Tomato Journal

[Arjan vD]

Hi Tim,
Thanks for the info, I am growing it for the first time this year because of it's earliness and supposed cold tolerance.

[Tim DH]

Well I can confirm its earliness and cold tolerance! It's also somewhat mould resistant. In other cultivars, leaf and flower mould can spread back into the main stem. This variety seems to produce leaf scars and the mouldy bit drops cleanly off.

Tim DH

[William Schlegel]

Transplanted a whole flat of my favorite promiscuous project tomato from last year. The Fuyu persimmon one. It was in a little 40 cell tray and now it is in a 32 cell tray with some spillover into another tray which fortunately had some empty spots. Still kind of small pots but the plants are small and they only have three weeks or so to go till planting time. Though I worry as the cold weather seems persistent this spring.

Transplanted a few more MMS almost out of MMS to transplant, I've been giving them away.

I planted a some more Krainiy Sever seed used the original packet. Also planted some more of my favorite 2021 promiscuous project tomato from seed. None of them will get very big before it is time to start planting.

[William Schlegel]

I made a fun flat of crossing block tomatoes today. I used the MMS x BH F2 potato leaves, Blue Ambrosia, the blue segregate I got from Golden Tresette, and the yellow striped segregate that hasn't so far had satisfactory exsertion sibling line to Exserted Tiger. Kind of more similar but still fun. I am likely to plant them with other similar crossing block flats and the fancy anthocyanin tomatoes to try to create a really interesting grex for next year.  Though I would say three of the four components are already part of my grex and my strain of Blue Ambrosia has never been isolated so each generation it is a mix of new hybrids and some that seem true to type. It just isn't as clear cut as with the potato leaf exserted plants I have essentially replaced it with. Any way it is a fun flat because it sort of combines several sources of exsertion together in blue and yellow tomatoes. My original exserted stigma sources for the flat were Golden Tresette, Big Hill, Blue Ambrosia, and a 2017 growout of a Lofthouse landrace that included a red potato leaf with good exsertion that crossed with Blue Gold. So there are four sources of yellow tomatoes and four distinct sources of exsertion in the flat. This is also a sort of a combination I have been thinking about direct seeding minus the Blue Ambrosia because it is already an ancestor of the yellow tiger. My only other exsertion sources are wild tomatoes like Solanum habrochaites and Solanum penellii and a currant Andrew sent me which may itself still be a Solanum pimpinillifolium. Though I have come to the conclusion that it makes the most sense to use something like a fancy yellow anthocyanin tomato with good exsertion when crossing with wild species because then you don't have to work quite as hard to add those things at some later date. It would be fun to have an isolated crossing block where every possible pollen parent was striped.

[Tim DH]

Hi William,
     I'd appreciate a few photos of a typical 'flat' and a typical 'crossing block', so that I can form a clearer idea of what you are up to!

Tim DH

[William Schlegel]

Hi Tim,

Let's see if these upload ok. Ok, I only got one to upload. Flat on the right is MMS x BH F2 or MMM F2 flat on the left is the same but with a seedling of something regular leafed also in each pot.

What I've been doing is putting two seedlings in each pot. So I'll put one of my potato leaf exserted tomatoes into an entire flat and then add tomatoes I would like crosses with.

This isn't necessary. You could alternate pots. You could plant pure flats and do a double row. You could just at planting time plant every other spot into the different varieties. Lots of ways to do this. As long as one variety has stigma exsertion you will typically get some crosses. If that exserted variety has potato leaves you will be able to recognize that regular leaf tomatoes from a potato leaf mother are new hybrids.

[William Schlegel]

Well, I filled my side of the greenhouse. Still have eight flats inside under the lights. I would like to swap one of them out with something shorter but I need a few more flats that hold water. I have short plants but their flats are leaky. Did some transplanting. I am about out of MMS and MMM F2 seedlings. However I have enough of both to get large amounts of easily observable crossing. Honestly one plant in each isolation block would about do it.

Hmm I think I have 682 pots with tomato plants in them currently. Why don't I direct seed more of these?

[William Schlegel]

(MMS x BH F1) x Aztek is now sprouting. If they are all regular leaf it will be proof the cross was successful.

[Tim DH]

Hi William,
       Thanks for the photos.. They help make sense of the text.

Tim DH

[Adrian]

Ok i know that canestrino di lucca x andine cornue can catch odium but he is very vigorous!
Stay to look how he can fight against blight and verticilium wilt.
I think it mainly a cross for the taste.
I don't wait great disease resistances.
Odium is not a direct threat but i prefer stopped this  the most early possible.

[William Schlegel]

I may have one take on my MMS x BH F1 winter grow out plant with sweet cherriette as the pollen parent. It was some time ago and it has only grown a little but hasn't fallen off. I clipped the tag off and retied a fresh one that is not too tight.

I also planted two more plants in the greenhouse floor. A Solanum pimpinillifolium accession with brown rugose fruit virus resistance and a Gloria's treat. They are joining three Solanum chilense, Aztek, Solanum galapagense LA1410, Sweet Cherriette, MS x BH F1, and a weird little clump of MS x unk that I decided needed to make way for more important plants but then stuck into the ground next to the MS x BH F1.  I wonder if the indeterminates will climb every where? Hopeing I'll be able to make controlled crosses.

[Steph S]

My plants are about 7 weeks old and more than ready to plant out.  Unfortunately the weather is not optimal.   Looks like the greenhouse high today will not get above 54F, heavy rain.  They've been left out in the greenhouse for some days, both day and night (low 40's F), getting highs a bit closer to 60 F for at least a few hours daily due to a few glimmers at least of sunshine on generally foggy or drizzle days.  They certainly tolerate the cold well enough but it would be nice to have even two days in a row that are closer to optimum for transplanting. The forecast is not looking good, so I doubt I will get the early set I hoped for by starting early this year.
At least, in my experience, even cold tolerant tomatoes don't actually grow at daytime high temperatures below 60 F. 

[Greenie DeS]

Ohhhh, that sweet cheriette cross would be pretty exciting if it has taken. Fingers crossed.

The roofers are finally gone so my poor tender seedlings are outside for the second time in their lives today. Outside may hit 15C this weekend, spring is really coming along.

Fat Frog and Moment seeds are dry, the taste test for the "heirloom cherry tomato" from aerogarden is going to be in the next day or two. Those plants make very large, almost cocktail-sized cherries, especially compared to Moment.

All the plants have suddenly kicked into high gear here and are growing very seriously, I need to set up my livingroom so everything can live in it overnight during the daily hardening-off dance. When I set up my lights downstairs this year I didn't think this part of the season through. Luckily my shipping container arrived yesterday so I can just pack all my stuff for the move and leave only plants, a couple shelves, and a sofa in the livingroom.

The Moment x Sweet Baby Jade and Sweet Baby Jade x Micros fruits continue to size up.

The exserted orange seedings are looking disappointingly uniform.

Having so many of my tomato starts grown by someone else is a very weird feeling, I don't get to watch them and see what's going on. I definitely do not recommend moving during the growing season.

[William Schlegel]

The first four (MMS x BH F1) x Aztek F1 seedlings are getting bigger and a couple of the later planted ones are germinating but only a few. It is interesting to me that even though none of the seeds ever dried out that the ones that were in soil first germinated first. The dry seeds I planted at the same time are slower and none had germinated as of this morning. Though I just did an evening check and Dwarf Mocha's Cherry and Dwarf Eagle Smiley have germinated.

My seedling forest in the greenhouse seems about the same.

As often is the case this time of year a couple weeks before average last frost predicted nighttime lows are typically above the freezing point until right before the frost happens. The weather isn't warming precipitously though. I will have to wait till closer to the 15th of May our average last frost date and see what I think about the predicted weather.

[William Schlegel]

Of the new seeds I planted everything is up but Krainiy Sever. So I guess that means that The One Persimmon flavored is up and Dwarf Johnson's cherry is up. Though more of the (MMS x BH F1) x Aztek are germinating and probably will be for a little while as I planted them all.

Mainly just watering and rototilling the isolation gardens right now.

I don't think the wild cross seedlings with MMS last year are necessarily croases with LA2329 habrochaites. They might possibly be Arcanum crosses instead. If so I will set that block up like I did last year but with hybrids in the middle, arcanum on one end, and habrochaites on the other. Suspected Arcanum hybrids closer to Arcanum and Habrochaites hybrids closer to Habrochaites. Should be a fun block though with the new half wilds! I will add in at least one domestic or promiscuous project plant. I have one seedling I kept from the Promiscuous parents last year. A Fuyu persimmon flavored The One seedling might go a long way towards introducing nice flavor possibilities but a MMM F2 would be better for being able to tell crosses. I am also not sure what the deal is with the one putative wild cross with Big Hill. It was a very small seedling with round cotyledons like the others but now it looks fairly domestic. I'll throw it into the crossing block for another round for sure even if so. I'll also plant the LA1410 Solanum galapagense probably in about the same place as last year with one MMM F2 over there as well. But this time instead of one Solanum galapagense clump there will be a whole flat worth of them. They are quite small still though. Hopefully they will grow a lot in the next two weeks. I definitely plan to plant them out bigger than they currently are.

The winter LA1410 Solanum galapagense plant was reduced by the cold week but seems to be hanging on now and it is all intertwined with the blooming Sweet Cherriette plant. Though the latter is currently much larger. I still have hopes though for greenhouse pollinations as well. We will see. A very few small buds are starting to become apparent on the larger plants.