Tomato Journal

[Randy Simmons]

This weekend I moved my 3 seedlings of The One! to my grow tent.  I was hesitant because the light burned the leaves on my test plant.  I think I have the light settings figured out now.  They're doing fine.  Thinking of starting more in a week or two.

[William Schlegel]

That's cool Randy!

I just extracted seed from my last few Solanum habrochaites berries and put aside to ferment.

It is an accession called LA1033 known for having a multi gene resistance to late blight. I attempted one cross with it but the result didn't look great so not sure if anything viable will germinate from the attempted cross. Had a few like that this year. University researchers haven't managed to do anything with multigene traits. Too hard to get the whole set transferred over. It is the same with salt tolerance in Solanum galapagense.

So I figure for my attempt the result will need to be mostly Solanum habrochaites LA1033. I'll try to introgress a few domestic traits. May take a very long time.

[Randy Simmons]

Transplanted The One! seedlings to a five gallon pot over the weekend and started seeds for Mission Mountain Rising. 

[William Schlegel]

Cool, I want to start some Mission Mountain Rising F2. I figure if I use 100 seeds maybe four of them might be small dwarfs. Though if I wait till next summer I could just direct seed and thin to dwarfs. I think it is like 1/4 dwarf and then 1/4 of that microdwarf and then I wonder how common potato leafs will be I made the cross with the heterozygous F1 so potato leaf shouldn't be very common. I also wonder if a back cross to Mission Mountain Morning F3 might be necessary to get everything I want.

[William Schlegel]

I just finished the book "ten tomatoes that changed the world" by William Alexander. Who incidentally is the author of "the $64 tomato".

It's a good book and has a lot of tomato history. It mentions the brown rugose fruit virus towards the end.

In the last bit it gets to greenhouse tomatoes.

They have a higher carbon impact then field grown. However the author than redeems them by mentioning this is still lower than livestock. Mentions an impending population of 10 billion humans by 2050.

I may keep direct seeding tomatoes in open fields full of weeds and arthropods.

[Randy Simmons]

Planted 12 seeds of Mission Mountain Rising on November 28, had 11 seedlings as of last night.  I'm pretty excited about both and hoping a microdwarf might show up either in these or when I plant the rest of my seeds.  Also, thinking about plans for 2023.  So far The One!, Mission Mountain Rising, Exserted Tiger, Exserted Orange, MMS x BH, Yellow Chariot, Brad F2, Big Hill, Galina, and Amana Orange for sure.  I have a few more from EFN that I would like and maybe try Bison since it was once a go-to in my area but only have so much room.  In the past there was septoria leaf spot in my garden so I didn't crowd my plants, but it's been so dry these last two years I might try it in 2023.

[William Schlegel]

Randy it is neat you are growing so many tomatoes that have spent time in my garden. Also so many of Joseph's.

The North Dakota tomatoes are interesting. Bison, Golden Bison, Fargo Yellow Pear, Sheyenne, and Dakota Sport are all ND varieties some of which are available from prairie road organic seed.

I've sometimes said to myself that I should be crossing the North Dakota varieties to the Idaho varieties but honestly while I've grown at least Bison and Payette the former is an heirloom and the latter an early modern. So there isn't as much genetic potential there for adaptability as say Joseph's interspecies crosses or something like Purple Zebra F1 which has a full modern disease package from wild species introgressions. Still maybe someday I'll cross in some ND x ID. Though actually I think Payette has a little Bison in it's ancestry and they backcrossed it to Sioux 5 times. In a breeding program that took them 14 generations. Sioux was bred in Nebraska.

[Randy Simmons]

Your made me think about what I want for my tomatos like fewer inputs adaptability and disease resistance and I ordered some Purple Zebra.  Going to take another look at EFN for joseph's interspecies tomatos.

[William Schlegel]

So the strain I sent you that I called "The One" when I discovered it in 2021 is an isolate of Joseph's interspecies tomatoes. My guess is that it is amongst those with 12.5% habrochaites and 12.5% penellii.

I think in my musing I talked about why I prioritized crossing in Purple Zebra F1. I didn't necessarily mean to push you in the same direction. Though I made only one cross with it and got something like 12 F1 seeds for 2023. So more people crossing with it gives a better chance of the best possible outcomes.

I was also wondering though if for South Dakota those Dakota bred tomatoes might be adapted well in some ways.

Though one thing is that adaptation is a moving target. Over time as diseases change and climate does too our tomatoes need to change.

Bison x Purple Zebra might be a good cross for capturing some of that modern disease resistance and some of that regional heirloom adaptation.

[William Schlegel]

Reading "Livingston and the Tomato"

Odd book. The 1800s were a different time.

He looked for mutants mainly. Loved round tomatoes. Was looking for tomatoes for the canning industry.

Warned against crossing tomatoes or planting varieties together and saving seed.

[William Schlegel]

I just realized that Golden Bison is a descendant of Livingston's Golden Queen. Specifically it is Bison x Golden Queen. I have a packet ordered of Golden Bison Interesting.

[William Schlegel]

Radicles are radical! I think I spotted a radicle and buried it a little better.

[William Schlegel]

Little u shaped stems emerged. Wonder if the cotlyedens will pop up by supper time.

[William Schlegel]

Yep I have cotyledens!

My wife germ tested ET, EO, and HX-9 Big Hill for her etsy store smashflower and they all germinated great so I ended up trying to rescue some of the sprouts.

So now I have 80 cells planted...

[William Schlegel]

I don't know why but my phone made my daily seedling photo over 10 megabytes so I can't upload it. The presprouted seedlings got huge in just one day! I may need to fight etiolation tomorrow.

No germination on some old LA1410 seed from the original packet or on my F1 50% hybrids with LA2329. Yet. Will need to plant more if they don't germinate.