Topics

1

Tomatoes / Campbell Soup's tomato breeding program article

« on: 2022-01-15, 12:55:54 PM »

https://modernfarmer.com/2022/01/campbell-soup-jersey-tomato-breeding-program/?fbclid=IwAR3iegvy6QB9g3_pBpiJ0zD-CXpMjKgndtd0JrMTiTEca-fEQHSnl2NGsl8

Just saw a link to this on Facebook.

https://osseeds.org/ossi-varieties/dxx-m-tomato-clade/

Joseph crossed a tomato to a Campbell's tomato bred for his area with Jagodka link above. He ultimately named his Hamsonita. Article about the original tomato below:

https://www.deseret.com/2008/3/28/20078637/hamson-tomato-should-be-state-veggie#dx52-12-tomato-otherwise-know-as-hamson-tomato-was-developed-specifically-for-utahs-climate

Article interestingly says that direct seeding in California made transplant production in Utah uncompetitive for canning. Given my experience with direct seeding in Montana I wonder if it might be possible in more places to direct seed for canning tomatoes.


Not Campbell's Heinz but the local seed company here Triple Divide has a tomato presumably bred for ketchup production.

https://tripledivideseeds.com/product/heinz-paste/

2

Tomatoes / Heat tolerant, Heat Resistant, Hot Climate Tomato Varieties and breeding

« on: 2022-01-06, 10:07:38 AM »

I am interested in climate change breeding and given last summer's heat wave which caused a great many of my tomatoes to pause setting fruit or to apparently set seed free fruit for a long time I thought I would look into maybe looking into heat tolerance.

Towards that I recently purchased a packet of Flamenco tomato a tomato descended from Silvery Fir Tree x Floridade from Lee Goodwin's J & L Gardens websites heat resistant section for growing in 2022.

I just did a search for others looked at several lists and here is what I found already in my collection.

Brandywine- just bought a packet because of Craig LeHoullier's top ten flavor list
Celebrity- have some segregating descendents not the actual hybrid.
Green Zebra
San Marzano- have some old seed
Stupice- old local standard here
Yellow Pear- haven't grown out in awhile!
Isis Candy- may be getting soon in a seed trade
Blue Ambrosia- the variety I got from Lee Goodwin's J & L gardens that is the source of many of the segregating lines in my collection including Exserted Tiger because of exserted stigmas.
Fourth of July Hybrid- wonder if this works more as a heat avoider ripening before it gets too hot? If so all the ultra early types would work for that.
Lucid Gem - Brad touts its heat tolerance on the wild boar farms seed page about it.

Wonder if I made any notes on here somewhere as to what did well last summer during that. 

3

Tomatoes / Shortest season tomatoes

« on: 2022-01-04, 04:20:46 PM »

Lots of tomatoes in the united states have their shortness of season from transplant abbreviated. The shortest I have found is sweet cherriette at 35 DTM though I would say that is with starting eight weeks before transplant and growing really healthy seedlings. That into account and it is 91 days from seed to ripe fruit with seed. Anmore Dewdrop a dehybridized tumbler is quick. 42 days is quick. The strain of Jagodka I got from Earl is quick. Brad from Joseph is quick. Wild Child is quick. I have gotten very early perhaps comparable results from some sibling lines of my MMS project and some of my earliest F2 reds in 2019. Coyote is also pretty fast as is terrior's yellow tomato they sell as cheesemanii. Microdwarf and miniature tomato plants like Aztek, Gold Pearl, and Pinnochio seem exceptionally early.

I just saw this about Latah uprising organics got ripe fruit in 5 weeks which just happens to be 35 days.

Checking with snake river they say 55 to 60 days for the same tomato.

That could be normal variation though. If everything goes perfectly sometimes we do get some earlier fruit off of tomato plants!

https://uprisingorganics.com/collections/tomatoes/products/tomato-latah

https://www.snakeriverseeds.com/products/tomato-latah-1

I find that direct seeding vs transplanting, how cold or hot it is, and how well the plants are growing can affect things. Sometimes seed seems to be of higher quality when I grow it myself and it is fresh and sometimes seed people send me seems of higher quality than my own. For instance Mike Jennings sent me Forest Fire seed that leapt from the ground but my own seed the next year was less vigorous. I honestly think it would be a good idea to do two years of trials with seed saved the same way.

2017 from Transplant:
Earl's Jagodka
Sweet Cherriette
Tumbler F1
Sungold F2
Coyote

2017 Direct Seeded:
Sweet Cherriette
Sungold F2
Krainiy Sever
42 days
anmore dewdrop
Betalyuks
A Joseph Lofthouse landrace potato leaf

2018
Brad
Brad x
Blue Ambrosia
Earl's Jagodka
Anmore Dewdrop

2019
MMS Project F2 early saved 41 seeds
Terrior Cheesemanii
Earliest Red Direct Seeded F2

2020
Wild Child was an important additional early

2021
Krainiy Sever
Earl's Jagodka
Exserted Tiger
Coyote
Promiscuous project
Sweet Cherriette
Pinnochio
Mission Mountain Sunrise
Big Hill

What are your earliest tomatoes? I noticed in our tomato journal Greenie DS mentioned Sweet Cherriette, Bloody Butcher, and Exserted Orange. Joseph has often said that Brad and Jagodka are his earliest. I had forgotten that Betalyuks was high on my 2017 list as well as Krainiy Sever.

Kibits and Kalinka are supposed to be early but they didn't make it to my top ten in 2017.

4

Tomatoes / Speed Breeding tomatoes 4 generations a year?

« on: 2022-01-02, 09:15:22 PM »

I just picked the first two tomatoes off my winter generation of F1 tomato after about 150 days. Conditions were not optimal I bet a much faster outcome could be possible with better conditions.

I was thinking about maybe planting another plant or two and was doing the math. The shortest season tomato I know of Sweet Cherriette is 35 DTM but that is after about a full 8 weeks of growing before transplant or about 91 days from seed to ripe tomato. That would mean that if I planted Sweet Cherriette now I would be looking at the first few days of April before I got a ripe fruit except that I am almost certain it would be sub optimal conditions and take a little longer.

However with optimal conditions and with certain genetics I bet you could do seed to ripe fruit every 90 days or about every three months.

Other ways to speed things up- dissect out the embryo at minimum viability and start it in tissue culture.

If you did let the seed ripen you could chemically clean it so no fermentation time.

Rather than dry the seed you could plant it immediately.

5

Tomatoes / Iron Lady F1 Dehybridization Questions

« on: 2021-12-27, 05:47:23 PM »

After about three years I finally have enough Iron Lady F2 seed to grow out about 100 F2 plants if I want to badly enough to make the space for it. To date a pack of 10 Iron Lady F1 seeds has met my minimal needs for the project and there are still some seeds in it though I doubt many are left. My intent in growing it was to make interesting crosses but then I never got any crosses made so saved some seed to prevent the expense of buying another packet.

Does anyone else have any Iron Lady Dehybridization results?

I am curious about how different the two parent lines used to produce Iron Lady might be. I would sort of expect the results of an Iron Lady dehybridization to be pretty boring but would be more excited if better flavor, shorter season, or any other substantial variation were known from other people's dehybridizations of it.

Also, would be interested to know about any contamination. I grew my plants not isolated. My 2021 plant for instance was next door to Solanum arcanum and Solanum habrochaites and probably 20 feet or so from Solanum galapagense and some domestics. It had very modest exsertion of the sort that might produce maybe one hybrid in a small seed lot. I would be very surprised but not totally shocked to find a hybrid in my saved seed. 

6

Tomatoes / Tomato Flavor and Tomato Flavor Breeding

« on: 2021-12-26, 12:50:10 PM »

Reading Craig LeHoullier's book and his tomato flavor descriptions are very interesting. He claims that flavor is somewhat independent of color. I prior conception is that red tomatoes, bicolor tomatoes, etc. tend to cluster. However, have found red tomatoes in the XL line of the promiscuous tomato project that tasted great. Also have found some weird off tastes and last summer I saved seed from three plants I thought had particularly good flavor. One relatively ordinary, one very fruity with hardly any seed, and one with seed and wonderful flavor. Next year I plan to grow out the latter and will thus really be deep diving into flavor breeding.

I want to start doing tomato tastings. Covid be gone!

I am curious what the potential is for short season tomatoes and flavor diversity.

7

Tomatoes / Micro Dwarf Tomatoes

« on: 2021-12-25, 09:19:41 PM »

I think we need a dedicated thread for Micro Dwarf Tomatoes.

My experience with Micro Dwarfs is first the Lizzano Micro Dwarf I got as a gift. Not sure if Lizzano F1 really segregated to a micro dwarf or not though. Kind of want to repeat the experiment and find out!

Then in 2021 I have grown Aztek a true rugose micro dwarf yellow regular leaf, Pinnochio a true rugose micro dwarf red regular leaf, and Gold Pearl a non- rugose micro dwarf.

A few other varieties are fairly small and are sometimes grown in baskets or pots or extreme short season climates including Sweet Cherriette and Anmore Dewdrop amongst others but these like Gold Pearl are non-rugose

One of my primary thoughts on these is that they will be great for use in the science classroom.

8

Tomatoes / Craig LeHoullier

« on: 2021-12-25, 01:36:08 PM »

I just got Craig's book for Christmas Epic Tomatoes. Just started reading it. I've gradually been learning more about him. Read a couple blog posts. Following him on Instagram. Watched a youtube video. Even emailed him once with a question. Seems pretty cool and he is an originator of the Dwarf tomato project. Which is a major source of OSSI registered tomato varieties.

http://opensourceplantbreeding.org/forum/index.php?topic=168.msg1736#msg1736

http://opensourceplantbreeding.org/forum/index.php?topic=404.0

9

Community & Forum Building / Fun new to me seed company

« on: 2021-12-21, 09:18:34 AM »

https://www.thebuffaloseedcompany.com/

This seems like a lovely collection of fun seeds. It looks like they have lots of stuff from Joseph and lots from the USDA. Good breeding material for lots of crops.

10

Tomatoes / Tomato Fruit Traits and Unusual or Unexpected Outcomes of Crosses

« on: 2021-12-19, 02:37:06 PM »

https://frogsleapfarm.blogspot.com/2014/04/genetic-control-of-fruit-color-in.html?m=1

Note: modified link above to be from frogsleap farm as is the original author.

This is a lovely article.

I certainly find some mysterious things in my garden. I love collecting the spectacular varieties that breeders like Brad Gates of Wild Boar Farms in California and Lee Goodwin of J & L Gardens in New Mexico come up with. Then I do a lot of uncontrolled crosses with the exserted stigma varieties and I grow out a lot of plants of Joseph Lofthouse's promiscuous tomato project. Which can lead to some of these sorts of things popping up in the F2 and subsequent generations.

A few traits I've found in my garden sometimes unexpectedly:

A chocolate red form of XL in the promiscuous project

A pale yellow very mild tomato

Stripes- from Amurski Tigr

Gold Flecks- one possible source is the tomato Joseph calls Brad another is Dark Galaxy but they seem to pop up fairly frequently and sometimes unexpectedly.

I found a bicolor tomato in the promiscuous project this year I have been calling "Salmon" colored. It was notable in that it had no off notes in the flavor but also was likely able to self pollinate but does have an exserted stigma.

Anyway, it is fun to see these things pop up and interesting to see this article about these sorts of phenomenon.

11

Blogs & Media / Biodiversity loss in plants article

« on: 2021-12-18, 11:30:46 AM »

https://www.sciencealert.com/we-re-losing-unique-flowers-around-the-world-as-invasive-plants-take-over/amp

I've been a botany professional my entire adult life.

I could travel to any continent and know a lot of the plants because of what this article is talking about.

The article mentions blackberries in Australia but here in the U.S. There are invasive and native blackberries often growing side by side. Sometimes they cross. Similarly there are native and non-native apples and they cross.

Some species like Salsify Tragopogon porrifolius are both vegetables and invasive species with invasive relatives.

Other very useful plants are native.

Some useful native plants have the potential to be wiped out by this homogenization.

In my area the local indigenous people ate a diet of entirely native flora and fauna not very long ago.

My point is that this homogenization is not a good thing for the future of human food on earth.

How bad it is I'm not sure. Probably much worse in Australia than North America. Degree of isolation before the homogenization matters.

I think there is potential for human food even in highly type converted invasive plant communities. In fact some foraging books in places like California point this out explicitly.

12

Alliums / Short Season Hardy Leek Grex Thought I'm two years into

« on: 2021-12-14, 10:53:26 PM »

I tend to grow things for seed first and then figure out other things. Like how to eat them or what to breed them with!

I had never grown leeks and so wasn't familiar with them much or only peripherally aware. So both my local seed coop triple divide and snake river seed have rediscovered and tested giant musselburg leek. So that's what I planted. They did great. They've produced seed in their second year. I collected some of it. Now they seem to be set to just do it again next year I guess they are perrennial a bit?

So this is my thought. There is some other interesting but perhaps not as hardy leek material out there including several new OSSI pledged varieties. So starting with this proven local and regionally hardy giant musselburg then cross in, if possible, some of these OSSI leeks and start a hardy grex. Assuming I only planted the one leek which I am not 100% certain of because it was two years ago.

13

Corn / Montana Morado Maize

« on: 2021-12-01, 06:27:48 PM »

https://www.northfrontierfarms.com/shop

Dave Christiansen and Ole Norgaard have released Dave's purple corn.

Dave Christiansen bred painted mountain corn. The corn Carol Deppe used to breed her OSSI flour corns.

When I was a kid I used to drool over the painted mountain corn add in the garden city seeds catalogue. Got seed in highschool in the 90s and it has been a few years since I grew it out but still have seed for it.

14

Tomatoes / Payette Question

« on: 2021-11-30, 07:30:57 PM »

I grew the historic variety Payette for seed in 2020 and in 2021 just a couple. It was bred in the 50s and released in 1961

https://digital.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/collection/ui_ep/id/19054

It was a early habrochaites and Peruvianum introgression but it is also a true dwarf with rugose leaves.

The problem it was bred to address is a tomato disease of the intermountain west called curly top spread by hemipteran insects like leaf hoppers.

In 2017 we had a outbreak of curly top in the greenhouse I worked in here in Ronan though I am not ultra confident in the diagnosis.

Is anyone familiar with the disease and its pathology?

Does anyone garden in Southern Idaho? Or other curly top prone regions?

Wondering if it is the rugose leaf dwarf nature that confers the resistance perhaps mechanically? If so all rugose micro dwarfs and dwarfs including over 100 OSSI dwarfs would have said resistance.

A more modern test found Columbian, Roza, Salad Master, and Row Pac to be resistant. However I could not find these with the possible exception of Columbian with a quick Google search. Hmm.

Owyhee a sister variety to Payette seems hard to find but is at Sand Hill Preservation center.

15

Tomatoes / Volunteering Tomatoes

« on: 2021-11-23, 10:53:44 PM »

https://permies.com/t/170703/Tomatoes-seed-zone-colder

Over on permies.com someone started a thread today which I have responded to.

The question is: can we breed tomatoes that just reseed themselves and reliably volunteer.

I've noticed they tend to dissappear over a few years. This might be habitat dependant. For instance dry streams seem like a tomato habitat. Given proper habitat do tomatoes volunteer reliably?

Or is it just a matter of time? With a few more generations of direct seeding would tomatoes volunteer reliably? Maybe a few more crosses?

What do you think?