F1s for the People!

[Roland]

For 2023 i will try to make the Craig’s Gift F1 tomatoseeds.
i will try Cherokee Purple x Lillian’s Yellow and  Lillian’s Yellow x Cherokee Purple.

it seems Lillian’s Yellow do not produce a lot of tomatoes and the tomatoes do not contain a lot of seeds. So the F1 Craig’s Gift seeds will be expensive

[Steph S]

I think recessives genes are also usefull that the dominant genes.
My tomato is potato leaf x wispy leaf and she had more  large leaf that all tomato with regular leaf that i have see.

I think recessives genes are usefull for improve the action of the dominants genes.

I assume they are talking about dominance specifically in the genes that produce vigor.  Recessive features like potato leaf wouldn't have any effect, for sure.

Edited to add: Also wanted to comment that this seems to bode well for Tim's plan to cross early PL's with early RL's for 2 reasons: 
A recent study surveying genetics of heirlooms and OP's found a  high degree of relatedness among the PL's that were studied.  So there is more likely to be genetic distance in the plan to cross with RLs.   If the reported observations held true, a cross between two PL's in that group would be less likely to show hybrid vigor due to relatedness.
Secondly, I have done some work with Stupice which is one of the early PL's, and it is very vigorous and I would say that its vigor genes have a lot of dominance, based on the outcomes in subsequent generations.   I have heard that Bloody Butcher and Kotlas are also vigorous plants, they probably have similar genetic makeup ie dominance of the genes involved in vigor.  So again, that is a plus for Tim's plan.

[Tim DH]

Hi Roland,
   Thanks for volunteering to have a stab at ‘Craig’s Gift’. And also for the advice that ‘Lillian’s Yellow’ is not very productive in TWO respects! I do intend to create ‘Craig’s Gift’ myself sometime. … But there are a few other things I want to do first!!

   Started today on the Early Red F1 project. Pollinating ‘ImurPB’, ‘BloodyButcher’ and ‘Stupice’ with ‘Moskvich’. I also did ‘BloodyButcher’ with ‘Latah’ pollen. All was going really well until I tried to finish with ‘Latah’ pollen on ‘Stupice’ and accidentally destroyed the chosen flowers! … Oh well, plenty of time yet.

Tim DH

[Tim DH]

In the ‘Early Red F1’ project, it was my intention not to use Imur Prior Beta as a mother for Latah pollen, because, in my experience IPB was (like Latah) determinate. I want indeterminate F1s

However last year I strung up some of IPB’s laterals and they never terminated! I strung them up because, since I’d gone to the effort of grafting it, I didn’t want stems touching the ground.

The same thing has happened this year. The main vine has terminated, but the laterals don’t look like they are going to any time soon.

I’m guessing that, in pre-grafting seasons, the main vine terminated and soil borne disease killed the plant before I realised that the laterals weren’t going to terminate! Leading to my assumption that it was a determinate cultivar.

SO: I now think IPB (or at least my version of it) would best be described as semi-determinate. I’ve just done an online trawl and the first ten websites list IPB as indeterminate. Does anyone else have an opinion borne of experience?

Tim DH

[Tim DH]

My first manual crosses appear to be fattening fruits!
Very exciting!!

[Tim DH]

I read on a couple of websites that Stupice is the same as Imur Prior Beta, just how ‘the same’ wasn’t made clear. … So I’m happy to report that in my greenhouse, on green fruit colour alone, they are not the same. IPB is an even pastel green, going towards lemony. Stupice is a bluer green with darker shoulders.

However this doesn’t quite resolve the problem. … I read on a Tomatoville thread (about Kimberley) a contribution from a Belarusian grower, that there are FOUR Stupickes, which we call Stupice.

Sadly, since I still have not got posting rights on Tomatoville I can’t ask for clarification. But the idea of a named variety having possibly four different genotypes is worrying.

Thinking on further: When Joseph talks of ‘my strain of XYZ’, it does suggest that even OPs are not quite as stable/true as we like to think.

All this does rather spoil my ‘dream’ of having F1 recipes that can be recreated anywhere in the world using freely available OP varieties.

[William Schlegel]

I think there are definitely some named varieties that have multiple varieties hiding under the same name. With a few of the Russian varieties that may be due to translation errors. Like Jagodka and Stupicke may actually stand for multiple varieties.

The Jagodka the McMurrays sent to Joseph is different from the Jagodka they sent to the guy Earl got it from. Does that matter much?

I think outcrossing rates are under noticed in red tomatoes. Also, mutation rates are a bit higher than some people realize. Some tomato varieties are released sooner with more variabilities. Like my releases were early releases to share germplasm. So Exserted Orange and Exserted Tiger are not stable and won't be for a while- actually someone else may make a stable version sooner than me and welcome too it.

Green Zebra has already landraced out a bit in the more classical sense where it has reaccumulated variation over time through mutation.

However, I think that you can still come up with some very decent recipes. There may just be a few parents that may have multiple strains but even many of those may still be related enough to work in a good working cross. You might specify a source for your seeds if it worries you. Like I got X Y and Z varieties from Johnny's Selected Seed and variety P from experimental farm network.

[Diane Whitehead]

 I have three Stupice.   They were bred by a Czech tomato breeder, Jaroslav Homola, on Stupice Farm in 1940s  (Mikado x Sláva Porýni ) x Solanum racemigerum.     Beginning of cultivation - 1943.     

Stupice      
   
Stupicke Polni Rane   . Fruit shape is very similar to Stupice, with first fruit  fused and hence larger than subsequent fruits. round, red, blemish free, with no core, 1.5-2.5 oz. Excellent rich flavor.   bought from Tatiana   2016         

Stupicke Sklenikove   potato leaf round red similar shape and size to Stupice. excellent rich flavour   from Tatiana in 2018      

[Joseph Lofthouse]

A trait that my Brad has, which is fairly common among the offspring, is tiny lesions in the fruit skin, that look like gold speckles. I found someone local growing a plant with the Brad phenotype, but when I traced the name, it was the name of a German seed company, and not a variety name. The company didn't have a similar tomato listed on their web site. The nursery that the transplant came from is known for mislabeling. Heck, it's a local nursery. For all I know, they are selling my varieties.

"Yagodka" might just as well be translated as "Saladette". I grew another purported Russian variety by the name of "Matina". Phenotype was similar to Jagodka, except the fruits were slightly smaller, and it wasn't as productive for me.

I have "organic eyes". I observe minute differences in phenotype between plants. I keep my mouth shut when I tour people's gardens, and their treasured heirlooms are not true to type. I concur that crossing is happening among red tomatoes, more often than people are aware.

[Andrew Barney]

What William sees as mutation I see more as secret outcrossing. Sure there might be some mutation,  but I think it's less than we might think. That does not mean mutation happens at a rate of 1%. Perhaps it happens at 15%, who knows.

A red tomato that is an average size that crosses with another red tomato of average size probably wouldn't be noticed much. Same for an average sized tomato of various shades of red / brown, etc. Minute differences start to show up either way, but unless it is a variety you've grown for years and years, eventually what was once one variety from the same source now becomes two or three or four.

 I agree that even in tomatoes many heirlooms might be more like OP. Maybe a plant self pollinates 90%, but the same fruit might have a significant amount of seed that is not selfed. Depends on the crop, the climate, and the bees.

When I trial new varieties of other crop species I try to purchase multiple packets of the same variety from multiple sources in case there is significant variation. Often there is, especially if I am bi you in buying one from one climate zone and another from a vastly different climate zone. Sometimes the differences are epigenetic, other times they are epigenetic changes that have become fixed changes over time.

[Adrian]

Canestrino di lucca x andine cornue was grow at 2 differents regions and the fruits are differents.
For me she look like at a san marzano horned with leafs more toward canestrino di lucca and for her in the other region she look at a san marzano without horn and she has leafs more wispy more toward andine cornue.

[William Schlegel]

Andrew: I specifically mentioned mutation in regard to Green Zebra which would be hard to keep crosses with a secret because of two traits. Green when ripe, and stripes. I suspect most strains of Green Zebra retain those two traits but have accumulated other mutations. I mentioned it because of reading somewhere that it has "landraced out" a bit. Being an early Tom Wagner development, it has had time and hundreds of gardens to do so. Releasing a variety like Green Zebra is kind of like growing it out in a 1000-acre field. You would get some mutation! Especially over about 50 years!

Talking about mutations, they do occur, and I found one last year! An Earl's strain Jagodka plant had reticulate patterns on the skin of several tomatoes including just half of one. I saved seed from the tomato that was entirely reticulate, and have it replanted to see if the trait comes back.

In another paragraph I agreed with you that yes, many outcrossings go unnoticed. I suspect that is why I have two strains of Jagodka both of which I think can trace their origins back to the same garden not that long ago.

My strain of Matina is potato leaved; I think Joseph wrote once that his was regular leaved which is funny to me because I only got it because he wrote about it. Same with Jagodka- I got the other strain when Joseph was out of seed.

I think Joseph's Brad indeed might be an ancestor of that potato leaved red exserted that showed up in the 2017 Lofthouse seed mix as some of the sibling lines have had those spots. Though there is also a Brad Gates tomato in my garden that has spots- maybe Dark Galaxy. I definitely have had some spotty tomatoes segregate out over the years from one, the other, or both.

I was thinking I should grow out my entire collection and let my wife sell seed, but without 50 feet of isolation for inserted varieties and 150 for exserted I think the chances of crossing might be too high. I suspect some of the sellers with very large collections may neither isolate nor bag. This would lead to some outcrossing.

I have found crosses in seed packets from others. I found an anthocyanin cross in with Golden Tressette from Alan Kapuler and I found some regular leaf and from their vigour likely hybrids in a packet of Brad from Joseph. I suspect that is also one reason many gardeners end up with not true to type strains- the cross happens at the seed seller and the gardener doesn't know any better because they aren't yet familiar with the strain. Then they save seed and share the cross onward... Or even the original packet as they already grew a plant from it. I often only grow four seeds from the original packets I get. I try to save the bulk of my growing space for segregating material. The only time I do a really proper grow out of something I think is when I do an isolated garden for seed increase.

Also talking about crossing chances- I suspect that last year was an awesome crossing year here and I blame a heat wave, and this year I wonder if it will be- and I blame a cold wave. Just a observation- longer stigmas last year, shorter stigmas this year. At least so far! The stigmas may lengthen up as the weather warms up! So far I would say the one plant of Big Hill which even though it came out of a crossing block I suspect simply because it has a perfect Big Hill style stigma is uncrossed- nonetheless it seems to be a more weather stable stigma type somehow than the potato leaf strains have inherited. Some of my tomatoes still have modest exsertion, just not as much as last year and I do think that length of exsertion matters for crossing rate. Kind of a hard trait to measure but I think when its just a few millimeters it isn't going to be as good.

Another thing that I think occurs is mislabeling. When I was working at a local greenhouse soon after my son was born we got some Stupice seed that was a mix of regular leaf and potato leaf. The regular leaf were some kind of mistake. Either the result of a cross or maybe an accidental seed mixing of another variety. When I was growing out Payette for a seed crop I noticed I had a mix of a dwarf and a normal tomato. The normal tomato did not segregate back to dwarf and my assumption therefore was that it was a contaminate not a cross- and that is what the company thought too but I did grow out that tomato and save its seed and plant it in case it was a fun cross with Payette- and the lack of segregation suggested it was not.

Though one question I have is bees: I have been growing tomatoes now for 7 years in a row. I wonder if my local bee populations have gotten used to having the tomato pollen resource, and if so do my tomatoes now enjoy a higher rate of cross pollination in consequence?

Nonetheless- I still think this basic idea of hybrid recipes is still viable because tomatoes do self at very high rates and varieties do exist which are very stable, very naturally inbreeding, and very easy to obtain. Though there might be some problem varieties out there. For instance, varieties known to be a bit exserted might be ones to exclude. Many potato leaf varieties are somewhat famously so. However, if you have obtained them from a reputable seed house and they seem true to type it should be fine to use them- though you might include the name of the seed house you obtained that seed from in your recipe.

[Andrew Barney]

I have found crosses in seed packets from others. I found an anthocyanin cross in with Golden Tressette from Alan Kapuler and I found some regular leaf and from their vigour likely hybrids in a packet of Brad from Joseph. I suspect that is also one reason many gardeners end up with not true to type strains- the cross happens at the seed seller and the gardener doesn't know any better because they aren't yet familiar with the strain. Then they save seed and share the cross onward... Or even the original packet as they already grew a plant from it. I often only grow four seeds from the original packets I get. I try to save the bulk of my growing space for segregating material. The only time I do a really proper grow out of something I think is when I do an isolated garden for seed increase.

Though one question I have is bees: I have been growing tomatoes now for 7 years in a row. I wonder if my local bee populations have gotten used to having the tomato pollen resource, and if so do my tomatoes now enjoy a higher rate of cross pollination in consequence?

When I originally bought seed for Dwarf Gray Sugar from the Seed Savers Exchange store many years ago I noticed two separate pod phenotypes. Those with flat-ish pods and those with constricted pods. I selected for constricted pods, but the fact remains that with a highy inbreeding crop like peas, where did this diversity come from and which trait was more respective for the variety? If i remember correctly the constricted pods were much less in numbers than the flat pods. Something similar probably is found in all types of crops, including tomatoes.

As for the bees... Yes... I think the more you grow certain crops the bees in your area will learn and adapt to having that resource. That in turn will increase the outcrossing rate in your area for that crop (and related species). I have noticed this at my parents property where after growing a large variety of peas in a small area of many years they now have a larger incidence of certain native solitary bees, including two types seen on the peas themselves, one of which is a leafcutter bee species. Leafcutter bees are known to be the principle pollinator of alfalfa fields in nearby towns (another legume species with what I assume are similar flowers). Even though I have been sloppy with my pea crosses over the years, a certain amount of diversity and various unexpected traits have shown up in lines I was not expecting. This leads me to suspect that in addition to my sloppy crosses over the years the native bees have secretly been doing many as well. There have been times I have found certain traits in a planting of peas that I could not explain showing up any other way.

Also, I have heard that bees (honeybees vs native bees??) may like to stick to one species or type of flower each day. Therefore, if they choose to visit dandelions they like to visit only dandelions throughout a significant portion of the day. Some have said this is an evolutionary adaption. Perhaps they just like consistency and simplicity? But this could also lead to higher outcrossing rates in a garden that has many many different tomato varieties all planted at once. Especially if it were to be a monocrop.

Though sometimes one can attract pollinators with other species and receive attention on other crops as well. I have seen this with my indian corn and my watermelons. There is a black native bee that loves the corn pollen, especially on indian corn that has colorful anthers. When they visit the corn in years that watermelon is planted nearby they will also pollinate the watermelon flowers. I have not seen them on the wateremelon flowers as much if at all in years where the corn was not planted, though perhaps they were there but far more sparse. I wonder if something similar could be achieved with sunflowers and tomatoes. A large yellow flower like a sunflower might attract the native bees that like yellow flowers, and when they show up they might also visit other yellow flowers like tomatoes.

[William Schlegel]

We need some pollinator threads!

[Tim DH]

Thanks guys for your many thoughts on the homogeneity  (or otherwise!) of named cultivars, and the implications for this project. All useful thinking material.

Meanwhile, I’ve discovered that OSSI has considered the issue of F1s. This is FAQ 21 from the website.

21. Can an F1 hybrid be OSSI-pledged?
Yes.  Since hybrids do not breed true, we anticipate that OSSI-pledged F1 hybrids (including multi-parent hybrids) will be useful to others primarily as a parent in a breeding program, although like other OSSI-pledged cultivars, they are freed for use for any purpose.
OSSI will require the contributor to identify the parents involved in the cross that produced the hybrid, and to describe the genetically controlled traits expressed or carried by the parents or the hybrid that might make the hybrid valuable in a breeding program.  OSSI will not require that the parents themselves be OSSI-pledged or available.  The breeder will be required to assure us that to the best of his/her knowledge, there are no intellectual property protection claims associated with the hybrid’s parents that would limit freedom of use of the hybrid or its progeny for breeding, seed saving, replanting or sale.