Tell me more about the Dwarf Tomato Project! :)

[William S.]

https://www.victoryseeds.com/tomato_dwarf-johnsons-cherry.html

The one crossed with everglades.

Logically in my view it would make sense to make a series of crosses with dwarf project or other OSSI tomatoes centered around resistances. Maybe with something like Purple Zebra F1 and a few wild species. These two: dwarf eagle smiley and dwarf Johnson's cherry strike me as a nice start towards that. I should put them on my wish list.

[Tim DH]

One of my Sister’s-in-law was tidying out some seed packets. … And included amongst them was a dwarf Tom, claiming to be blight resistant, which I hadn’t heard of! The packet says it was filled in the year ending 2019, so the variety has been around a while. Its called Summerlast. It’s an F1. Height 45cm DTM 65. Marketed as a patio plant
 It was bred by Floranova a company in Norfolk UK (They have a N America office)

[William S.]

https://www.victoryseeds.com/tomato_dwarf-mochas-cherry.html

I would like to know more about the "Anthy" family given that the cross that resulted in Dwarf Mocha's Cherry seems to have involved a cross with Dwarf Saucy Mary, which is a striped, green when ripe. That means that the cross would have the potential for also producing a blue skinned, striped, green when ripe dwarf. Which means that more could be forthcoming from this family?!

Also Dwarf Mocha's Cherry is another shorter season one at 65 DTM which could make it good breeding material for me and another to add to my list.

I am growing Dwarf Saucy Mary and have been contemplating it as a dwarf source of striping and green when ripe genes. Like some of my antho bicolor lines crossed with it could produce a fun assortment of colors and stripes which could also eventually lead to several selections.

[William S.]

The recent webinar posted a list of the top flavor picks for the Dwarf Tomato Project and Craig suggested taking a picture so I did.

They were as follows:
Sweet Scarlet Dwarf
Rosella Purple
Maralinga
Uluru Ochre
Dwarf Mr. Snow
Rosella Crimson
Kookaburra Cacle
Loxton Lass
Dwarf Blazing Beauty
Dwarf Emerald Giant
Whereokowhai
Dwarf Jade Beauty
Dwarf Wild Fred
Dwarf Sweet Sue
Summertime Gold
Dwarf Wild Spudleaf
Coorong Pink

I asked about disease breeding. Craig addressed it and mentioned contacting him (I did send him a follow up email). He does think a cross with an F1 creates a lot of additional unknowns in terms of segregation.

I also asked about the two currant tomato crosses and in his response, Craig actually talked about plans for making more crosses with Everglades for some Florida collaborators to try to get more colors and diversity of tomatoes suitable for Florida conditions. I personally think more crosses with more currant tomatoes would be good for disease resistance breeding also so my two questions were related.

I also asked something about an assertion Craig made about starting to shut the project down in 2018 and Craig basically responded by saying how could we ever really shut it down? Which might mean Craig is somewhat up for continuing with some things.

Oh I wish I had asked about the Alaska tomatoes with the long DTM and if they may be a data mistake?

They said they will post the webinar to the OSSI YouTube channel but it hasn't posted yet.

[Diane Whitehead]

When we sailed up to Alaska one summer I noticed almost-ripe tomatoes in a small greenhouse.  They were far advanced from mine.  Maybe the longer days make a difference.

[whwoz]

for those not aware of the DTP homepage  https://www.dwarftomatoproject.net/

[William S.]

for those not aware of the DTP homepage  https://www.dwarftomatoproject.net/

In the Northern Hemisphere it is Craig's page

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

Both pages have info.

[Andrew Barney]

Loved the webinar. I missed it live.

http://opensourceplantbreeding.org/forum/index.php/topic,676.msg9789.html#msg9789

@ William, how many of these from the 150 have you trailed in Montana? Your climate is fairly similar to mine, so mining your data on which ones thrive for you AND taste good AND have productivity, etc. would be wonderful. Thinking of trialing some of these in the future, but 150 is a lot to trail!

[William S.]

Loved the webinar. I missed it live.

http://opensourceplantbreeding.org/forum/index.php/topic,676.msg9789.html#msg9789

@ William, how many of these from the 150 have you trailed in Montana? Your climate is fairly similar to mine, so mining your data on which ones thrive for you AND taste good AND have productivity, etc. would be wonderful. Thinking of trialing some of these in the future, but 150 is a lot to trail!

 I am trying sixteen of them for the first time in 2022:

Dwarf Gloria's Treat
Dwarf Desert Star
Dwarf Bendigo Moon
Dwarf Kelly's Green
Dwarf Saucy Mary
Rosella Purple
Banana Toes
Dwarf Sunny's Pear
Brandy Fred
Dwarf Fred's Tie Dye
Dwarf Purple Heartthrob
Dwarf Galen's Yellow
Dwarf Orange Cream
Dwarf Mocha's Cherry
Dwarf Eagle Smiley
Dwarf Johnson's Cherry

I'll save seed to share with you Andrew and also try to make some crosses this year both with my crossing block method and by hand pollinations. I have Dwarf Gloria's Treat started a little earlier and in bigger pots for breeding stock as to me it makes sense for crossing with my MMS/MMM project to get a dwarf blue bicolor with exsertion that keeps its fruit off the ground.

I will give updates on how these do this year but have only planted about four seeds of each, so it won't be statistically significant.

I may try to do something with a couple of them this next winter as well even if it just growing out an F1 to try to get to an interesting F2 outcome for next year.

[William S.]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hVR4HGkOxsA

Just spotted this Florida Everglades sub-project meeting.

It took me awhile, but I watched it. The first part was repetitive after the OSSI presentation.

Not really a lot of additional information but some. I really like the idea of systematically crossing a higher diversity of wild tomatoes into open-source tomatoes. I personally think the Everglades accession is probably not as resilient as some of the Solanum pimpinillifolium accessions from Peru are likely to be. I also think it would be wonderful if we could use a huge variety of pimpinillifolium and other wild tomato species accessions to really make open source tomatoes resilient but I think at some point that may be impractical. Though some of the obligate outcrossing species of tomato do have stupendous within accession diversity.

[Andrew Barney]

Here is the preliminary list of the tomatoes on the official dwarf tomato project website that look worth trialing to me. Many of the photos had to be looked at on Victory Seeds as they have not all been updated with pictures on the official website run by Craig.

You will notice my picks for trialing heavily skews against reds (though I left a few) and aims for dark oranges and other dark-ish colors. In my experience color has a high correlation with flavor, and I have found to generally trust my eyes to know if something will taste good to my palate. This does not always work with fruits grown in other parts of the world as soil and climate can highly change how a variety looks and tastes in other parts of the world. But in general, I think it is a god start.

This does not include any other new dwarfs that may not be mentioned on Craigs website.

I'll be honest, I'm a bit surprised by the lack of dwarf cherry tomatoes, but I have one that I like, so, whatever.

60 days - 'Bundaberg Rumball'
65 days - Sarandipity
65 days - Uluru Ochre
65 days - 'Dwarf Galen's Yellow'

70 days - Dwarf Velvet Night
70 days - Dwarf Dainty Isabel
70 days - 'Kookaburra Cackle'
70 days - Loxton Lad
70 days - Dwarf Purple Heart

75 days - Dwarf Jeremy’s Stripes
75 days - 'Maralinga'
75 days - Dwarf Vince’s Haze
75 days – Dwarf Blazing Beauty *
75 days - 'Dwarf Franklin County'
75 days - 'Dwarf Maura's Cardinal'
75 days - Dwarf Orange Cream
75 days - 'Dwarf Andy's Forty'
75 days - Dwarf Beauty King
75 days - Dwarf Firebird Sweet
75 days - Fred’s Tie Dye
75 days - Dwarf Mary’s Cherry
75 days - Dwarf Metallica

80 days - Dwarf Purple Heartthrob
80 days - Banksia Queen
80 days - Dwarf Confetti
80 days - Dwarf Egypt Yellow
80 days  Adelaide Festival
80 days - 'Summer Sunrise'
80 days - 'Dwarf Black Angus'
80 days - 'Dwarf Caitydid'

85 days - 'Dwarf Perfect Harmony'
85 days -  'Dwarf Tanager'
85 days - 'Dwarf Russian Swirl'
85 days - Dwarf Tanager
85 days - Dwarf Noah’s Stripes

90 days - 'Summer Sweet Gold'
90 days - 'Lucky Swirl'
90 days - ‘Wherokowhai'
90 days - 'Dwarf Round Robin'
90 days - 'Dwarf Elsie's fancy'

[William S.]

Andrew I didn't realize Uluru Ochre was a 65 DTM variety. Now I definitely want it.

Myself I sometimes grow a few long season tomatoes, but I see them as poorly adapted here. I am curious about the flavor of some of them.

Generally I like 75 DTM for transplants.

65 DTM I get a bit more excited.

55 DTM and earlier and I get really interested for earliness especially if they have some remarkabe features. There are a lot of pretty boring red early tomatoes.

80 DTM and above are sort of curiosities in my climate. I don't expect much from them. I grow some that interest me but I sort of expect to be dissapointed as their production and the end of my season too often coincide.

[Andrew Barney]

Andrew I didn't realize Uluru Ochre was a 65 DTM variety. Now I definitely want it.

Myself I sometimes grow a few long season tomatoes, but I see them as poorly adapted here. I am curious about the flavor of some of them.

Generally I like 75 DTM for transplants.

65 DTM I get a bit more excited.

55 DTM and earlier and I get really interested for earliness especially if they have some remarkabe features. There are a lot of pretty boring red early tomatoes.

80 DTM and above are sort of curiosities in my climate. I don't expect much from them. I grow some that interest me but I sort of expect to be dissapointed as their production and the end of my season too often coincide.

I agree. Uluru Ochre was one that was already interesting before being praised by Craig and Patrina. Now that I found it is such a short DTM, but appears to be a fairly large fruit even more interesting.

I also agree on the DTM. A few of the 90 day tomatoes were said to be some of the most flavorful of the whole project, which is probably why I will at least trial at least one. But I agree, while I probably can physically grow a 90 day tomato, I kind of expect it to have the same traits as standard heirloom tomatoes by being low production value. It's great to get a large and tasty tomato, but if I only get ONE tomato on a single plant the whole season, then it is nearly worthless to me. That sentiment sums up my experience with heirlooms like Cherokee Purple, at least in my climate (and without really really good potting soil).

I'm thinking if i stick to this list my evaluation (next year?) will go something like this:

first group 60DTM +70s(8-9 plants) 75s(6-8 plants) 80s(5 plants) 85s(3-4 plants) 90(2-4 plants). That would be somewhere between 24 and 32 varieties to trial with the trial being skewed toward earlier varieties. Looks like some newer short season dwarf crosses might need to be done....

@William, perhaps a 55 DTM x Uluru Ochre ....could be interesting...

[Diane Whitehead]

I have about twenty of those growing this year.

[nathanp]

Uluru Ochre was my earliest tomato last year.  It does indeed have superior flavor, so it is worth growing. 
Dwarf Banana Toes was not much behind it in 2020, though I did not grow it last year to compare. 

Wherokowhai was almost too late in the year for me.  It was over 100 days to maturity in my garden last year.  I'm growing it again this year, but I expect if I am unable to select for earlier maturity, I probably will not continue to grow it.