StrongPlant-Breeding for the future

StrongPlant · July 3, 2016

Hi I am so excited to be a memeber of this forum! This is only my second year since I've been focusing on and growing tomatoes.But I've been growing plants,from mosses to trees my entire life.And I love it,the plants are the most amazing creatures,and give us so much while taking so little.
This year has been great in comparison with the last when it comes to tomatoes and that's because I've learned much more about them than I knew last year.I've been focusing heavily on breeding and selection of tometoes.I grow all my vegetables withour any spraying at all,not even organic mixes and teas.This is because I want to expose plants that are truly the most resistant and vigorous.The selection is almost cruel in my garden-any variety that shows any sign of weakness or negative trait is never planted again.The ultimate goal is to develop several F1 varieties that show all of the qualities below.If you're wondering why do they all need to be F1,well this is because the heterotic organisms are almost always more healthy and vigorous than homozygous ones(heterosis).Besides,I will have all the pure lines since I developed them so getting the F1 seeds every year won't be a problem.
Thsese are the traits I want all of my tomatoes to have:

-High yields
-Exelent taste
-Disease resistance.This for me,is the most important thing,as I want to grow tomatoes without any chemical tratments.
-Regular trusses.What I mean by this:

This is an example of a regular truss.Maybe there exists a more professional term,but I just go with "regular".On the other side,this kind of truss form is highly undesirable since it's very hard to support such ones and prevent kinking:

-Fruit uniformity.No double flowes.All fruit must be the same size.
-Earliness
-Vigour.Faster growth is almost always a good indicator of good genetics
-Thick stems,to prevent breakage,and for the plant to be able to support the weight of the fruits
-Ability to grow well with minimum nutrients
-Drought tolerance
-Humidity tolerance
-Uniform ripening
-Easy detachment for better picking

As you might guess I want to create a monster

one thing the palnts do not have to be resistant to are insects,since it would be too much time to breed resistant plants.I am working on several mechanical means of protecting the plants from them.
This is what's growing in my greenhouse and outside this year:

San Marzano.Wow.What a tomato.It's doing great in both greenhouse and ouside,this is going to be one of the parents for the next year cross.

I have no idea what tomato is it,I call it "tiny",but I'm not growing it next year.It is quite small,has bland taste and is very prone to kinking due to it's higly elognated and irregular trusses.

This is the F1 cherry tomato,the cross was from last year.It is almost completely free of disease,both outside and in the greenhouse.The taste is good,but the yield is quite low.Not bad,but I will not make this cross again.

This is "Ildi".It has the "multiflora" gene.The problem with it is that it's very prone to late blight.Only the first fruit truss has this many fruits while all subsequent ones above it barely have any at all:

I will not grow it again,but I've made a few crosses to try and create a variety that will have multiflora gene but be more disease resistant.Maybe that gene is not so great as it seems but I'm just not ready to let it go yet.

This is a F1 cherry,last year cross between San marzano and another variety below.It's also problem-free as the above F1 one,but the yield is still a problem.There needs to be more fruits per truss.This one has better taste,however.

This is Red cluster pear that contains the same multiflora gene as Ildi.And it has the same problem-late blight,almost no fruit above the first cluster...to me it seems that the plants with this gene cannot effectively support such huge number of flowers and fruits,because it leaves it without resourses to fight disease.

This one is also an F1 last year cross.It has fused flowers,and the resulting fruit is also huge,but the entire plant is highly irregular,the leaves are twisted,the trusses prone to breakage,and the suckers always rise above the leaf node and become fused with the stem which makes them very difficult to pinch off without scissors.

Yellow stuffer.Well this one is just for fun,really.And I am curious about it's taste.

This cherry is very tiny,less than 1cm in dieameter on avarage.I'm not sure if it's Solanum pimpinellifolium,but it does have hairless stem and leaves.This one was one of the parents for both cherries above.While it's not that disease resistant as some others,it has the regular truss,easy detach and fruit uniformity(no double flowers) that I want in my tomatoes.These traits also seem to be highly dominant and override their undesirable counterparts.

This one is the winner.I have no idea which variety is it,I got the seeds from my neighbour.It seems she saved the seeds,but the variety was definitely F1.This generation is F3,and I'm working on stabilizing it,since it's the only plant completely healthy outside,even though we had heavy rain this year.

Indigo rose.If this thing ripens before winter,I will be amazed

it's sure pretty to look at,but the plants lack vigour and grows the slowest of them all...it does have a very thick and stiff truss which can be quite useful to prevent kinking but I'd rather find another variety that has this trait.

There are a few more but I planted them late and they are only now flowering...

I am very interested to hear if any of you have grown tomatoes without any spraying and which varieties were they! Also,there is very little information about disease resistance in "pure" tomates,that is,the ones that come true from seed,such as San marzano menitoned above,so if any of you know something about this it'd be great.

bower · July 3, 2016

Hello StrongPlant and welcome to T'ville.

What nice looking tomatoes. I'm very interested in your project so be sure to keep us updated! You really are out to breed a monster "dream tomato" as everyone wants.

I wish you success.
I don't spray my plants ever. Mostly growing in a greenhouse and, ideally I would provide some shelter for all my outdoor plants as well from wind and rain. But we still get leaf diseases in the greenhouse - humidity is enough for that, and different diseases if it's warm or cold... I see them every year and every plant will suffer from one disease or another by the end of season when it's too cold and dark to go on. I also see disease come up regularly on the lower leaves of the plant, when they are loaded with fruits and starting to ripen, and the answer to this is apparently nutrition - more nutrients and the plant will keep more leaves as well as its fruit and stay healthy.

So I'm not sure whether your ambition, of a plant that produces without much nutrients, and stays healthy as well, is really possible.

KarenO · July 3, 2016

Welcome to Tomatoville! Very interesting projects breeding specifically for F1's I haven't seen much of that here as most are trying to stabilize OP varieties and the F1 is not concentrated on at all. I have noticed in my F1's a great vigour but always am looking for the segregation in the F2. I should pay more attention to the F1 as well.
Keep posting, great pics too.
KarenO

**carolyn137** · July 3, 2016

Not only do I think your project is great,but I just posted in Town Hall where you introduced yourself,actually about how to distinguish between Serbian tomato varieties and ones from the former Yugoslavia, BUT I noted you are just 23 years old.

How I wish I was 23 years old again,and if I was,what would I do differently as regards my vegetable and fruit growing. Back then hardly anyone as individuals were doing any crosses,that's for sure. So if I was 23 again I think I would do that and not rely on accidental X pollinations and mutations to introduce biological diversity.

Please keep us posted.

Carolyn

StrongPlant · July 3, 2016

Thanks everyone for positive feedback

I can't believe I forgot to mention my most valuable plant.This one is really something special.Last year I grew "Delicious" right next to a cherry variety,I forgot it's name,but it was of hybrid origin,and yielded loads of very sweet fruits.It seems that these two crossed spontaneously,wihout any intervention from my side at all.And the resulting plant is almost everything I'm trying to make.This year has been pretty bad for tomatoes because we had loads of rain and humid weather.Despite this,this one is doing great.There is not a single spot even on the lowest leaves.

Soon the first one will ripen so I can finally taste it.What's interesting is that every single flower up to the 4th truss set fruit,not a single flower fell off due to rot or no pollination.I thought at first it's parthenocarpic,but I picked one of the green fruits and they had lots of seeds inside.

The whole plant showing the four trusses with all possible fruits set.One more thing to mention is that this plant is growing right next to other tomatoes that suffered early blight,tomato mosaic virus,curly top virus,aphid infestations,both fungal and bacterial leaf spot...and it's doing more than fine,it's thriving! lol

It's really funny how I'm trying to get something specific and now a random cross appeared that has almost everything I'm looking for.I just hope the next generation keeps at least some of the traits this gem has.It needs improvement in the size,and I have yet to taste it,but other than that it's perfection.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bower

So I'm not sure whether your ambition, of a plant that produces without much nutrients, and stays healthy as well, is really possible.

I didn't mean a plant that can grow without literary a drop of nutrients,just one that can do fine without much.And if you're also growing without spraying,please let me know which ones are doing the best,it means a lot to me,thanks!

@Karen I believe F1's are the way to go.These plants have the highest amount of heterozigosity possible,and that's a good thing.In fact I think in most mass vegetable productions,producers are always opting for F1 hybrids,as these are the highest yielding and most vigorous.At least it's like that with tomatoes here,everyone who's producing grows F1's and they are really monster plants,that can easily give more than 10kg of fruit per plant.

One thing I'd really like to figure out is which varieties are most genetically distantly related,as these ones when crossed,give the best results.Maybe someone here can give some input on that,it would be awesome.There's lots of stuff going on with my tomatoes this year,I'll keep this thread updated.

KarenO · July 3, 2016

I agree for commercial growers F1 hybrids are likely best. For myself though, I love the recessive traits only found in OP tomatoes Potato leaf for example, blacks and stripes and bicolour and shapes besides round. More complex and delicious flavours (by far) in my opinion in OP tomatoes. These are the reasons I personally prefer them to F1's in general for my home garden and also for my own small breeding projects
KarenO

ginger2778 · July 3, 2016

Quote:

Originally Posted by KarenO

Welcome to Tomatoville! Very interesting projects breeding specifically for F1's I haven't seen much of that here as most are trying to stabilize OP varieties and the F1 is not concentrated on at all. I have noticed in my F1's a great vigour but always am looking for the segregation in the F2. I should pay more attention to the F1 as well.
Keep posting, great pics too.
KarenO

I can personally vouch for one of your F1s, and it did a fair amount of segregating too.

I really miss the purple.

bower · July 3, 2016

StrongPlant,

Kudos on the 'Delicious mystery' tomato! They look amazing.

As regards disease resistance, it would be hard for me to say off the cuff. There are so many diseases, most are susceptible to one or another, and to really say something is disease resistant, you need to grow it many years. I could look through my files and tell you which OP's I grew only once because they were very disease prone. But this might also be misleading in different conditions. You'll find people here who have far more experience than I do.

Several years ago I made a cross between the two most disease resistant plants that year - Rozoviy Flamingo heart and Al Kuffa dwarf. Last year I grew out the F2 and in that cold year and crowded conditions they did no better than the rest.

What is the disease that troubles you the most in Serbia?
We get grey mold (Botrytis) here, especially when it's cold and wet. A little Early Blight (Alternaria) for some on the lower leaves but not usually through the canopy. Either of those on the stems can be fatal, and usually is by end of season. And when we have heat and humidity midseason, the mildews are a problem - no resistance to those in anything I've grown so far.

On the scale that I'm growing, leaf disease (except for the mildews!) can be controlled by routine sanitation - remove the diseased leaves. For stems affected, dipping the pruners in bleach has worked well.

StrongPlant · July 3, 2016

Quote:

Originally Posted by KarenO

I agree for commercial growers F1 hybrids are likely best. For myself though, I love the recessive traits only found in OP tomatoes Potato leaf for example, blacks and stripes and bicolour and shapes besides round. More complex and delicious flavours (by far) in my opinion in OP tomatoes. These are the reasons I personally prefer them to F1's in general for my home garden and also for my own small breeding projects
KarenO

You can also make vigorous F1's with the recessive trait,but I guess it would take way more time.Tomatoes in my opinion "love" to cross with genetically different plants and their offspring ussualy benefits from it.Have you noticed for example that most potato-leaved varieties have protruding stigmas? As if they are so inbred that they are begging to be polinated with some pollen other than their own.Plants are very resistant to inbreeding,but even they ussualy prefer outcrossing.I think many recessive traits that some OP varieties have are interesting and pretty to look at,but they are recessive for a reason-they,again-ussualy,we can't generalize anything,are making the plant less fit in some way.That's why I'm pretty unintrested in them and don't want them in my plants,but I don't want to see them purged from entire world of course

Quote:

Originally Posted by bower

What is the disease that troubles you the most in Serbia?

Well this year,I had an aphid infestation.And with them come the viral diseases.The worst one was curly top,I think it's the full name is beet curly top,but most of the plants recovered from it once the aphids were eliminated by ladybugs and howerflies.I thought for sure the virus is going to completely destroy them all because they looked horrible with thinned leaves,and some of them did die,but most recovered completely to my amazement.The usual fungal diseases like early and late blights are typical,and I have just recently noticed alternaria stem canker on one plant.But this year the biggest problem by far are those gross stinkbugs...I'm trying to figure out how to protect the fruits because there are too many and they don't seem to have natural predators,so they poke the fruits until they rot from it.I absolutely hate them

StrongPlant · August 1, 2016

A little update on the new ideas and plans.
Since I want to exploit hybrid vigour to the maximum,I would need to have 2 genetically distinct pure lines for every F1.Since I do not have any avaliable technology that can tell me how genetically divergent my lines are,I am limited to using my eyes to physically notice the morphological differences between plants.Which hopefully are caused by different genes.

The new idea is creating 2 lines,one with as many recessive traits as possible,and one with a high amount of dominant ones.I already have one pure-breeding line which seems to be a variant of S.Pimpinelifolium.F1's where this plant has been one of the parents resemble a pumped-up version of it-bigger fruit,leaves,stems and height,but showing very little trait expression from the other parent.
The other line that I need,is however,a bit trickier.What I intend to create by careful crossing and selection is a tomato with: Determinate growth,large yellow fruit,multifloral (gene "s"),jointless pedicle,hairy stems/leaves and potato-leaf.Now this one would look dramaticaly different from the other,dominant parent,and hopefully,their genetic divergence will be pushed to the maximum.And when the two are crossed,I expect to see a S.pimp. on steroids.And thus,I would have created my perfect F1 cherry.But I plan on developing several more cherry hybrids(because cherry toms are my favourite),paste and general-purpose tomato hybrids.

One thing I am thinking about incorporating into all my breeding programs is making the female parent always have the potato-leaf trait,because I will be able to easily remove seedlings which resultet from the mother plant self-polinating because I will be able to see from early on which ones have PL,saving myself space and time I'd possibly lose on off-types.

bower · August 1, 2016

I'm growing a determinate yellow for the first time this year called v Desyatku. Quite early and fruit are 4-5 oz beef type and prolific. Another yellow determinate with 'large' at least non cherry fruit is called Taxi. You could cross one of these with a yellow multiflora and select for determinate (if the multiflora isn't).

StrongPlant · August 2, 2016

Quote:

Originally Posted by bower

I'm growing a determinate yellow for the first time this year called v Desyatku. Quite early and fruit are 4-5 oz beef type and prolific. Another yellow determinate with 'large' at least non cherry fruit is called Taxi. You could cross one of these with a yellow multiflora and select for determinate (if the multiflora isn't).

Thanks for the tips,but the multiflora I have is yellow-fruited.It is "Ildi",a popular cherry type tomato.I've had a good experience with it this year and the fruits were deliciously sweet.I plan on crossing it with a PL det. red-fruited variety,and then cross the selected F2s with a det. jointless.From there on,I will be selecting for the mentioned traits.A cross with Ildi already has a good potential of exhibiting quite a bit of heterosis because the other line is vastly different that it.So with that cross I might already have a very good hybrid,but I certanly won't settle for it and abbandon my other plans.

bower · August 2, 2016

Quote:

Originally Posted by StrongPlant

Thanks for the tips,but the multiflora I have is yellow-fruited.It is "Ildi",a popular cherry type tomato.I've had a good experience with it this year and the fruits were deliciously sweet.I plan on crossing it with a PL det. red-fruited variety,and then cross the selected F2s with a det. jointless.From there on,I will be selecting for the mentioned traits.A cross with Ildi already has a good potential of exhibiting quite a bit of heterosis because the other line is vastly different that it.So with that cross I might already have a very good hybrid,but I certanly won't settle for it and abbandon my other plans.

Cool.

Keep us posted with some pix as you grow them out.

StrongPlant · August 23, 2016

Well,I got ripped off.I bought seeds which were supposed to be Black sea man,but this is what came out:

I needed this variety because of specific traits,one of which is potato leaf foliage,and if this is potato leaf I'll eat a rotten tomato.
This is quite a setback because as all of you know,it takes a huge amount of time to grow,cross and care for tomato plants.I have,luckily,another variety with potato leaf foliage,but this one is indeterminate,and I would prefer it if it was det...oh well,I must continue with what I have.

I am going to try and do 2 generations per year.This would cut the time for every developed hybrid and pure lines by half.I don't have a heating in the greenhouse,so most likely I will try and grow the second generation under artificial lights indoors.I have space for only a couple of plants,but it will do for now.

Here is that delicious-unkown cherry spontaneous cross,finally it succumbed to the russet mite infestation,but not before developing a whole lot of new tomatoes and reaching over 2m is length.

I gave it a name DCS for now.

I also found a source of the jointless gene,it is a variety occasionaly grown here called "Narvik",and is also determinate,which helps quite a bit.It has a nice,round,nedium sized fruit:

I just hope I won't have the same experience with this one as with black sea man.
Here are a couple of seedlings which will be grown indoors this winter,these are the source of yellow fruit color and multiflora genes(Ildi):

I have yet to figure out the fastest crossing route to incorporating all the recessive genes I want into a single plant so I can finnaly start selecting.The fake black sea man seeds really set me back a lot.But I'll figure something out soon.

I am also considering various grafting techniques,which could enable me to grow 3 generations per year,which would be awesome.Stay tuned!

StrongPlant · August 26, 2016

Here's the crudely scetched scheme for the breeding plan so far to get the full recessive trait variety:

If someone knows a quicker route please inform me.I like genetics a lot but I'm only an amateur.

Also,I need help yet again.If anyone knows about varieties that have at least 2 of these recessive traits please inform me of their names so I can try and find them in my area.As you can see none of the three plants share any of the recessives that I want to breed into a single plant,which really complicates things.If I had at least one that is for example det. yellow fruited that would help a lot with those "F2 chances".

July 3, 2016	#1
StrongPlant Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2016 Location: Europe/Serbia-Belgrade Posts: 151	StrongPlant-Breeding for the future Hi I am so excited to be a memeber of this forum! This is only my second year since I've been focusing on and growing tomatoes.But I've been growing plants,from mosses to trees my entire life.And I love it,the plants are the most amazing creatures,and give us so much while taking so little. This year has been great in comparison with the last when it comes to tomatoes and that's because I've learned much more about them than I knew last year.I've been focusing heavily on breeding and selection of tometoes.I grow all my vegetables withour any spraying at all,not even organic mixes and teas.This is because I want to expose plants that are truly the most resistant and vigorous.The selection is almost cruel in my garden-any variety that shows any sign of weakness or negative trait is never planted again.The ultimate goal is to develop several F1 varieties that show all of the qualities below.If you're wondering why do they all need to be F1,well this is because the heterotic organisms are almost always more healthy and vigorous than homozygous ones(heterosis).Besides,I will have all the pure lines since I developed them so getting the F1 seeds every year won't be a problem. Thsese are the traits I want all of my tomatoes to have: -High yields -Exelent taste -Disease resistance.This for me,is the most important thing,as I want to grow tomatoes without any chemical tratments. -Regular trusses.What I mean by this: This is an example of a regular truss.Maybe there exists a more professional term,but I just go with "regular".On the other side,this kind of truss form is highly undesirable since it's very hard to support such ones and prevent kinking: -Fruit uniformity.No double flowes.All fruit must be the same size. -Earliness -Vigour.Faster growth is almost always a good indicator of good genetics -Thick stems,to prevent breakage,and for the plant to be able to support the weight of the fruits -Ability to grow well with minimum nutrients -Drought tolerance -Humidity tolerance -Uniform ripening -Easy detachment for better picking As you might guess I want to create a monster one thing the palnts do not have to be resistant to are insects,since it would be too much time to breed resistant plants.I am working on several mechanical means of protecting the plants from them. This is what's growing in my greenhouse and outside this year: San Marzano.Wow.What a tomato.It's doing great in both greenhouse and ouside,this is going to be one of the parents for the next year cross. I have no idea what tomato is it,I call it "tiny",but I'm not growing it next year.It is quite small,has bland taste and is very prone to kinking due to it's higly elognated and irregular trusses. This is the F1 cherry tomato,the cross was from last year.It is almost completely free of disease,both outside and in the greenhouse.The taste is good,but the yield is quite low.Not bad,but I will not make this cross again. This is "Ildi".It has the "multiflora" gene.The problem with it is that it's very prone to late blight.Only the first fruit truss has this many fruits while all subsequent ones above it barely have any at all: I will not grow it again,but I've made a few crosses to try and create a variety that will have multiflora gene but be more disease resistant.Maybe that gene is not so great as it seems but I'm just not ready to let it go yet. This is a F1 cherry,last year cross between San marzano and another variety below.It's also problem-free as the above F1 one,but the yield is still a problem.There needs to be more fruits per truss.This one has better taste,however. This is Red cluster pear that contains the same multiflora gene as Ildi.And it has the same problem-late blight,almost no fruit above the first cluster...to me it seems that the plants with this gene cannot effectively support such huge number of flowers and fruits,because it leaves it without resourses to fight disease. This one is also an F1 last year cross.It has fused flowers,and the resulting fruit is also huge,but the entire plant is highly irregular,the leaves are twisted,the trusses prone to breakage,and the suckers always rise above the leaf node and become fused with the stem which makes them very difficult to pinch off without scissors. Yellow stuffer.Well this one is just for fun,really.And I am curious about it's taste. This cherry is very tiny,less than 1cm in dieameter on avarage.I'm not sure if it's Solanum pimpinellifolium,but it does have hairless stem and leaves.This one was one of the parents for both cherries above.While it's not that disease resistant as some others,it has the regular truss,easy detach and fruit uniformity(no double flowers) that I want in my tomatoes.These traits also seem to be highly dominant and override their undesirable counterparts. This one is the winner.I have no idea which variety is it,I got the seeds from my neighbour.It seems she saved the seeds,but the variety was definitely F1.This generation is F3,and I'm working on stabilizing it,since it's the only plant completely healthy outside,even though we had heavy rain this year. Indigo rose.If this thing ripens before winter,I will be amazed it's sure pretty to look at,but the plants lack vigour and grows the slowest of them all...it does have a very thick and stiff truss which can be quite useful to prevent kinking but I'd rather find another variety that has this trait. There are a few more but I planted them late and they are only now flowering... I am very interested to hear if any of you have grown tomatoes without any spraying and which varieties were they! Also,there is very little information about disease resistance in "pure" tomates,that is,the ones that come true from seed,such as San marzano menitoned above,so if any of you know something about this it'd be great.

July 3, 2016	#4
carolyn137 Moderator Emeritus Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Upstate NY, zone 4b/5a Posts: 21,169	Not only do I think your project is great,but I just posted in Town Hall where you introduced yourself,actually about how to distinguish between Serbian tomato varieties and ones from the former Yugoslavia, BUT I noted you are just 23 years old. How I wish I was 23 years old again,and if I was,what would I do differently as regards my vegetable and fruit growing. Back then hardly anyone as individuals were doing any crosses,that's for sure. So if I was 23 again I think I would do that and not rely on accidental X pollinations and mutations to introduce biological diversity. Please keep us posted. Carolyn __________________ Carolyn

July 3, 2016	#2
bower Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Newfoundland, Canada Posts: 6,794	Hello StrongPlant and welcome to T'ville. What nice looking tomatoes. I'm very interested in your project so be sure to keep us updated! You really are out to breed a monster "dream tomato" as everyone wants. I wish you success. I don't spray my plants ever. Mostly growing in a greenhouse and, ideally I would provide some shelter for all my outdoor plants as well from wind and rain. But we still get leaf diseases in the greenhouse - humidity is enough for that, and different diseases if it's warm or cold... I see them every year and every plant will suffer from one disease or another by the end of season when it's too cold and dark to go on. I also see disease come up regularly on the lower leaves of the plant, when they are loaded with fruits and starting to ripen, and the answer to this is apparently nutrition - more nutrients and the plant will keep more leaves as well as its fruit and stay healthy. So I'm not sure whether your ambition, of a plant that produces without much nutrients, and stays healthy as well, is really possible.

July 3, 2016	#3
KarenO Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Vancouver Island Posts: 5,931	Welcome to Tomatoville! Very interesting projects breeding specifically for F1's I haven't seen much of that here as most are trying to stabilize OP varieties and the F1 is not concentrated on at all. I have noticed in my F1's a great vigour but always am looking for the segregation in the F2. I should pay more attention to the F1 as well. Keep posting, great pics too. KarenO

August 1, 2016	#10
StrongPlant Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2016 Location: Europe/Serbia-Belgrade Posts: 151	A little update on the new ideas and plans. Since I want to exploit hybrid vigour to the maximum,I would need to have 2 genetically distinct pure lines for every F1.Since I do not have any avaliable technology that can tell me how genetically divergent my lines are,I am limited to using my eyes to physically notice the morphological differences between plants.Which hopefully are caused by different genes. The new idea is creating 2 lines,one with as many recessive traits as possible,and one with a high amount of dominant ones.I already have one pure-breeding line which seems to be a variant of S.Pimpinelifolium.F1's where this plant has been one of the parents resemble a pumped-up version of it-bigger fruit,leaves,stems and height,but showing very little trait expression from the other parent. The other line that I need,is however,a bit trickier.What I intend to create by careful crossing and selection is a tomato with: Determinate growth,large yellow fruit,multifloral (gene "s"),jointless pedicle,hairy stems/leaves and potato-leaf.Now this one would look dramaticaly different from the other,dominant parent,and hopefully,their genetic divergence will be pushed to the maximum.And when the two are crossed,I expect to see a S.pimp. on steroids.And thus,I would have created my perfect F1 cherry.But I plan on developing several more cherry hybrids(because cherry toms are my favourite),paste and general-purpose tomato hybrids. One thing I am thinking about incorporating into all my breeding programs is making the female parent always have the potato-leaf trait,because I will be able to easily remove seedlings which resultet from the mother plant self-polinating because I will be able to see from early on which ones have PL,saving myself space and time I'd possibly lose on off-types.

August 23, 2016	#14
StrongPlant Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2016 Location: Europe/Serbia-Belgrade Posts: 151	Well,I got ripped off.I bought seeds which were supposed to be Black sea man,but this is what came out: I needed this variety because of specific traits,one of which is potato leaf foliage,and if this is potato leaf I'll eat a rotten tomato. This is quite a setback because as all of you know,it takes a huge amount of time to grow,cross and care for tomato plants.I have,luckily,another variety with potato leaf foliage,but this one is indeterminate,and I would prefer it if it was det...oh well,I must continue with what I have. I am going to try and do 2 generations per year.This would cut the time for every developed hybrid and pure lines by half.I don't have a heating in the greenhouse,so most likely I will try and grow the second generation under artificial lights indoors.I have space for only a couple of plants,but it will do for now. Here is that delicious-unkown cherry spontaneous cross,finally it succumbed to the russet mite infestation,but not before developing a whole lot of new tomatoes and reaching over 2m is length. I gave it a name DCS for now. I also found a source of the jointless gene,it is a variety occasionaly grown here called "Narvik",and is also determinate,which helps quite a bit.It has a nice,round,nedium sized fruit: I just hope I won't have the same experience with this one as with black sea man. Here are a couple of seedlings which will be grown indoors this winter,these are the source of yellow fruit color and multiflora genes(Ildi): I have yet to figure out the fastest crossing route to incorporating all the recessive genes I want into a single plant so I can finnaly start selecting.The fake black sea man seeds really set me back a lot.But I'll figure something out soon. I am also considering various grafting techniques,which could enable me to grow 3 generations per year,which would be awesome.Stay tuned!

August 26, 2016	#15
StrongPlant Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2016 Location: Europe/Serbia-Belgrade Posts: 151	Here's the crudely scetched scheme for the breeding plan so far to get the full recessive trait variety: If someone knows a quicker route please inform me.I like genetics a lot but I'm only an amateur. Also,I need help yet again.If anyone knows about varieties that have at least 2 of these recessive traits please inform me of their names so I can try and find them in my area.As you can see none of the three plants share any of the recessives that I want to breed into a single plant,which really complicates things.If I had at least one that is for example det. yellow fruited that would help a lot with those "F2 chances".