiana,Stone, Podersosa and and Dwarf Group.

Marglobe Group

Marglobe, shipping

Pritchard, canning

Rutgers, market garden

Break O Day,home garden

Grothen's Globe

Glovel

Marohio

Judy'sPink

The last three are pink.

The question here is yellow fruits so I'll just type out a comment that I think is important and it's part of the discussion of Bonny Best.

"Bonny Best produces better colored fruits which are less susceptible to SUNSCALD than Break O Day."

I can't find the second page of Break O Day right now, but you've been referring to yellow fruits and it looks like the reference is to sun scald.

There are comments about the variety Pritchard, ahem,which he probably named for himself, and no doubt was condemning competing varieties, per his comments, in the same group to give an advantage to his variety.

There was a tremendous amount of nastiness that was going on at that time,variety names were changed to indicate exclusivity and so much more.

For instance, there are 16 synonyms or similar varieties, as they note, just for Bonny Best. And I don't have the page right here but I think it was Ponderosa that had many more than that, maybe double that number.

Carolyn

[JLJ_]

Falling again! I've been telling Mom we should install a monorail system on the ceiling like U Penn used for Barbaro. Then she (and sometimes I) could just clip our harness onto the cable and glide around the house without any difficulty or danger of falling. And both hands would be free for carrying things, much better than using canes or walkers! Something to consider

Back to tomatoes . . . Pritchard didn't name the tomato after himself, Pritchard is the same as Scarlet Topper, and was renamed to honor its developer after his death in early 1931. At the time of his death he apparently considered Scarlet Topper his most promising development, and Scarlet Topper/Pritchard did become the first AAS winning tomato in 1933 . . . so it was a fitting memorial.

I don't want to seem negative about that 1939 Bulletin . . . just because it's a report from such a significant era its contents are undoubtedly both interesting and valuable, but . . .

-------------------
Marglobe Group

Marglobe, shipping

Pritchard, canning

Rutgers, market garden

Break O Day,home garden
--------------------

. . . surely Marglobe and Rutgers . . . and possibly Pritchard . . . proved themselves successful in all four categories listed, Marglobe and Rutgers each having a turn at being commercial market dominant for most uses.


And "sunscald" prone, now is that a nice thing to say about Break O'Day?

I did address that issue in the first post. At the New Jersey State Horticultural Society meeting, in a discussion of Marglobe and some of its offspring, they say a number of nice things about Break O'Day, but also mention its "serious fault" . . . that "There is a tendency to ripen lemon color." They suggest that this may result from too-light foliage that lies too flat exposing the fruit to the hot sun -- obviously thinking of sunscald effects -- and that this would not be a problem for southern growers who pick the fruit green for shipment to market.

Similar meetings discussing the 1930-1931 grower's reports were undoubtedly common all over, er, 1931 tomatoville, so it is unsurprising that later sources would pick up the conclusion (sunscald) rather than the data (sometimes ripens lemon color). If we could time-travel and ask, I suspect that the response would be, "it doesn't matter how you word it, it doesn't exclusively produce nice red marketable fruit and that's what our growers need to know."

There's no reason to believe that any vigorous effort was made to study Break O'Day's lemon color fruit -- there was no shortage of strong commercial competitors that produced red fruit without variation.

What I observed was Break O'Day still doing exactly what the New Jersey meeting reported . . . showing "a tendency to ripen lemon color", matching their reported data but not their suggested explanations. The plants were not exposed to particularly hot sun, were picked mature green and ripened indoors out of direct light, and the lemon color fruit looked healthy, not at all the sort of buff-yellowish of sunscald.

But now, yellow fruit is much more acceptable and interesting.

Again, I'm don't want to make too much of this. The effect is obviously not always seen, or it's unlikely that Pritchard would have released Break O'Day, knowing non-red fruit would represent loss for growers. But it obviously was widely enough seen immediately after release by those growing the new tomato to warrant reporting this as a serious fault in a would-be commercial tomato.

I don't know whether or how often the "tendency to ripen lemon color" will be seen in Break O'Day, but more often, if people are alerted to the property and a little about its history, I suspect.

[carolyn137]

If and when I find the pages for Pritchard and Scarlet Topper and the other page about Break O Day,I'll post about it.

In the meantime I think these two links fromTania help to explain the situation.

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Pritchard

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/P...Scarlet_Topper

Carolyn

[JLJ_]

I think the 1931 link and the rest of this thread explains the historical situation about as thoroughly as is possible -- and it makes the Break O Day and lemon color information available for those that are interested. I'm not sure there's much more meaningful to be said about that until/unless there are more Break O'Day lemon color fruit reported.

Which is not to say that any pages of any historical bulletins you have time to post wouldn't be valuable resources, as well as interesting reading.

For anyone interested who doesn't already know, there is some good historical material over at the victoryseeds site (and related Victory sites linked to by some of the victoryseeds historical links). I don't believe there's anything about lemon color fruit on Break O'Day, but there is material regarding Marglobe, Scarlet Topper/Pritchard, etc. -- a 1933 AES Circular about the development of Scarlet Topper/Pritchard, for one example. The intro pages to some of the sections suggest that he would prefer not to have direct links posted to some of the historical material, though, as he understandably wants people to read the intro pages about work involved in gathering material, need for financial support, and "please don't steal my stuff" admonitions.

This seems to be migrating to the "Our Legacy of Yesteryear Varieties" topic, though . . . seems as if the topic of this thread may be pretty well exhausted until/unless there are more lemon color Break O'Day observations.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by JLJ_

I think the 1931 link and the rest of this thread explains the historical situation about as thoroughly as is possible -- and it makes the Break O Day and lemon color information available for those that are interested. I'm not sure there's much more meaningful to be said about that until/unless there are more Break O'Day lemon color fruit reported.

Which is not to say that any pages of any historical bulletins you have time to post wouldn't be valuable resources, as well as interesting reading.

For anyone interested who doesn't already know, there is some good historical material over at the victoryseeds site (and related Victory sites linked to by some of the victoryseeds historical links). I don't believe there's anything about lemon color fruit on Break O'Day, but there is material regarding Marglobe, Scarlet Topper/Pritchard, etc. -- a 1933 AES Circular about the development of Scarlet Topper/Pritchard, for one example. The intro pages to some of the sections suggest that he would prefer not to have direct links posted to some of the historical material, though, as he understandably wants people to read the intro pages about work involved in gathering material, need for financial support, and "please don't steal my stuff" admonitions.

This seems to be migrating to the "Our Legacy of Yesteryear Varieties" topic, though . . . seems as if the topic of this thread may be pretty well exhausted until/unless there are more lemon color Break O'Day observations.

Just a few additional comments.

Yesterday I posted here at TV about the Bronze leaved Abraham Lincoln and did so b'c someone was referring to it. It was introduced by Buckbee seeds in 1923, not by the grandparents of Abraham Lincoln as was suggested.

NO ONE to date has ever again seen the bronze leaved Abraham Lincoln and it's consideed extinct. My full post with links I can refer you to if you wish.

I've participated at several message sites since 1982,, sometimes as a Moderator, others times as just me and not once have I seen any reference at all to lemon colored BOD fruits.

So I consider that as historical information as well, and IMO such lemon colored fruits are also extinct unless one wants to attribute that to sunscald.

Mike Dunton at Victory seeds is a long time friend, and if you go through the various tomato listings you'll see my name quite often as sending seeds to him.

So yes, I know what other resource articles he refers to as you posted above.

His primary interest has always been the varieties bred by Alexander Livingston and from those many others have been bred.

So at this point I'm not going to try and find the pages in that 1939 Bulletin relative to this current discussion b/c they too are historical. I will say that the info in that Bulletin is the most comprehensive info for earlier tomato varieties , obviously pre-1940 and going way back, that I've ever found. Other than the Vilmorin and Fearing Burr books of the late 1800's

What once was, and what reality has been and is now, are quite distinct and different.

Carolyn

[JLJ_]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

. . . not once have I seen any reference at all to lemon colored BOD fruits . . .

:::going into frog mode:::

:::swelling up real big :::

Count again.

. . . I find it easy to imagine why there might not have been more reports of this . . . I find it difficult to persist, it's probably not worth the stress over what should be a simple report of an occurrence of a previously widely observed Break O'Day trait.

You're quite right that over the years selection could have produced some Break O'Day seed that no longer produces yellow fruit. But clearly there is at least some seed around that still behaves in the old fashioned way . . . which may, now, not have the negative implications it did in days of yore.

The point of the thread is that the behavior Break O' Day exhibited in 2013 in Wyoming -- producing mostly red fruit, but some healthy yellow fruit -- matched the behavior described in the early 1930's immediately after Break O'Day was released.

That is, consistent with the 1931 report of the New Jersey State Horticultural Society that the initially commercially promising Break O' Day was already competitively compromised by 1931 because, after it was released for widespread production, it showed a tendency to ripen some fruit lemon colored.

And also consistent with the 1937 report that by 1937 Break O'Day had been largely abandoned commercially because of its color variation -- as described in the USDA Library's 1937 Yearbook of Agriculture . . . "Break O'Day was received much more enthusiastically than Pritchard, as a result of preliminary trials; but it has subsequently slipped into a relatively unimportant place, largely because it fails to meet rigid color requirements" . . .

While later interpretations assume sunscald, the reports closest to the very short period in which BOD was widely grown refer not to sunscald but to ripe color variation that impaired marketability -- and the mature-green-harvested fruit here showed healthy fruit color variation, not sunscald.

This color variation was obviously never universal, or it is unlikely that Pritchard would have released Break O'Day in 1931. It became apparent only during the short period when Break O'Day was widely grown immediately after release. It's not been grown on the same scale since the early 1930's, so it's hard to know what frequency would be expected, even if the incidence is the same as it was during BOD's commercial tryout in the early 1930's and selection against this could easily have reduced the incidence below that level.

The purpose of this thread is to report what Break O'Day did here, and that similar behavior was widely reported after initial release, and the seed source for the BOD that produced the yellow fruit, so that if anyone is interested, they have that info as a starting point.

It doesn't really matter to me whether Break O'Day red fruit or yellow fruit or decides to produce little bunny rabbits instead of tomatoes . . . but it does seem a pity for a fairly nice little tomato -- not a Marglobe- quality, but still quite good -- and perhaps even better than some surviving Marglobe seed strains -- to miss the possible additional appeal it might have if it does prove to still exhibit the yellow fruit phenomenon often enough that many do see it.

And if we want to know whether the trait is still around, we're surely much more likely to find out if we say "Break O'Day once was widely reported to have done this, and has done it again in 2013" than if we suggest that anyone seeing Break O'Day produce yellow fruit, in the 1930's or now, must just be mistaken.

:::hopping off now to fight snow:::

(tough task for a frog)

[peppero]

Interesting history and results. I hope your future efforts will be rewarding for you.

jon

[travis]

Lots of back and forth here. And I appreciate the effort expended.

But I'm still trying to understand a few basics:

How many Break O'Day plants were grown in the Original Poster's observation?

How many plants expressed the lemon colored fruit?

How many plants expressed red fruit?

Did the plants that expressed lemon color fruit uniformly produce all lemon colored fruit?

Or did the lemon colored fruit appear randomly on plants that also produced red fruit.

Or did the lemon colored fruit appear uniformly on branches of plants that otherwise produced only red fruit on all the other branches?