Sungold & exploring various "fruity" notes

[Vicki]

I kind of deliberately stopped using Sungold because I already had some sungold genetics in one of my early crosses (Blue Ambrosia x Amurski Tiger) so I was worried about not having enough diversity. Fortunately I've since made crosses with Sunviva, Fruity the ancestor of Tim's Taste of paradise, a fruity line of Lofthouse promiscuous, and Dwarf Eagle Smiley. I've also crossed a lot of bicolors with current tomatoes and so I reckon I now have quite a few small yellow cherry tomatoes.

Are you also working on a project with taste/ fruity as a focus? I'd like to hear more about it and what you've learned so far.

Edit: I see the thread just below mine about growing in Montana has more information, so I'll catch up there.

[William Schlegel]

Are you also working on a project with taste/ fruity as a focus? I'd like to hear more about it and what you've learned so far.

It is a hope in there somewhere. My most focused flavor selection project is of the descendants of a fruity line of Joseph Lofthouse's work that I called "The One" crossed now with my now old standby blue skinned potato leaf bicolors or Mission Mountain series tomatoes. I about have that stable as a rugose dwarf.

I also make crosses on occassion with other fruity lines to try to go after those good flavor elements. However my breeding is complicated by a strong desire to cross to wild tomatoes and old regional tomatoes both of which strongly run to plain red tomatoes. I breed by the simple equation local x wild x fancy. Where fruity flavors would be one type of fanciness. Some of my older lines are much simpler being simply short season tomatoes crosses with fancy tomatoes. I breed with wild tomatoes primarily to try and increase the genetic diversity within tomatoes much of which was left behind in South America. Though certain wild species may contribute fruity notes on occasion.

Also welcome to the forum!

[Adrian]

Hi William,
How can i regognized it a variety Beta at a tangerine variety? Beta is more dark orange than tangerine?
My next project will be to combinated Beta, dg (dark green) and gf (green flesh) issue of the project of Nicotomato.I have found a orange cherry parent.I'm scary that my orange cherry variety is tangerine.

[William Schlegel]

Hi William,
How can i regognized it a variety Beta at a tangerine variety? Beta is more dark orange than tangerine?
My next project will be to combinated Beta, dg (dark green) and gf (green flesh) issue of the project of Nicotomato.I have found a orange cherry parent.I'm scary that my orange cherry variety is tangerine.

Sounds like a question for Steph S. I don't know.

[Vicki]

Adrian- good question; I'd also like to know the answer. Also, why is beta orange favorable to tangerine in your case?

[Vicki]

William, thanks for the welcome.

And local x wild x fancy makes a lot of sense. I'd be interested in doing something similar for where I live if tomatoes struggle to grow here, but they do well until the late blight hits hard, which is usually when first frost is anyways. Also your project sounds like a lot to take on for someone new!

Have you gotten mostly red tomatoes from your crosses and grow outs? And have you found any reds with interesting/ fruity tastes?

In my experience, I haven't tasted a fruity red or pink yet. But there are so many tomatoes in the world, of course.

[Roland]

Tangerine varieties have orange flowers — it's not very obvious, but if you place a regular flower next to it, you can see the difference.

[William Schlegel]

William, thanks for the welcome.

And local x wild x fancy makes a lot of sense. I'd be interested in doing something similar for where I live if tomatoes struggle to grow here, but they do well until the late blight hits hard, which is usually when first frost is anyways. Also your project sounds like a lot to take on for someone new!

Have you gotten mostly red tomatoes from your crosses and grow outs? And have you found any reds with interesting/ fruity tastes?

In my experience, I haven't tasted a fruity red or pink yet. But there are so many tomatoes in the world, of course.

I'm seven years in and I have six gardens spread over eight acres.

Red flavors I haven't explored enough. Craig LeHoullier says if you blind taste them the flavors can be surprising. Recovery of non red colors from red x yellow crosses is surprisingly straightforward but I have a lot of red lines right now.

[Adrian]

Tou can see the orange variety with that i have chose to work this year.

Two cross tried:
The first with big orange stripes
https://www.tomatofifou.com/produit/big-orange-stripe/
The second with captain lucky x manapal la3005 F4 dg,gf, black (Nicotomato).

Its the reason that why i hope that my cherry orange variety is Beta.If i have well understand i can got a very dark orange color

[Steph S]

The best resource I know of, to identify whether an orange tomato is Beta or tangerine, is the NZ Crop Trust Research, here is one of their publications but there may be other named varieties tested in different years so check for other reports from them.
https://www.heritagefoodcrops.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2020-Report-Carotenoid-and-Polyphenol-content-of-heritage-Tomatoes.pdf

As Doffer pointed out, the flower color of tangerine is distinctive, when compared to a red or Beta.

The combination of Beta and gf is a brown color.  Likewise tangerine and gf gives a shade of brown.  Not a terribly appealing color in either case, so I would say, if the taste is superlative then you can overlook the color.  But unlikely to have appeal for the color alone.

[Vicki]

Hmm I'm not sure I want a brown tomato. Well if it tastes amazing then sure, all sins are forgiven I suppose.

William- I meant if I as an aspiring breeder attempt a project like yours, it would be difficult. I can definitely tell you aren't new to this!

Regardless, if you find something unusual in terms of fruity tastes in your own projects I would like to know more (and perhaps take a few seeds if you can spare them).

[William Schlegel]

Hmm I'm not sure I want a brown tomato. Well if it tastes amazing then sure, all sins are forgiven I suppose.

William- I meant if I as an aspiring breeder attempt a project like yours, it would be difficult. I can definitely tell you aren't new to this!

Regardless, if you find something unusual in terms of fruity tastes in your own projects I would like to know more (and perhaps take a few seeds if you can spare them).

The fruity line of Joseph Lofthouse's promiscuous project I called The One for quite a bit of the time I wrote about it was probably my biggest find- really some of the flavors Joseph wrote about. I'm growing that out to share the latest version- I have lots of seeds of earlier unstable versions to share as well. Im sure the latest version is unstable to some degree as well. Then I just play with crosses with the fruity flavors in many of the varieties we talked about like Sunviva, Blue Ambrosia, Dwarf Eagle Smiley, and Fruity.

[Vicki]

That is a solid plan. How many years have you been working on "The One"?

I'm currently sifting through different websites looking for anything "fruity" and/ or developed from a cross with Sungold.

[William Schlegel]

That is a solid plan. How many years have you been working on "The One"?

From my notes in my spreadsheet it looks like I discovered it amongst the growouts from Joseph in 2021. Since then I've crossed it with my Mission Mountain series and this year's growout is all potato leaf after some regular leaf thinning. Some of them are notably more rugose than others. Will be interesting to see what variation in color and flavor there is still.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

This year, I also grow "The One". The original sibling group, from the original fruit (I think).