Actually, what are the best lines from what I ordered? Where are the mango and pineapple tasting fruits I keep hearing about?
Or are those lines too precious to give out yet? If so, which lines am I most likely to find something useful and edible? Which lines have the most exciting genetics or genetic combinations? I'm thinking the BH derived lines.
Q-series, Wildling, BH-series, A1/A2, and Exserted Orange are all derived from Big Hill. Basically, at this point, all of the publicly released seed is descended from Big Hill.
Q-series is a subset of Wildling.
R18 is a highly promiscuous plant selected from Wildling
S35,36,37 were highly promiscuous, and highly favored by the taste panel. Again, selected from the Wildling.
The 2018/19 Winter cross population were labeled W followed by a number. I didn't plant any of that seed this year. I think William might have, and I may yet plant a few plants from a yellow fruited plant that I grew last year. W# were pollen parents to Big Hill (BH X W4). W# were also crossed with each other, but that part of the project languished cause seed came back so late in the season. I may plant a yellow fruited selection from W2 X W4. It is a 3 species hybrid.
Q-series is the safest variety. Most likely to be useful and edible. Seems like they may be selfing, or somewhat panamorous. They grew close together, so if they crossed, it was most likely to other Q plants. The flavor of the oranges is melon-like. The reds are tomato-like. If the end product of this project was orange fruited, melon tasting, on early determinate plants, with exposed stigmas, I'd feel really content.
Q-series, and wildling were grown in isolation from wild varieties. Getting close to stabilizing for non-green fruits. (There was one green fruited plant in a patch of 108 plants last year.)
Why Q? When I started breeding tomatoes, I numbered the rows A, B, C, D.... I'm not repeating row numbers so that each plant can have an identifier that is unique across all time.... (In theory... There were duplicates of A, B, and C. Ooops!!!) Big Hill was originally the 9th plant in the H row, which was a row of about 32 siblings of the F2 of Hillbilly X Jagodka. Therefore, it's original name was HX9.
I keep chasing the exotic flavors, which are in the wildling line in the orange, yellow, pink, bicolor, and white fruits. Wildling also has the citrus, acidic, and tomato-like flavors. I'm not a fan. Wildling is by far the most genetically diverse.
This summer, I hope to work on increasing the diversity of Neandermato. It would be clever to make some manual crosses.
I have seriously reduced the number of fields that I farm, which hampers my isolation options. I'm paying close attention to keep the wilds separate from the elites.