Tomato Journal

[William Schlegel]

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1165103330/tomato-exserted-tiger-35-seeds-directly

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1165097046/tomato-exserted-orange-35-seeds-directly

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1179043589/tomato-big-hill-35-seeds

Aimee is selling some tomato seeds I grew.

[Greenie DeS]

Setting up my plans for this year and allocating space:

Crosses I'm interested in making, we'll see how many I get to:
Mikado black (PL) x Minsk Early (RL)
Mikado black (PL) x Ron's carbon copy (RL)
KARMA miracle (PL) x Minsk Early (RL)
KARMA miracle (PL) x Native sun (RL, dwarf)
Taiga (PL) x Minsk Early (RL)
Taiga (PL) x Native Sun (RL, dwarf)
Taiga (PL) x Bloody butcher (RL)
Minsk Early (RL) x Ron's carbon copy (RL)
Lime green salad (RL, dwarf) x Minsk Early (RL, not dwarf)
Bloody butcher (PL) x Ron's carbon copy (RL)
Bloody Butcher (PL) x Taiga (PL)
Silvery Fir Tree(what do we call this foliage?) x Mikado Black (PL)
Silvery Fir Tree x Taiga (PL)
Silvery Fir Tree x Ron's Carbon Copy (RL)
Silvery Fir Tree x Grocery store green (RL)
Native sun (RL, dwarf) x Grocery store green cherry (RL, not dwarf)
Probably sweet baby jade (PL, large dwarf)) x some stuff, want to taste it first

Exserted orange dusted with pollen from any of the above, I'll probably keep a pot or two of these on the deck, clip any flowers off that don't have other pollen added, and save all seed from it.

Mysteries I'm growing out:
Favourites from the panamorous mix "Tasty firm bicolour grape/berry orange/red" and "Weird promiscuous green berry/firm/eventually ripens orange/red" to see what comes out of them
August-ripened panamorous class "A" (tasty) seed mix
Some exserted orange seed, to see if it captured anything
"Lemon squeeze" F5 unstable
Potential green peruvanium panamorous-descendant from Cali

Variety trialling a bunch of new tomatoes, list not yet finalized.

Also making a plan to deal with what are likely to be numerous volunteers from last year's tomato field. Do I plant it in my short corn, or squash, or beans, and let any volunteer tomatoes ripen fruit if they can in between while growing this year's seed in a new field, thus saving any seed from the volunteers separately? Fertility isn't a limiting factor. Water might be in that case.

Going to keep known greens and cherries in their own areas, in that order of priority, for harvest management reasons.

I'm watching my indoor micro-dwarfs, Fat Frog and Moment, in fascination. They are lovely sturdy plants but they're none too quick to flower, I think they're six weeks old or so now.

[William Schlegel]

Planted eleven pots in a 32 pot tray of tomato seeds. Solanum habrochaites, Solanum cheesemanii, Solanum pimpinillifolium, Solanum chilense, and three packets of three different mothers of promiscuous project elites (though all were off tasting) from the LA2329 crossing block last year.

Very curious and hopeful to find an LA2329 hybrid this tomato starting season. After this I have quite a few more packets to plant from the LA2329 block including Big Hill, Exserted Tiger, MMS, and more of the promiscuous project elites.

If nothing pops out as a new interspecies hybrid I'll sic R18 on it this year. Though ideally also make a controlled cross. I did start about 5 seeds of LA2329. 

I have fruit swelling on my (MMS x BH F1) x Aztek cross so I think it is taking.

[William Schlegel]

Just planted four seeds of Dwarf Gloria's treat. I would like to make a cross with it and  one of my blue bicolors.

[Greenie DeS]

It's looking like Fat Frog and Moment Micros will open their blossoms 65 days after seeding.

At emergence my green promiscuous saved seed had some variability in vigour and behaviour with the seed coat. Waiting on first leaf now.

Most of the single early seeds I've planted to play with (and the mini tests for the promiscuous toms) are up and going. I'd forgotten how small sweet cheriette is!

[William Schlegel]

Yes, Sweet Cherriette is a small plant. Adaptive Seeds describes it as Semi-Determinate or some such. I picked up another tomato kind of like Sweet Cherriette last year called Gold Pearl, I bought it from Bunny Hop seeds and they had it in the micro dwarf section but explained that it isn't a rugose dwarf. I would like to know exactly how many days to maturity Gold Pearl is Bunny Hop lists it as early, Renassaince farms as 70 DTM.

One other thing about Sweet Cherriette in my experience it grows best and best conforms to its 35 DTM from transplant when the initial seedling grows well and big. I think the first year I grew it in 2017 this happened best with a few seedlings I started kind of late and transplanted promptly. Really hoping mine flower before spring and I get at least a cross or two made! Ideally, they will produce some crossed fruit in time to grow out the F1 over the summer! Though that isn't quite as tall of an order for Sweet Cherriette as it might be for some tomatoes. 

[Greenie DeS]

It's the delicate cotyledons, no doubt because of the small seed, that I'm particularly noting on sweet cherriette next to my other newly-emerged seeds.

Last year I grew one in my south-facing window, not under lights, and it produced much faster (but for a shorter duration) than any of the ones I moved outdoors, regardless of whether those were transplanted or not (some stayed in 1 gallon pots over the indoor/outdoor transition, some were potted up from their 4" to 3-10 gallon pots). Bigger pots were slower to fruit but produced A LOT more fruit, the biggest difference was between my indoor 1-gallon pot and the outdoor 10-gallon pot at roughly 25 times as much fruit between those two plants.

I also just stepped outside and tossed some sweet cherriette seed into one of my big deck pots. It's currently -17C. Very interested to compare it to seed started indoors and transplanted out into a similar pot next to it at the appropriate time. Did I mention I'm adding date of emergence and first flower to my data collection this year, at least aspirationally?

How did Gold Pearl taste? The fun of these little plants is in tension with my love of green-when-ripe and brown/purple/non-antho blacks, I guess that's why we breed them.

[William Schlegel]

As I recall Gold Pearl tasked OK but nothing to acquire for taste purposes. The short season yellows on my good taste list are Coyote and Terrior's galapagos island tomato that seems to not be a true wild form.

Yep, I feel like the true purpose of Sweet Cherriette for me is to cross it with more interesting color/flavor tomatoes to see what will happen.

[Greenie DeS]

Yep, I feel like the true purpose of Sweet Cherriette for me is to cross it with more interesting color/flavor tomatoes to see what will happen.

Now if it was exserted there'd be no check or balance on how much fun folks could have. Those flowers are a little fiddly.

[William Schlegel]

Now if it was exserted there'd be no check or balance on how much fun folks could have. Those flowers are a little fiddly.

Which is why I seem to always cross to something with an exserted stigma!

[William Schlegel]

I planted 3 or 4 seeds of each of six new currant tomato types both mainland and island sorts from hrseeds. One packet only had six seeds, so I only planted three of them- the Solanum galapagense. Hopefully I get it going though from the photo it isn't as hairy as LA1410 and thus probably not as good at insect and other arthropod deterrence.

[William Schlegel]

No germinates yet but the cold spell is about to break so maybe the seeds will start germinating!

The tomatoes from my (MMS x BH F1) x Aztek cross are getting a little bigger. I'm going to have to move the plant further from the light though in a few weeks. It is a big awkward etiolated plant. Not too bad though. Just will need to be careful not to break off the crossed fruits. Kind of hoping they will reach the shiny green stage before then at least.

[William Schlegel]

Two cells have two germinates each, just the stem has emerged in that little arc, but I am sure cotyledons will follow shortly. Oddly both accessions involved have potentially resistance to the same problem and they are the only two accessions I have with that potential resistance.

I just planted ~5 seeds of the 2021 Fuyu persimmon flavored segregate in my garden of Josephs promiscuous tomato project. It would be lovely to make some early season crosses with it. I ultimately plan to plant all or most of its seeds. Seed quality wise I thought at least a couple of these were highly suspect, but some looked fine so maybe I planted 2 or 3 seeds and a couple of seed like duds. Might not be the best envelope of the seed either. After I identified the plant, I ended up with multiple tiny batches of seed from it and some of them were better developed than others- a few envelopes may have been end of the season seeds of dubious quality and this may have been one of those envelopes. Still, only really need one early season plant that starts blooming before it gets planted out.

[William Schlegel]

Additional germination has occurred overnight. Including five germinates in one of the three cells with LA2329 crossing block seedlings and LA2329 Solanum habrochaites itself. The potential LA2329 hybrids are from a promiscuous project plant with open exserted flowers that only produced seed at the end of the growing season but that produced lots of empty tomatoes from early on. I hope at least one of them proves to be a hybrid promiscuous x LA2329 as that would be wonderful. I would expect such a hybrid to be vigorous and have Solanum habrochaites type leaves when it develops true leaves. The percentage of hybrids in the population could also be a fascinating detail that would give insight into the breeding system of the mother which could be facultative, obligate outcrossing, or selfing but with open flowers. I did not daub the flowers with pollen (or I can't remember if I did) so I would expect it to be also indicative of bee behavior. Did the bumblebees ever go directly from LA2329 to the other species?

I thought I spotted one "Mexican Midget" seedling if so, it is just a tiny bit of stem.

The original seedlings from yesterday have pulled their heads out of the potting mix and are ready to open their cotyledens.

Later on February 28th I have had one additional seedling of a different promiscuous project plant the one I called my favorite germinate.

[William Schlegel]

All but two cells of the first twelve of the early planted tomatoes have some germination.

Including Dwarf Gloria's treat!

The most recent 7 aren't but they sat a little dry for a few days after planting and they were planted later of course.

The Sweet Cherriette seedling that is most vigorous and closest to the light has buds already. They are much bigger than those on the LA1410 Solanum galapagense plant.

The attached photo is the best cell of potential promiscuous x LA2329 hybrids. Can't wait until they start showing true leaves.