Tell me more about the Dwarf Tomato Project! :)

[William S.]

I am not quite sure how early my Mission Mountain Sunrise main line is. I think in 2019 one of the sibling lines clocked in about the earliest of anything. Though probably in an old sand pile base which really helps. However it is probably close to 55 DTM and would be fun to cross to Uluru Ochre. I wish I had known I want it just a little earlier. Maybe for 2023!

[Diane Whitehead]

I thought I was just choosing fairly early ones, but I'm growing ‘Wherokowhai', plus a lot of 80 day ones.  Not good for the cool coast.

They vary a lot in speed of growth.  Banana Toes, Bendigo, Moby's Cherry and Sarandipity are tiny.

[Greenie DeS]

This has inspired me to put some uluru ochre seeds in right now. It's pretty late but we'll see what it can do.

[Andrew Barney]

This has inspired me to put some uluru ochre seeds in right now. It's pretty late but we'll see what it can do.

[Greenie DeS]

Done. And some friends for it, can't plant just one kind of tomato.

[Andrew Barney]

Got a chance to talk to Craig. It sounds like that the main difference between dwarf tomatoes and determinate tomatoes is that determinate tomatoes are heavily laden with fruit. I basically gathered that Craig thinks they are too productive to the point that they don't have good flavor. But ironically Craig can be seen trimming his dwarf plants to three main stems to help encourage larger more tasty fruit. Why he can't or doesn't do that with determinate tomatoes I don't know. Until i grow dwarf tomatoes side by side with determinate I won't really know how they differ, but I can see benefits of both. There is always going to be a battle between taste and productivity. I personally believe that the smaller-medium sized fruits in a dwarf or determinate growth habit might have the best of both worlds. It seems the Dwarf Tomato Project has mostly focused on the ultra large long season heirlooms up to this point. I think we should change that and experiment.

He also said he doesn't like cherry tomatoes as he would rather wait for beefsteaks and slicers. So it seems Craig has a large bias toward the older heirlooms. Not a bad thing when it comes to flavor I suppose, but probably a stark contrast to my own view on tomatoes. A plant that only produces one large tomato the whole season is not worth the space and effort to me no matter how it tastes. But we will see. Need to trial many from this project before I can judge it too harshly.

I tried to invite him and Patricia to the OSSI forum, but it seems they have no interest as they are at retirement age.

I did ask him if he had seen or tried determinate dwarfs and he said he didn't find anything that he liked. I think it might still be worth exploring. I think both determinate and dwarf tomatoes are probably two separate paths of most future tomato varieties. Whether or not a good combination can be achieved with both traits I have no idea. A third (or fourth) path is the micro dwarfs. It seems my orange dwarf cherry might be a micro dwarf, though much larger than some other micro dwarfs like Orange Hat.

So it seems that we can take this project in any direction we like. I say we try lots of new things.

We could incorporate more wild genetics, auto-hybridizing promiscuous tomatoes, large exerted flowers, anthocyanins, cherry and medium sized fruits, determinate plants, micro dwarfs, and more.

edit: p.s. Tomato, Orange King bred by Tim Peters looks like a good orange determinate tomato to trial against the dwarfs.

[Vesa Tee]

I tested quite many DTP varieties some years back, and there were some determinates. For example, Saucy Mary, Lemon Ice, Yukon Quest and Sleeping Lady were definitely determinates, also Pink Passion if I remember correctly. Purple Heart too but it is much larger plant than the rest.

The dwarf phenotype with shorter inter nodes and rugose leafs is because of a single recessive gene (d). It is not linked to the self-pruning gene responsible for the indeterminate (Sp) or determinate (sp) phenotypes. Both genes should segregate independently 3:1. Heterozygote Dd has about 10% shorter inter nodes than the wild type DD.

If I am not mistaken, dwarf seedlings could be recognized from non-dwarfs by their behavior at night: dwarfs are not supposed to go to ”sleep”, i.e. the cotyledons stay at open position in dark. Non-dwarfs close the cotyledons at night. Not sure if this is true.

Micro dwarfs have (d) and a second (or more) non-rugose dwarf gene. There are more than one of these other dwarf genes and they are difficult to recognize or name.

[William S.]

In examining my 2022 grow outs of Joseph Lofthouse's promiscuous tomato project I think he is correct when he states that his project has produced some kind of dwarfing. I am not sure if it is the same gene exactly as the dwarf tomato project relies upon though! Which would mean it is in that other dwarf gene category Vesa just wrote about. The promiscuous tomato project also has the potential to be determinate given some of the parents including Big Hill / HX-9.

I am growing Dwarf Saucy Mary for 2022 and if it is indeed determinate that puts it in the same category as Krainiy Sever which was the first dwarf I grew and was really impressed by. I think I actually grew another dwarf or two that year but was not as impressed and lumped them into the run of the mill reds I ended up rejecting.

I am also growing several of the early cherry tomato DTP tomatoes this year.

I certainly have the tomatoes on hand to make some of the crosses with DTP plants that Andrew suggests. Though I think the first crosses will mainly be with my Mission Mountain potato leaf exserted stigma bicolors MMS and MMM. It might take me a generation or ten though to get everything accomplished I might want to! I am planning on planting the crossing blocks out on Sunday as that is when this last cold spell will let up. I am definitely planning a crossing block with MMS and regular leaf dwarfs including Dwarf Saucy Mary amongst others, another with just Dwarf Mocha Cherry and MMS, and a third with just the promiscuous project descendants of my favorite plant from 2021 which seems to have some form of dwarfing and MMS. I suppose also that in the process I hope and intend to make more anthocyanin skinned dwarfs and I am working with some pretty small and early tomatoes. I sort of expect to have a dwarf addition to my Mission Mountain tomatoes by next year given a cross I already made with the microdwarf Aztek and my favorite MMS x BH F1.

[Vesa Tee]

Here is an example of non-rugosa ”dwarfs” (top) and micro dwarfs (bottom) from my breeding project. All plants in the pic are determinate F3 siblings from the same F2 parent. The seeds were sown approx 4 weeks ago. The non-rugosa ”dwarfs” have flower buds but the micros are just very small and slow growing, no signs of buds yet.

These are from a cross with Aftershock where the d gene is coming. I think it also has some short internode gene because all plants from this cross are very compact. The other parent is a compact determinate with also some dwarfish genes but obviously not d.

[Tim DH]

Getting interesting seed in the UK is been becoming an increasing problem!!

I have recently stumbled upon a small British site which carries a number of Dwarf Tomato Project cultivars.

https://www.tomatorevolution.co.uk/store/

I’ve not actually bought from them yet. …. but will this Autumn when they are promising an even bigger list!

Tim DH