Direct Seeded Tomato Project

[William S.]

 My Encarsia formosa wasps arrived today. Five little cardboard pieces With little hang tags and the egg clusters glued in the center. I hung one on the lemon tree inside in case some of the whiteflies are still inside somewhere. Then I hung the other four on various tomato plants out in the greenhouse.

One seedling of Solanum chilense the strain from Sacred Succulents is germinating in the grrenhouse. Seeds were very different on this strain to the TGRC strain. 

[Lauren]

The first three seedlings to germinate in relatively cold soil in the new trays are from an extra early Peruvianum from last year.

When you say relatively cold, what do you mean? I never use bottom heat and the house remains between 68 and 70 degrees. Is the the kind of temperature you're referring to? Colder?

[William S.]

Hmm, hard to say with no thermometer in the greenhouse. Definitely colder than the room temp they would have if I moved them back inside. Definitely hasn't frozen, none of the adult tomato plants has been nipped.

[Lauren]

OK. I have close to 100% germination with no bottom heat, so I wonder if I could do even colder? If I can start them IN the greenhouse, perhaps in a closed bin, that would clear up space inside. When I started the tomatoes greenhouse temps were in the high thirties/low forties, so a bin might bring that up to mid forties. Something to think about, anyway. Perhaps a test next year.

[William S.]

In 2017 I put the seedling trays in the unheated greenhouse when it was very cold. Some warm weather hit and germination began then cold weather hit again so I brought them back indoors. That may yet happen this year. Have you heard of winter sowing?

I try to do something similar with the direct seeding. In 2017 I direct seeded one iteration of my experiment in March. It germinated about may fifth and the last frost was May 15th. The ten day old seedlings mostly survived. Too much weeding of bare ground though! In 2018 I direct seeded sometime late April or early May thinking ten to twenty days before last frost and it never frosted again. In 2018 some volunteers were earlier than the direct seeded and they were never frosted. However in 2018 fall frosts were earlier than in 2017.

So far this year the trend is cool but moderate. Highs in the fifties, lows around or above freezing. I haven't been able to work the ground yet.

[William S.]

Just walked out to the greenhouse and my Golden Tressette plant has set its first flower. Interestingly it is modestly exserted. This makes sense given what we know of it.

Also along that line Golden Tresette is the first domestic tomato to sprout. Sweet Pea Currant has joined its pimp brethren. The penelope I seeded last Sunday is emerging to join that seeded two Sundays ago. My own saved seed from that same cross is still MIA. The single seed of LA 4488 is trying to germinate but the leaves are stuck in the seed coat. LA 1932 chilense has some action starting in its cell.

[William S.]

Greenhouse stuff: New seedlings are up include both TGRC arcanum accessions and the TGRC Chilense, my own 2018 hab x domestic seed has one, I see a radicle on my own 2018 penellii x hybrid saved seed, prolific leaves mutation from Andrew, a cheesemanii x from terrior seed Andrew sent, a Big Hill F2 Joseph sent, Big Hill from my 2018 grow out, the F2 from a RL blue skinned exserted F1 of a PL exserted from JL landrace, one Skykomish, Nymph from Joseph, and a Chariot from Joseph. So quite a lot, and most of the important things have a few sprouts at least.

My own seeds from the 2018 grow out of wild hybrids are interesting to me because only one plant of each cross produced seed for me. So fairly strong selection for something! Just not sure what!

Also fertilized today. Used omri listed organic miracle grow.

Just a note: greenhouse stuff is for raising enough seed to direct seed and making crosses to things short season enough to direct seed in subsequent years.

[William S.]

Got my direct seeded tomato field rototilled this morning. Little snow on the ground. Suspect I should wait a couple weeks then rototill again the day I seed. Many years this would not be too early to seed, but this year is running late so far. Average date of last frost is may fifteenth. In 17 it was on may fifteenth. In 18 it never frosted in May. This year I wouldnt be surprised if the last frost happens late. Ideal seeding time is anywhere from ten to twenty days before to on or about the date of last frost.

Noticed some tomato skins on the ground from last year. Any volunteers won't matter much. Putting alot of the same genetics back down. Volunteers are pretty informative as to when to start seeding too. If a volunteer is up the soil is warm enough for tomato germination

Transplant seedlings are back inside. Supposed to get down to about twenty fairenheit tonight and tomorrow night. Have a few additional kinds germinating. Some need transplanted already but it won't happen for a few days at least.

[ImGrimmer]

First seedlings emerged around 1st of May . All survived one night with -1°C so far. Seed were sown last year direct after harvest.
This is the 3rd season I am doing it that way but it is the first time seedlings experienced frost.
I am excited how they grow this season. It might become a late blight season ....
Volunteers are a different strain than my late blight tolerant strain, fingers crossed.

[William S.]

In my garden yesterday I observed no germinants from volunteers. Not from tomatillos, Solanum peruvianum, S. Pimpinillifolium, or domestic. Some of my beds have a lot of grass this spring. I plan to do my intentional direct seeding on Saturday May 11th if all goes well.

[William S.]

Just finished seeding. Same area of the garden as last year but planted about twenty days later and with 250 more row feet. There are 10 rows. I think they are about 70 feet long. So about 700 row feet. I weighed the seed. Will report the seed weights when I get back to the house. It was about 3/4 of an ounce at 0.71 oz. A site I just found selling an oz of tomato seed said 11,250 seeds per oz. That would suggest I just planted 7,987 tomato seeds. Though direct seeded germination and survival is lower than flat seeded and I had both some smaller and larger seeds in the mix.

Mostly will be F2 generation plants.

Blue Ambrosia descendents red with various sizes. Probably with a tiny bit of contamination from a suspected Brad cross
0.46 oz

Descendents of purple skinned exserted regular leaf child of potato leaf exserted plant in Lofthouse land race 0.07 oz

Half wilds from Joseph mostly x habrochaites 0.04 oz

Sweet Cherriette 0.07 oz only nonsegregating seed. I wanted it as a control for earliness and to see if it would cross naturally. May also be a parent of some of the F2's

Big Hill cross F2 exserted from Joseph 0.07 oz

Should be lots of exserted plants. Will be interesting. I plan to only water about a third or less of the total area. The squash will get watered.

Also planted maxima and moschata squash all around the edge.

[William S.]

Last year a few pimpinillifolium types volunteered in my garden. At the end of the season I smashed one of the berries to plant some for winter breeding. They just opened and the fresh flowers are moderately exserted.

We've had past discussions about how it would be nice to have exserted pimpinillifolium types.

These aren't really that. It seems like modest to moderate exsertion of the stigma is more common in early season fresh flowers.

Modestly exserted varieties though may be useful for breeding with more extreme forms.

In 2017 when I first started looking for this complex trait after reading some of Joseph's threads I think I grew well over 70 kinds of tomato and found it in three. In 2018 saved seed from those three produced zero, a few, and many hybrids respectively. Thus only the more extreme forms seem very useful in terms of higher natural out crossing rates.

I have quite a bit of Blue Ambrosia and Big Hill seed from 2018 I won't have space to grow out much of. Blue Ambrosia has a decent rate of exsertion and Big Hill was breed by Joseph for open flowers. I interplanted them in 2018 hoping for hybrids. Though I am growing some of both and I really just need one hybrid.

The most promising exsertion is with some of the wild species. Habrochaites, Peruvianum, and Penellii.

The traits involved do seem to segregate so the half wilds I grew last year were somewhat dissapointing. It would be nice to start with an exserted or open variety when crossing too them.

I have one half wild that survived the winter that is the worst of both worlds. It neither pollinates itself nor accepts pollen from others without intervention. I'm keeping it around though as intentional crosses should be obvious!

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Thanks for the updates William.

I sure know that feeling of the worst of both worlds (self-incompatible, and closed up flowers). I sure had a lot of beautiful plants last year that didn't set fruits, until very late in the season when the bumblebee population was high, and they were particularly interested in working the flowers.

So far, I have planted about 900 seeds for the promiscuous pollination project. I'm intending to grow them in sibling group clumps containing about 25 plants, and then cull, cull, cull.

I would feel happy about growing a pimpinellifolium that shed pollen when vibrated. That seems easier that fussing with such minuscule flowers.

I'm intending to direct seed tomatoes in about a week. I haven't found any volunteers yet. We are expecting about ten days of  rain/cold, so maybe they'll sprout when it warms up again.

[ImGrimmer]

@Joseph When do you expect first ripe fruits from your direct seeded tomatoes? Yours seem pretty short season compared to common varieties. My volunteer plants have their first true leaves now. From last year experience I expect first fruit in August maybe in late July.

Next week I will do intended direct sowing. Main goal is to select for late blight resistance than for crop. I expect only a few ripe fruits from it but many infected plants and hopefully again some survivours....

[reed]

I'm getting more interested in direct seeding tomatoes. Save the hassle of starting and transplanting. And I have a theory that volunteers that are left alone to grow in the spot they came up are healthier than any transplant, so direct seeded may also be.

A late frost/freeze was absent here this year so all the volunteers, well except those I removed are still there, way past their first set of true leaves with short strong stems, they actually look better right now than many of the transplants.