Tomato Journal

[William S.]

Well, the 39 F last night apparently got a bunch, exserted orange, mission mountain sunrise, and the slushy field are pretty much toast. Put a bucket on the galapagense even though it was pretty sad. One Forest Fire plant that made it through an earlier frost still looked good. Maybe it has activated epigenetics?!

Mostly covered the R18 S35-37 and a few promiscuous bicolors.

Have about 18 potato leaf Mission Mountain Sunrise in the greenhouse. 72 new sprouts of the same under the grow light. Then I have about 59 promiscuous bicolors in the greenhouse. So there will be plenty of tomatoes. Also I direct seeded four rows of promiscuous yellows and in separate areas a mix of not isolated Big Hill, Exserted tiger, and promiscuous yellows. So there should be some fun tomatoes. Might miss some of the diversity lost though.

Will need to replant exserted orange either by direct seeding, in a tray, or both.

Temp tonight and tomorrow night now predicted to be 32F for both!

[William S.]

Well I needn't have covered last night. Though the night before when the weather report was much more favorable I should have.

Tonight may be 32 F so just left the covers on. -hmm has improved to 33 F

[William S.]

Checking the weather history last night on weather.gov it looks like it briefly got down to 30 F at the small local airport weather station. Only at that point did the dew point match the temperature.

It looks like the covered tomatoes and the uncovered rows next to them are fine for the most part.

The three heavily damaged fields still look terrible. Might be a few survivors though but I will need to return later in the day to give damaged tissue a chance to burn off.

[William S.]

Put all my big tomato pots out in this heavy rain. The spindly crowded habrochaites have mostly fallen down. Very different from last year's short stout clay grown plants.

Ran out and fertilized them with Miracle grow soluble organic performance stuff. Will let the rain wash the fertilizer in.

[Steph S]

My tomatoes got potted up into their containers in the greenhouse May 17-19, so they had at least 5 days to get over the transplant stress before the big frost last night.  According to the weather station it dropped to -3C, and there was water frozen by the door.  Greenhouse temp early this morning was reading 40 F.   No sign of any damage or distress.  But this evening when I closed up I noticed a fair bit of purpling on the young shoots at or near the top of the plants.  I don't expect that to turn into a problem, but it was interesting to see that only those emerging bits or tops were affected this way, which I usually expect on lower stems.

It was sunny off and on today so the temperature got well up to about 90F at the point I opened a second vent.  And the high yesterday got to 70F with just a few sunny breaks.   So it was a brief temperature plunge.  Often at this time of year we get 3-4 days in a row without any sunshine and the temperature doesn't get much above 50 for several days.  So this kind of one-off cold night is probably not as bad.

This year I put the seedlings out for two weeks of greenhouse temperatures before transplanting.  Lowest it got was 44F on a couple of nights, there were no effects visible at that low.

[Garrett Schantz]

Should be able to plant the tomatoes out tomorrow before it rains. Was supposed to rain yesterday, barely got anything.

Got a single hairy habrochaites sprout today - took months to sprout - maybe the high of 90F woke it up. Different accession than what some others here are trialing.

All of my late tomatoes all have at least one seedling in their cells, a pimpinellifolium type sprouted yesterday.

The two wild galapagos types haven't germinated yet, same with neorickii and pennellii. Chmielewskii is going onto its second set of leaves already, seems healthy and there are many seedlings. These are in miracle grow cactus potting mix. HRseeds mentioned that Chmielewskii hated water retention.

[William S.]

I tried to walk over to one of my tomatoes and sank into mud. A little more rain expected tonight. Supposed to get down to 39F Friday.

I think I'm going to plant out my potted tomatoes after all. That way they will root deep and not die if they don't get watered.

[Garrett Schantz]

Finally got the tomatoes planted today.

Didn't plant the youngest plants that haven't put any leaves out yet.

[Garrett Schantz]

Got a nice amount of rain today. Might get volunteers from habrochaites or pimpinellifolium types from last year.

One peruvianum already has buds.

[William S.]

I attempted mt first two cross pollinations of the year today. Got a few flecks of pollen from a sweet cherriette but got alot from one Big Hill flower then tried to use Mission Mountain Sunrise as the mother. Might reverse that in future attempts.

[Steph S]

I noticed that an F2 line I'm growing out seems to be segregating for the 'exserted stigma' trait which you folks are interested in for outcrossing tomatoes.  So far 3 of 4 are exserted, two more not opened yet.  That must have come from the Orange-1 parent I think.

[Garrett Schantz]

Wagner blue green looks bad, as does another antho tomato.

Everything else looks fine.

Big Hill is a nice domestic so far. Germinated and leaved out quickly - two weeks for true leaves, most varieties were 4 weeks. Assuming some of its parents had pimpinellifolium traits...

[William S.]

Cool re: exsertion... I think orange sometimes comes with exsertion? We seem to find it in Sungold segregates, and I think Blue Ambrosia which was my exsertion find in 2017 that I used to create exserted tiger might be a Sungold descendant. Also orange seems to appear from hab crosses?

First Big Hill flower this year is an awesome example of exsertion- combined with beefsteak flower it's just so handy.

No idea if pimpinillifolium in Big Hill. Jagodka could have some but I think Hillbilly is an heirloom. If so it's back a way and not super duper obvious, but possible. Intriguing observation.

Both plants I have left (after frost losses) descended from Golden Tressette look very pimpinillifolium. It has pimp in background according to Alan Kapuler's info and the one strain is I think a back cross.

Just went out and daubed my two mission mountain sunrise stigmas into big hill pollen for a second day. My timing is not ideal, will see. Tied a price tag to each of them.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

The parents of Big Hill were Jagodka (from the Vavilov Institute of plant industry in Russia), and Hillbilly. I don't know if either has recent pimpinellifolium heritage.

It's looking like my last cold night is Friday. I expect to start planting tomatoes out on Saturday.

[Garrett Schantz]

Jagodka would probably be the one with pimpinellifolium or wild heritage. There are a lot of currant tomatoes (some cherry) that tend to be early or leaf out fast. Jagodka is also noted to be cold resistant among other things. Wouldn't be surprised considering its from Russia - lot of the early varieties there were developed with pimpinellifolium - other wild species as Russia generally requires early, cold tolerant tomatoes. Probably no way to know for sure.

Figured I would mention the Chmielewskii that I am growing as well. I figured I would see what happens if I decided to stop watering it for a week. About a week in a half hour. No noticeable difference in the leaves or stem. Before this, the seedlings were just being misted, the cactus potting mix dries out within an hour or less. I have tried this treatment in normal potting mix using a few other wilds. Only Chilense and Chmielewskii seem to be unaffected.

Chmielewskii is found in the mid-elevation valleys of the Andes mountains according to Moylelab. Unsure if it occurs elsewhere in Peru. I wasn't really expecting much with this species - it is small flowered - more so than pimpinellifolium, apparently has a horrid taste. But it seems like it grows in mid-elevation valleys in rocky areas. Also seems to be drought tolerant to some extent. Might just be the same tolerant genes that pennellii has.

Habrochaites seedlings that died from frost have new seeds germinating in their cells, some are regenerating (brown-black cotyledons though).

This tomato journal is quite nice...