Stigma ready?

[jmsieglaff]

I've been trying to cross Black Krim x Zluta Kytice. I have had problems buzzing pollen out of ZK. I removed a few flowers, sliced the anther cone tip off and was able to buzz out lots of pollen. Below is the BK stigma I applied pollen to. It was emasculated 2 days ago at approx -2 stage. Can you tell by a picture if the stigma/style was ready? Pollen seems to stick to the stigma/style. (The spoon was already cleaned at the time of this picture.)

[bower]

Sticking is a good sign, but the mature stigma also often has a bit of a knob on the end. Sometimes not so much, maybe depends on the cultivar or fruit size.
I would watch it another day or two and see if the shape develops or not.
I usually repeat pollination on a cross several times, but when it sticks well that usually means I'm done. I drag the stigma through pollen and if it leaves a bare line behind it, you know it's sticking.

[jmsieglaff]

Originally Posted by bower

I drag the stigma through pollen and if it leaves a bare line behind it, you know it's sticking.

Thanks for the reply! That's what I did--dragged the stigma through and it was leave a line in the pollen. I could actually see accumulated pollen on the style.

[bower]

Sounds good.
The down side of repeating is that you increase the risk of breaking the stigma in the process. So maybe just as well if you got it the first go.
Best of luck with it.

[jmsieglaff]

Thanks again. The style end (stigma) was swollen a bit tonight. So I reapplied, if yesterday it was sticky, today it was super sticky.

[NarnianGarden]

Cross-pollination seems such a tedious job... very demanding.
I wonder how the hybrid seed producers go about with it... Do they really hand-pollinate everything?

[bower]

Narnian, in some cases the hybrid producers develop (or use) male sterile lines for their F1 female parent. So they don't have to emasculate the blossoms to make the cross, and that's the really tricky part. It's really easy to damage the stigma when removing the anther cone.
On the other hand, I suppose if people are doing it as their day job, they develop a lot of skill, where us amateurs only doing a few every year are never as practiced!
Male sterile genes are common btw, that is there are a number of genetic variants with that result which afaik occurred naturally and were identified and maintained in the breeding banks.
See "cytoplasmic male sterility" :
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22015/

[NarnianGarden]

Thanks for the infor, bower!
I have often wondered about hybrid seed production & the practical side of it... I once jokingly asked, if any of the tomato flesh gets eaten by the field workers as a pasta sauce.. probably not, if the whole fruit goes into seed production!

But I dare wonder, if any field worker ever wanted to snack on those 'hybrid mamas' ..
SunGold mother might taste good and thus be a temptation..!

[bower]

My friend, who usually grows 50 Sungolds every year, got a "wrong" seed in her package one year - it was a small red cherry more or less grape shaped, quite small and cute, I was tempted to save seeds but they weren't a bit tasty!
It must have been an accidental F1 cross with something else (red grape evidently).
The heredity of taste is a strange and mysterious thing!
Maybe in Sungold the pollen donor/ daddy plant is the tasty one.

[NarnianGarden]

Surprised that it doesn't happen more often - or we don't hear about it. I am convinced that nature plays some tricks with hybrid seed producers at times - the results cannot be uniform all the time, no matter how professional the breeders and field workers are. There must be some mutations and unwanted crosses every now and then.
I believe that nature has her ways to stay in control

[efisakov]

Bower, I have a question about colors of crossed tomatoes.

Few years ago I got a bag of seeds, variety was Carbon. Every year I grew 1 plant, and they were true black tomatoes including this year.
Last year it was pink (from the same bag)!? The fruits were tasty and plant was extremely productive. I was under impression that it was a cross. So, I saved seeds. This year besides growing true Carbon I am growing 1 NOT Carbon from last year seeds. I was surprised when it turned out to be a yellow tomato. The taste is good, not as great as last year pink Not Carbon. I am more interested in the last year pink.
Can you advice on the parenting issue. Is this yellow the indication that black was crossed with yellow originally? But would it give pink as a result? Does not sound right.
Do you know if there is a chart somewhere about possibilities in crosses with different colors?
I guess my question is : Should I keep on trying to grow more plants from last year pink seeds saved by me (which I did not bag)?

I am interested in it because of the taste and production:
NOT Carbon (not bl, RL) in ounces
13.1, 8.7, 7.5, 9.9, 7.7, 5.7, 7.2, 10.9, 12.6, 7.3, 4.5, 12.6, 8, 5.9, 9.0, 9.6, 10.5, 8.5, 4.2, 9.1, 20.5, 10.2, 11.0, 9.6, 6.2, 6.7, 11.0, 10.1, 9.3, 14.6, 5.8, 5.6, 6.3, 4.8, 8.5, 9.2, 7.1, 5.6, 6.8, 6.1, 3.7, 7, 7.2, 7.1, 4.4, 8.2, 6.3, 8, 6.7, 12.1, 9.8, 4.3, 7.7, 7.9, 9.1, 4.7, 9.2, 7.9, 11, 10.4, 6.2, 5.6, 4.3, 40.5(7), 8, 4.4, 3.9, 5, 5.6, 9.6, 9.8, 7.2, 6.8, 5.7, 4, 6.5, 5, 10.4(3), 10.8(3), 26(few) = 685.5
that is more than 40 pounds
At the end I was picking just starting to ripen fruits. It was still producing in October.

Here is that yellow this year.

[bower]

Hi Ella,
Trying to figure this out....
Carbon is a pink-black.. so three genes involved: red flesh (dominant) and clear epidermis (recessive, makes it pink) and gf "green flesh" recessive makes it black.

In order to get a pink Not-Carbon, you had to cross with another with "clear epidermis" not yellow epidermis. I don't know if a yellow can have a clear epidermis, but I think that combination of yellow flesh and clear epidermis is called "white" (although not truly white).
So there are two possibilities for parent of your lovely pink:
- a pink.
- a 'white' or a yellow with clear epidermis. This could produce a pink because yellow flesh is recessive to red, as long as the epidermis is clear.

So the second possibility could explain a yellow in the F2, but only if the epidermis on that fruit is clear. If you peel it away can you see the colour?

[efisakov]

Epidermis looks yellow. Does that mean it was crossed last year?

I grew last year Claude Brown’s Yellow Giant (that has green lines while still not ripe), Orange Russian 117 (heart, my fruits are all beefsteaks) and Peg’s Round Orange (small to medium size not beefsteak looking like).
One more to consider Cherokee Chocolate can be possible cross.

Thank you, bower.

[bower]

Ella,
For the F2 from a pink F1 to be yellow with a yellow epidermis, the first cross with Carbon would have to be a "white" with clear epidermis and yellow flesh if you had one that year. And a second cross with a yellow fruit X the pink F1 would be necessary to get yellow epidermis and yellow flesh in this generation.
Were you growing a white tomato the year your "not Carbon " seed was produced? If not, then the parent that produced the pink F1, had to be a pink.
If the parent was pinkXCarbon, there is no possibility of producing a yellow in the F2, and no possibility of producing a yellow by a second cross between the pink and a yellow, since red flesh is dominant it would take another generation for it to show. So the only answer would be, a stray seed of a yellow.

If the parent was a white tomato, then the pink not-Carbon F1 had one redflesh and one yellowflesh allele. So if it crossed with a yellow, you would have 50% chance of a yellow as you found. It would have to be a beefsteak parent, as the smaller fruit genetics tends to be dominant you would have gotten something in between size.

Then there is another possibility, if the "yellow" in this fruit is really tt tangerine (a gene that produces orange fruit) and not yellow flesh at all. tangerine gene will be expressed whether the fruit is red flesh or yellow, but must have the two alleles tt because it's recessive as well. And I don't know how it affects the epidermis, could be it would make it yellow too but only when tt, which would allow the F1 to be pink.
So the first part of the puzzle, was there a white or a tangerine yellow parent the year you saved the seeds that turned out to be not-Carbon pink.
Cherokee Chocolate is not a possible cross with Carbon because the F1 would also be black not pink.

[efisakov]

Bower, the pink Carbon was in the original bag of seeds. So it came to me. I do not know what it could be crossed with.
Just remembering another possibility. The same year I grew that pink Carbon I had my own saved seeds of Cherokee Chocolate turned to be a yellow tomato (possible cross of Claude Brown’s Yellow Giant and CC). It had same stripes as Claude Brown’s Yellow Giant when green.
So the pink Carbon F1 probably got crossed with that tomato.
Now, that means I have an unknown white skin yellow flesh tomato X Carbon X CC X Claude Brown’s Yellow Giant. That is 4 parents.
Is it worth saving seeds and trying to get pink out of it? Is it even possible?
Sorry, I am asking too many questions.