Joseph, what all species do you consider to have made progress towards adaptation in your garden?
Solanum peruvianum and S pimpinellifolium volunteer reliably in my garden. My population of S pimpinellifolium came from a local garden where they had been volunteering for a decade before I got them, so I was expecting pimpinellifolium to be well adapted.
I'm growing two populations of S peruvianum complex. The first has grown only as volunteers for 2 growing seasons now. This year, they were small plants, only growing about 18" long vines. The other population I have grown by traditional means (saving seeds, and growing transplants). The vines might be 6 to 8 feet long. They produce a huge abundance of fruits with lots of diversity in size, color, texture, and flavor.
I haven't found a volunteer of Solanum habrochaites. The plants grow rambunctiously in my garden. They seem a bit long season, but are producing plenty of fruits. They have grown in my garden for as much as 4 generations. This year, I planted S habrochaites about 20 feet away from the interspecies (domestic X habrochaites) hybrids, so I'm hoping that S habrochaites has been contaminated. I tried that contamination manually, in the population that I'm calling BC1. At harvest this year, I rolled the bulk of the BC1 seed into the general population of S habrochaites. I kept some of the most promising of the BC1 fruits separate, just to play with them further.
This fall, I abandoned the name of S corneliomulleri, and combined that into what I am calling peruvianum complex. Corneliomulleri is the population that has adapted the most dramatically to my garden. It was so iffy the first few years, and so robust this year. This was the third generation, which I think of as the magical generation in my landrace breeding projects, when things often come together for great productivity in adapting new varieties to my garden.
S chilense didn't do well for me.
S cheesmanae does OK, but since it's an inbreeder, I'm not all that interested.
S galapagense eeks out a meager existence in my garden. Another inbreeder, so whatever.
This is the first year that
S pennellii has done decent for me. I don't know if that is due to the plant adapting, or if it's cause the farmer adapted to the plant.
I have been trying for years to get a domestic tomato to volunteer in my garden. I suspect that the seedlings get munched by flea beetles.
Yup. It would be interesting to have an understanding of what each species native habitat is, so that we could try to mimic it. I think the only reason I can grow S pennellii, is because my watering system for it resembles dew... .