Paste Tomatoes Project

[Natasha Flue]

The season is marching along. I got all my tomatoes in the ground in two days, although they don't have irrigation yet. I did make a mistake starting some varieties and they were knocked back pretty good. They are still alive and should pull through.

I've got two breeding rows, one where the plants were randomly planted with Joseph's promiscuously pollinating tomatoes so I can just cross plants to the ones next to them and combine them all into a mass of genes and seeds, and one where I planted them out in sections, so I can make controlled crosses that I know the parents. Now I wait for blossoms.... and get my irrigation set up.

[Natasha Flue]

I had first blossoms this weekend when I saw the plants. They are looking great. I didn't cross these first blossoms because I want to do a whole bunch of crosses at once, so I'm waiting another two weeks. I'll do my first crosses then, and probably twice more after that in case something goes wrong.

[Natasha Flue]

Did my first crosses this weekend! I've never actually crossed tomatoes before so it was interesting to figure out how to gently do it. I was fascinated to see the differences in stigma, stile and stamens across even the commercial paste varieties. Some had large stiles and some had very tiny and thin ones. Some had stamens that opened up at the top.

First crosses, all I did was cross one with the plant next to it since the plants are all mixed together in one row. I'll do some crosses between specific varieties in a different row next time I can and mark those down.

The plants have small fruit on them already except for the promiscuous pollinators. I suspect it is because I don't get enough insect interest in them due to where they are. I did see some flies on a few flowers. I'll make sure to cross them up more next time.

As far as cultural practices go, I've been using a cultivating tractor to weed them and this past time I used the hilling disks to give them hills to keep them upright a little longer. I won't be trellising because it's a lot of work for plants that just overgrow them and flop on the ground anyway. The dwarf plants are very interesting so far, being much much more compact than the other varieties. They are probably six inches shorter as well.

[Natasha Flue]

I've been making crosses every time I visit my tomatoes. Things are going pretty well despite the sudden hot dry weather and my lack of irrigation. I never did get around to setting up the system and it's too late now to run drip tape. I've got tomatoes of all sizes and some of my initial crosses have taken. The Plum blight resistant tomatoes have finally caught up so they are being crossed in. I'm tracking which crosses I use them for.

[Natasha Flue]

Seed harvest is in. I collected the crossed fruit, which ended up only being a few, combined them and fermented. I also collected a variety of fruit within my breeding section that I'll make into a landrace, but there was one variety I skipped due to it's problems with disease and relatively uninteresting fruit. I'm going to be adding more varieties in next year and hopefully have more crossing success. That section also contained Joseph's promiscuously pollinated tomatoes, which I was a little afraid wouldn't set any fruit. They were all placed far from each other in the row but were crossed with something as they all bore fruit. I saw three different types of fruit from the plants, one that looked like a little heirloom style partially ripe, one like a little cherry tomato partially ripe and one that looked like TPS berries, where they were green and dropped from the plant. Picture attached.

The promiscuously pollinated seem to hold up against the large amount of late blight we have in the area this year. They held their leaves better than most other varieties and have less lesions. They were a paler green than I expected but I suspect that is just natural variation.

[nathanp]

I have Plum Regal in F4 or 5, pretty sure it is homozygous for Ph 2 and 3

Plum Regal is homozygous for Ph 3 only.  It does not have Ph 2

[William S.]

Habrochaites are a paler green, the foliage. A few of my segregates are deeper green. You had three plants? I have around 30 to 40 plants I would guess and most are green berry types. 3 are kinda colored, and 2 are almost domestic type fruits.

[Natasha Flue]

Habrochaites are a paler green, the foliage. A few of my segregates are deeper green. You had three plants? I have around 30 to 40 plants I would guess and most are green berry types. 3 are kinda colored, and 2 are almost domestic type fruits.

I had around 10 plants and most were the green berry type. I think I had two colored type and one domestic type, these didn't drop their fruit so I'm pulling as many of those seeds as I can and having less of the green berry type in the mix. I haven't grown out all of the original seed so if I want to bring those genetics back in, I can. They were spread out between about 70 other plants in a row, hopefully to cross them with the plants close to them. They were the pale color plants I think, but I didn't look close. They were still doing decently despite the late blight pressure in the area (and no spraying on my part) although I'll do a better evaluation next time I check the field out. But most of my tomatoes are dead, mostly dead or the fruit is covered in lesions at this point.

I did finally get a harvest of the Plum Perfect and uhhh, they are rock hard. Like, I wasn't expecting them to be that bad but really like a green tomato in texture when I pressed on them. I was also unimpressed with the meat to seed ratio because there was a ton of seeds and gel in there for a paste tomato.

[nathanp]

I did finally get a harvest of the Plum Perfect and uhhh, they are rock hard. Like, I wasn't expecting them to be that bad but really like a green tomato in texture when I pressed on them. I was also unimpressed with the meat to seed ratio because there was a ton of seeds and gel in there for a paste tomato.

Yes, that is my experience as well.  It may have late blight resistance, but not much else that I could observe to recommend it.

[nathanp]

I had around 10 plants and most were the green berry type. I think I had two colored type and one domestic type, these didn't drop their fruit so I'm pulling as many of those seeds as I can and having less of the green berry type in the mix. I haven't grown out all of the original seed so if I want to bring those genetics back in, I can. They were spread out between about 70 other plants in a row, hopefully to cross them with the plants close to them. They were the pale color plants I think, but I didn't look close. They were still doing decently despite the late blight pressure in the area (and no spraying on my part) although I'll do a better evaluation next time I check the field out. But most of my tomatoes are dead, mostly dead or the fruit is covered in lesions at this point.

I did finally get a harvest of the Plum Perfect and uhhh, they are rock hard. Like, I wasn't expecting them to be that bad but really like a green tomato in texture when I pressed on them. I was also unimpressed with the meat to seed ratio because there was a ton of seeds and gel in there for a paste tomato.

Natasha Flue, it has just occurred to me earlier this evening, that some of the OSSI dwarf tomato project material probably can be used as a parent for good tasting paste type tomatoes.  Crossing those to highly disease resistant non paste tomatoes should be able to combine both, and will segregate for the dwarf traits in the F2 generation.  All the F1 will not show the dwarfing habit, so F2 would be key to confirming what has or does not have dwarf genes.

Two of the lines started late in the project (Speckly and Worry) were crosses made to find pastes. Victory Seeds offers many of the stabilized lines. I'm tempted to try this myself with crosses to some of the (non paste) homozygous disease resistant lines (Iron Lady, Skykomish, etc) I have grown.  I have a very septoria resistant F3  or F4 grape tomato out of Piennelo del Vesuvio x LA 0417 that I probably can use as well.  It most likely homozygous for Septoria resistance.

How did the rest of your tomatoes do this year?  I basically abandoned my efforts to dehybridize Plum Regal several years ago since it tasted so terrible. 

[reed]

I agree Plum Regal is pretty poor flavor wise. I also didn't see it as all that disease resistant. I did dehybridize it though and keep growing it cause I noticed by accident it sun dries very easily and tastes much much better that way. The vines still get diseased looking but the fruits don't, they just dry up. Flavor of the fresh ones is also greatly improved by light roasting in the oven or on the grill.

 

[Natasha Flue]

Natasha Flue, it has just occurred to me earlier this evening, that some of the OSSI dwarf tomato project material probably can be used as a parent for good tasting paste type tomatoes.  Crossing those to highly disease resistant non paste tomatoes should be able to combine both, and will segregate for the dwarf traits in the F2 generation.  All the F1 will not show the dwarfing habit, so F2 would be key to confirming what has or does not have dwarf genes.

Two of the lines started late in the project (Speckly and Worry) were crosses made to find pastes. Victory Seeds offers many of the stabilized lines. I'm tempted to try this myself with crosses to some of the (non paste) homozygous disease resistant lines (Iron Lady, Skykomish, etc) I have grown.  I have a very septoria resistant F3  or F4 grape tomato out of Piennelo del Vesuvio x LA 0417 that I probably can use as well.  It most likely homozygous for Septoria resistance.

How did the rest of your tomatoes do this year?  I basically abandoned my efforts to dehybridize Plum Regal several years ago since it tasted so terrible.

That's a very interesting thought! This year was the first one I grew out a dwarf tomato and I really liked how small and compact they were. I didn't trellis this year but I plan to put up a short trellis that I can get over with the cultivating tractor in the late season. I had Sneaky Sauce, which were lovely and soft and meaty and I was pleased with them. I did do a few crosses with them but I'll be more organized about getting some more varieties this winter for crossing.

Most of my tomatoes died around September due to late blight and probably every other disease in the area. While I didn't send any samples out for testing, late blight was present across the state and the lesions sure looked like it. Joseph's promiscuously pollinated tomatoes survived right up until the frost, they lost all their lower leaves but were still putting on new growth including flowers. I don't remember if the Plum Regal did anything interesting, I don't think I checked on it before the frost.

Thanks!

[whwoz]

Natasha, have you given any thought as to how you will determine the dryness of your tomatoes?  For moisture levels may not be an issue with eating tomatoes, but for those for sauce or paste it can be if you don't want to spend hours cooking down your sauce or paste

[Natasha Flue]

Natasha, have you given any thought as to how you will determine the dryness of your tomatoes?  For moisture levels may not be an issue with eating tomatoes, but for those for sauce or paste it can be if you don't want to spend hours cooking down your sauce or paste

I usually do a visual evaluation. It's pretty easy to tell when I cut the tomatoes open and if they have a lot of seeds/gel space in them that they will be too watery when I've done small variety trials in the past. I only do paste with my tomatoes so it takes hours in the pot/oven no matter what. I'm less concerned about the processing end of things than the growing. I'm sure the there will be a gradient of dryness in the offspring.

[gmuller]

Natasha, I was also wondering if using some of the storage type tomatoes (piennolo del vesuvio and others over on tomatoville) would be useful for the fruit-holding trait you were after. I think Whwoz was exploring the spanish ones and might have more advice on varieties. The thick skins might also offer some disease resistance in the fruit.
GM