Topics

1

Tomatoes / 2022 Tomato Growouts and breeding experiments ideas

« on: 2021-09-19, 12:15:25 PM »

Up front a disclaimer. I'm about to finish a second degree to teach science. So I'll be looking for a teaching job for 2022. That could radically curtail or change my plans for the 2022 garden season.

However for now based on my 2021 seed harvested here are some possibilities for 2022.

1. Grow out "found it", "is that a tomato?", "persimmon" the best flavored 2021 orange bicolor with exserted open flowers from Josephs promiscuous interspecies cross project in isolation and see if that amazing flavor comes back!

2. Grow out either a large grow out of MMS x BH F1 or if my four basement plants do well the F2 selected for potato leaves in search of a PL, blue, exserted, bicolor.

3. Grow LA 1410 Galapagense surrounding an exserted potato leaf.

4. Grow LA 2329 habrochaites with any hybrids of it I capture from the 2021 seeds of plants I interspersed it with.

5. Grow out any hybrids found in potato leaf seeds as they may segregate in fun ways. Though the PL MMS plant in the LA2329 crossing block could have hybridized with LA2329 or some domestics or promiscuous project plants. Any obvious F1 hybrids with LA 2329 will be planted in a row next to LA 2329.

6. Maybe grow direct seeded exserted PL red found this year as a direct seeded row? It could go in with the domestic PL X RL hybirds.

7. Grow lots of fun tomatoes from various lines I've saved seed from plus any other people's tomatoes that are just for fun etc in a slushy garden where out crossing can be less controlled.

2

OSSI pledged varieties / Can a somatic mutation be OSSI Pledged?

« on: 2021-09-08, 07:06:55 PM »

I found a somatic mutation in a tomato. One tomato was half and half and the other solid kind of orange skin with red veins. A strain of Jagodka I got from a guy named Earl on the old Homegrown goodness forum in 2017. I saved the seed from the solid mutant tomato. Next step of course is to grow it out again and see if it persists. Sometimes with frameshift mutations they shift back and forth.

If stable this trait could be bred into more exciting varieties.

It occurs to me that somatic mutations are the origin stories for some tomato varieties.

Never found a mutant before.

3

Corn / 2021 Corn

« on: 2021-08-27, 08:11:01 PM »

I have done a bad job growing corn in 2021. I planted one patch of a single variety of flour corn from Baker Creek from a Bozeman MT corn breeder. It seems fine. Already picked five ears.

Then I planted a flint corn grex field. It is very stunted. Might get a few ripe ears.

Same with the sweet corn.

Corn definitely needs to be planted and weeded a bit more carefully. Oh well. I might get some small amount of interesting genetics from it.

4

Seed Saving / 2021 watermelons

« on: 2021-08-13, 10:37:12 PM »

We ate the second homegrown direct seeded watermelon tonight. It was ok. Seemed riper than the first one. Could be sweeter. Saved some seed. It like the first was from a bed I sort of sand hugelkultured this year. I think the deep sand is the ticket though. Probably going to make watermelon beds deeper in future. Probably was a Lofthouse but growing two baker creek varieties this yea as well.

5

Tomatoes / Blue skin tomatoes that aren't supposed to be

« on: 2021-08-08, 09:19:55 PM »

I like breeding for Anthocyanin blue skin. However I've also noticed that crosses show up as sort of codominant for the trait. I've exploited that to find F1s.

However I also seem to find Anthocyanin in lines that really aren't.

Tonight I found a single tomato in a bag of sweet cherriette with a bit of blue near the stem.

Pinnochio also seems to have a blue spot.

I don't think this is anthocyanin at least not as we usually get it.

I think I read something recently. A blog post. There are other versions of antho genes out there and they crop up. The poster had done an experiment with them trying to create his own antho line. Wish I could find it.

Wonder if crossed to the main antho lines there might be some possible synergy?

6

Tomatoes / Heat Tolerant Tomatoes

« on: 2021-08-06, 07:19:27 PM »

I planted a garden in the Vegas area awhile back in the winter. They have some heat tolearnt varieties in the garden centers there. Given this year's heat wave. I wonder if it might be useful to delve into some of those genotypes a bit.

7

Tomatoes / Seed Free Tomatoes

« on: 2021-08-06, 01:34:54 PM »

I have a promiscuous project bicolor that had no seeds in its first ripe tomato.

Tomatoes like Siletz are known for that.

So the mystery just deepened. My unrelated MMS bicolor project I just processed a batch. Most tomatoes had no to few seeds. One had a normal amount.

We had a cold spring then a very abnormal heat wave of 90 degree days that interfered with fruit set.

My thought is that this is an environmental response to the heat wave?

8

Community & Forum Building / Landrace Gardening book by Joseph Lofthouse

« on: 2021-05-28, 11:22:43 PM »

It's out on Amazon. My copy came today. So far read chapter twelve on tomatoes.

9

Tomatoes / Tomato Journal

« on: 2021-05-09, 08:33:00 PM »

Thought I would start a thread for very general tomato related thoughts in journal form.

I transplanted a few yesterday into larger and even whole summer pots. Also have a few with green buds formed. Happy to see that.

Cold weather all weekend low tonight of 33 F. Then will warm with average last frost dste Saturday. Might be able to start field planting as early as Tuesday evening.

10

Greens & Brassicas / Hardy Kale

« on: 2021-04-23, 02:03:53 PM »

Someone sent me some seeds for hardy kales. A couple plants survived the winter in great shape and some others are resprouting from the stem. So fairly happy with the experiment.

Also a couple of Brussels sprout plants survived at the house. Which isn't as harsh.

11

Tomatoes / Favorite Tomato Germplasm and 2021 desired crosses

« on: 2021-04-11, 08:25:51 PM »

I suppose my favorite tomato germplasm is that I want to make crosses with the most. I was looking over a list of my favorite short season varieties after 2017. Thinking about exciting new varieties I've encountered since. Then crossing out most of the boring red ones.

Big Hill is one I first grew in 2018. It's a great tomato. I still want to make more crosses with it. Most importantly with Mission Mountain Sunrise. Lower priority cross it to exserted tiger.

Want to cross exserted tiger with Mission Mountain Sunrise.

Want to cross exserted orange with the blue orange chile tressette descendents.

I think I would like to cross Payette with a exserted and or fancy tomato maybe Big Hill would do.

I would like to finally make a cross with sweet cherriette.

I would like to cross LA2329 with an XA1/A2 bicolor. I was thinking R18 or S35/36/37 but those are a smidgeon rarer.

LA2329 x MMSunrise might be nice though a little problematic until the prebreeding of getting a MMSunrise x Big Hill is done and an exserted segregate selected. Still might be doable.

Then maybe just a crossing block of exserted tomatoes: big hill, exserted orange, blue ambrosia, blue chile tressette, exserted tiger, exserted pimp x tressete cross. Spose I could plant it in the block with the obligates too.

Iron Lady, it would be nice to cross it with something Carol Deppe style. Maybe an exserted.

12

Tomatoes / Traditional Tomato Breeding Book

« on: 2021-04-11, 03:49:37 PM »

It would be cool if the various authors who have written book chapters or articles about tomato breeding. Carol Deppe who wrote a call to arms chapter about breeding for late blight resistance, Alan Kapuler who wrote about occasionally outcrossing tomatoes, Joseph Lofthouse who is currently writing a chapter on promiscuous and obligate outcrossing tomatoes for his new book, Craig Lehoullier who writes books and cofounded the dwarf tomato project, Laurie McKenzie who wrote the OSA organic seed guide, and Andrea Clapp who wrote the WTS articles on tomato breeding could all collaborate, put that info together into a single volume and then we might just have the perfect book by and for traditional tomato breeding.

Maybe add Tom Wagner and or some others in as well if they could contribute chapters.

13

OSSI pledged varieties / Mission Mountain Sunrise

« on: 2021-04-04, 07:40:05 PM »

So I am growing a tomato this year for an isolated seed growout. I am calling it "Mission Mountain Sunrise". My plan is to OSSI pledge it. Filled out the online portion of that the other day. The mail in portion is printed out and waiting to be mailed in.

In 2017 the mother of the cross was a very small direct seeded potato leaf with a modestly exserted stigma in a packed for ~2017 Joseph Lofthouse landrace. The father was most likely Brad Gate's Blue Gold tomato.

I grew the F1 in 2018, and then made selections from the F2 in 2019 and I chose the bluest bicolor in 2020 despite an apparently inserted stigma. Fruit size is small might technically be a large cherry tomato some of the plants were very early in 2020. It might be determinate but I am uncertain.

I am very glad to report that I spy some potato leaf seedlings already in the 2021 growout. If so those will be my seed stock for the next growout.

Future plans: cross to Big Hill to get a bigger version with exserted open flowers. I really want a yellow exserted flowered potato leaf tomato. I think it will be a good breeding tool.

14

Tomatoes / Anthocyanin stem expression in tomatoes

« on: 2021-03-28, 10:21:56 PM »

Ok, so I have lots of new tomato seedlings. Some have anthocyanin stem expression. Some do not. Edit: I am going to modify this to rank them 0 to 4 with 4 being qualitatively different.

Yellow Tasty Indigo Kumquat F4 has a particularly lovely violet that is qualitatively different. 4

Big Hill has some 2
Exserted Tiger has more 3
Coyote has 2
Amethyst cream has 2
Bosque Bronze has 2
Hab cytoplasm a little maybe 1
Pimp x Tressette variable 1 to 2
Blue Tressette chile shaped variable 0-2
S35,36,37 variable but rare 0-2
R18 no 0-1
Mission Mountain Sunrise yes variable 1-3
Exserted orange is variable 0-3
Promiscuous bicolor is variable 0-2
Dwarf Hirsutum X is a no 0
Wild Child no 0
Brad no 0
Iron Lady no 0
Earliest XL is variable but lighter 0-1
Ugly cracking f2? Is yes but light 1
Yellow round Chariot F5 is variable 0-1
Earl's Jagodka light yes 1
Ot' Jagodka light yes 1
42 Days no 0
Forest Fire no 0
Terrior Galapagense no 0-1
Great big blue red F3 yes 1
Sweet cherriette light yes 1
Blue Gold yes- maybe with the same extra as the indigo kumquat 3-4
Lucid Gem yes 3-4
Blue Ambrosia yes 1-2
Kinda like dark Galaxy F3 yes 2
And variable in LA2329 but mucheck higher percentage in the 2020 grown seed which stands to reason as anthocyanin fruits is known from the accession and one of the two good mothers had them. 0-2

With the potential Payette X grown from contaminate off type 2020 seedling I notice some variation but pretty light. 0-1 (2?4?) Still too young to compare. I thought I detected potential half strength single copy anthocyanin expression in the mother's fruit. I remember reading something someone wrote perhaps on homegrown goodness that antho tomatoes can be picked out very young via stem expression. So my thought was to pick out the antho dwarfs. Not so sure if the antho expression is extra weak. I may have guessed wrong on the half strength antho. Got it right on the blue gold Tressette F1 in 2019 though.

Also intriguing some non-antho varieties like Big Hill seem to express fairly strong stem anthocyanin. Given that this is plant sunscreen it makes sense for it to be wider spread. Wonder though if they are more likely to express fruit antho if combined with the "Aft" gene.

15

Tomatoes / Arthropod and Insect Resistant Tomatoes

« on: 2021-03-21, 11:09:39 PM »

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JRKSzWSPQnw

Over a year ago now I watched the above video.

This led me to request a packet of LA2329 from the Tomato Genetics Conservation Center TGRC.

Currently growing that accession a second time.

One of my primary thoughts originally is that this could make a difference for direct seeding tomatoes for cooperators that were struggling with early season mortality from mites (correction: flea beetles)

Thought I should start a dedicated thread.