Tell me more about the Dwarf Tomato Project! :)

[Andrew Barney]

Craig, i guess this is mostly aimed at you, but also anyone who is deeply involved in the project or who grows mostly dwarf tomatoes.

I really like indeterminate tomatoes. But that is not to say i would not grow dwarf tomatoes. But they would need to be the best. The best flavor, the best colors, grow well here in the semi-arid west, and decent production for their size.

Also, are micro tom tomatoes included in this project or are those even smaller than dwarf tomatoes?

Anyway, for someone who knows nothing about this project or anything about dwarf tomatoes, here is your chance to tell me all about them. Why you love them, which ones you love the best, and why.

https://osseeds.org/free-the-seed-podcast-s2e4-dwarftomatoproject/

https://www.dwarftomatoproject.net/

https://www.craiglehoullier.com/dwarf-tomato-breeding-project

[nathanp]

This is not a lot of information, but I am growing 10 dwarf varieties this year, all bred by the Dwarf Tomato Project, and it is interesting comparing them to full sized tomatoes.  I have not had any tomatoes from them yet, but a few are flowering and have small tomatoes growing. 

My understanding is they are indeterminate, just shorter. 

[whwoz]

From what I understand, and I was  not part of the project to any great extent. The aim of the project was to produce plants suitable for patio and other restricted area growing in pots that had the full range of colours and flavours that one would normally expect in indeterminate plants, thus allowing the growing of high quality tomatoes in areas where a small number of full size plants would be a crowd

[ilouque]

This year was my first year growing dwarf tomatoes.  I decided to grow dwarfs because I don't have a very big garden and I was looking for varieties that mature quickly and have large fruits.  I don't have any experience with growing the standard, heirloom indeterminate tomatoes that so many like, but I've really enjoyed the dwarf tomatoes this year.  5 varieties were transplanted into the garden on March 1 which is about the earliest I could plant them without winter protection: Dwarf Vince's Haze, Wherokowhai, Dwarf Mr. Snow, Dwarf Jade Beauty, and Uluru Ochre.  Our tomato season is truncated by persistent hot weather starting in early June so I wanted to get the longest tomato season possible.  So far, I'm starting my 6th week of harvests and the plants are slowing down as expected.

I planted 30 plants, 6 of each variety in a bed measuring 60 square feet.  The plants were spaced a little closer than I would have spaced larger plants and the middle row didn't get stakes.  The stems of the dwarf tomatoes are much sturdier than the stems of full-sized indeterminates so they didn't all need to be staked if they were within the staked plants.   I don't really have a frame of reference since I haven't tasted any of the big, tasty heirloom tomatoes, but all of the dwarf tomatoes mentioned above produced some excellent flavored fruits.  Uluru Ochre was the only one that underperformed, but I'm not really sure why.  So far, Dwarf Mr. Snow kind of started off slow but was a strong producer of really tasty and large fruits so it is my favorite of the 5.

My hot, humid climate in south Louisiana is very different from yours, but that's my experience this year.  Larger fruited varieties don't tend to do as well here, so my biggest fruits were around 225 g and most were closer to 100 to 150 g.  We have high disease and pest pressures that I needed to stay on top of by pruning the lower limbs and squishing caterpillars and stink bugs.

[William S.]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qI9UsRAOjIc&t=322s

I just planted all the seeds I saved from a Payette off type I thought I detected a half strength blue blush on which I hope will prove to have been an F1 and hopefully segregate for dwarf traits and blue skin. So I plan to dwarf hunt the seedlings inspired by this video.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4z6ve1Ps-U&t=2298s

Also the above video.

It seems to me like dwarves have a lot of potential as cross mothers precisely because of this early seedling segregation.

[William S.]

I'm waiting for the potential Payette X unknown F2? To pop up enough to see if it segregates nicely into two height classes.

I have more questions.

Is dwarf Hirsutum Cross a true dwarf?

I have gathered a lot of ultra early germplasm. Some of it is really short.

How do we tell the difference between a dwarf, a determinate, and an indeterminate?

What if we cross dwarf and determinant varieties?

In the video about arthropod resistant tomato breeding one of the unintended consequences was dwarfism. Payette has a habrochaites background, as does dwarf Hirsutum cross, last summer Joseph mentioned some dwarf? Plants in the Idaho promiscuous growout. Seems like there might be a habrochaites dwarf connection?

[nathanp]

How do we tell the difference between a dwarf, a determinate, and an indeterminate?

Dwarfs are indeterminate, so they should display the same differences as you would normally see between determinate and indeterminates.  They just have very short internodes compared to regular indeterminate tomatoes.

Two answers from Craig on the tomatoville forum:

I actually don't like the determinate/indeterminate classification of the dwarfs. There is so much dependency on where they are grown (sun exposure) - for me in Raleigh, they all blossom and grow and fruit until frost, though some fruit more heavily earlier. Since I categorize dwarfs as a third major growth type (indeterminate, determinate, dwarf) based upon plant morphology, and they all, to me, end up growing vertically at half of the rate as indeterminates, I just keep it at that and don't subdivide.

They stay quite compact - no pruning of fruit clusters or suckers needed. Fruit development varies just as indeterminate types vary - some are in the earlier range (DTM to me is useless - too many variables) - but roughly, some in 60 days from transplant, ranging to 80 days - again, depends upon sun exposure, weather, temps, degree days, how you grow them, etc. A useless tomato cage (the 4 foot wire cones) are very useful for the dwarfs!

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=49877

What if we cross dwarf and determinant varieties?

I believe they will segregate between multiple types (dwarf/non-dwarf, and determinate/indeterminate). All dwarfs will be indeterminate, but not all indeterminates will be dwarfs.  I do not know the percentages for segregation into each type. 

[William S.]

Thinking alot about the dwarf hunting technique of selecting the short seedlings as they segregate. My potential Payette cross is still in the process of unfurling Cotyledons as is Payette for comparison.

However my Mission Mountain Sunrise new seedlings are notably shorter than those of Exserted Orange. So I just happen to have one cell each of unk potato leaf exserted (from Josephs old mostly red pre-promiscuous project landrace) and Blue Gold. So I was looking at them and they are both pretty short so far. Joseph's tomatoes used to be mostly determinate and blue gold is listed by world tomato society as indeterminate. Brad Gates has videos online of these huge and very tall tomato hedges in his tomato fields. So best guess is the short gene should have come from the landrace parent. I remember the original potato leaf plant as tiny maybe one foot tall and the original blue gold plant as a huge for my garden three footer. Unfortunately those both fall within the dwarf height range as do most tomatoes in my garden regardless of genetics because of my shallow soil. Would be interesting if it was dwarf but I don't think the leaves were rugose so I doubt it, it might be determinate though.

[William S.]

Mission Mountain Sunrise right and Exserted Orange left

[William S.]

Payette offtype maybe F2s. Maybe a few short candidates. Still unfurling.

[William S.]

Very few dwarf candidates not a 3:1 ratio. F2 hypothesis not supported. Maybe just a contaminated seed lot. Might mow them anyway and see if the few short ones elongate or stay short. The Payette I planted for reference is about one finger width tall and most of these are two.

[William S.]

Thinned out the tall ones. Probably left too many but will give these a little more time before I thin again. Or scrap these entirely. The stem color segregation was also apparent not sure if many with the darker stems are still present.

[nathanp]

I don't think they are remotely close enough to what dwarfs look like, and how short the internodes are.  Here is a side by side picture of seedlings from Uluro Ochre (dwarf) on the left and Lorelei (non-dwarf) on the right.

[William S.]

Could be, Payette is the one I have that I think has all the dwarf characteristics. This might just be a contaminate but I thought it might be an F1. If this was the F2 though it would segregate nicely into two size classes in the expected 3:1 ratio. I don't think that has happened so they are probably trash.

Some of the other varieties in my collection are genetically small to very small plants. A couple even have dwarf in the name or description. However I don't think they have the other features of distinctive stems and rugose leaves. Therefore I assume that there are other genetics out there in play that regulate size. Determinate is one, but there is such a range of plant sizes so I wonder if there are more. I should probably research that come to think of it. Though for me almost any genetics stays relatively small with my shallow soil and non-caging to just short cages.

I sometimes think I should acquire a dwarf project variety or two just because I am curious but I feel the need to resist more tomato varieties. Still this seedling dwarf segregation seems useful.

[nathanp]

There are plenty of them out there.
https://osseeds.org/ossi-varieties/?crop=Tomato&usetype=Dwarf

Victory Seeds has a few of them.

I bought 10 of them last year to try.  Eventually, I would like to cross them with some of my LB and Septoria resistant tomatoes, but it's not high on my priority list.  Last year I at least planted them, then didn't make the crosses.