Trying to get dark greens tomatoes

[Steph S]

All those dark green tomatoes look really cool.. they look like limes!
Nice to see you all find so many.

[Roland]

Nice !

My attempt is not very successfull so far

I have not be able to select for gf from cotyledons or old leaves, neither from flower color. I have ~80 plants but no young dark fruits from those who fruited yet, although i should have seen some from the number of fruits i've looked up.

My guess is that as i've sown 200 seeds, i may have selected against dg if dg plants were slower to grow or germinate.

What selection dit u use?

[Nicolas]

i guess i transplanted 120 of the 200 sowed seeds. So if 1/4 of those were slower to germinate and grow, i may have selected against it. Thats my guess because i may have checked 40 plants before late bligh took them and i've seen no dark green tomatoes which is against the odds.

[Roland]

Yes, there may be some truth to that. Hp-2 dg plants grow more slowly. I think they also germinate slower.
Next time just don't use the earliest 25% seedlings.

Did you find any gf and ry plants?

[Roland]

Started testing again today:
The following leaves in a dark place in a glass of water:
Absinthe (gf and r, green fruit)
Black Cherry (gf and R, brown fruit)
LA3005 (hp-2dg gene)
Galahad (pink fruit)
Piccolo OP (Red fruit)
Glacial Zebra x galahad F1 (Heterozygous for gf, gs and r. Red fruit)

After how many days should I see a difference in the discoloration of the leaves?

[Klaus Brugger]

I think I may have five or six hp-2^dg/hp-2^dg plants, but it's not really easy to tell for me. Maybe it's the environment or it's the genetic background/modifying genes, but there seems to be some variation in the intensity of chlorophyll accumulation among dark-green fruited plants.
See for example the picture below: Darker green than your standard tomato, but not nearly as dark as what's apparently possible. But maybe they'll get a bit darker still. There are also plants with light-green fruits but exceptionally dark green shoulders popping up in my grow-out, but I guess that's unrelated to hp2-^dg.

[Klaus Brugger]

I've cut open the first fruits that seemed ripe now. They are from the same plant I've posted a picture of on the 9th of July. I'm quite sure they are hp-2^dg/hp-2^dg and they do have some lycopene, but also some chlorophyll retained. They have kind of a bicolour appearance – not unlike the colouring of 'Captain Lucky', I guess, just more intense. Tastewise, I didn't get the full experience since I've saved the seeds, but they weren't too bad. The texture was rather firm, which also points towards genotype hp-2^dg/hp-2^dg. The plant is small and not exactly prolific. So while I really like the colours of the fruits, I wouldn't plant their seeds except for doing further crosses.
Looking forward to seeing other ripe fruits, also from all of your grow-outs!   

[Joseph Lofthouse]

@Klaus Brugger : Very nice!!! Love that interior purple coloration. 

[Roland]

It seems the oudside is full brown?
Maybe this is a R/?, gf/gf, hp-2dg/hp-2dg plant.

i like the colors.

Are al youre hp2dg plants weak growers en producers?

[Klaus Brugger]

Yes, the outer parts are fully brown (or maybe a dark olive green). Definitely some reddish carotinoids there. And the centre seems to lack chlorophyll.

Most of my high-pigment plants are weak growers and producers, but one single plant is looking really good. It's the beefsteak type in my next-to-last post.

[Steph S]

Those fruit colors are absolutely stunning, Klaus.  Chefs would pay a lot for that, even if you don't get many.
Meanwhile here's hoping that the beef type is equally gorgeous inside!! 

[Nicolas]

Wonderful Klaus !

It seems that your plant is dg + gf. Not sure if it has the r^y gene ? Is the green/bicolor effect from the r^y gene or from the lack of ripening of the shoulder zone ?

What a stunning colored fruit

If it lacks the r^y gene, it would be interesting to backcross to captain lucky. It would ease the selection from the 'F2' generation with only two genes to select for (so from memory ~40 plants should be sufficent).

Another way would be to test and hope the plant to be r^y/+ by growing some plants (i should compute how much) to recover homozygous plants at the r^y locus.

Your beefsteak plant is stunning too, hoping for the best for this one too !

[Nicolas]

To add : as i said at the begining of the project, i think that genotype combination could dramatically improve coloration by anthocyanins of the whole outside fruit.

[Nicolas]

Report from the french grower Cat69

First photo is a bunch of tomatoes from different plants from the F2 seeds. The dg tomato is the green on the left


Inside of the fruit :

[Roland]

Started testing again today:
The following leaves in a dark place in a glass of water:
Absinthe (gf and r, green fruit)
Black Cherry (gf and R, brown fruit)
LA3005 (hp-2dg gene)
Galahad (pink fruit)
Piccolo OP (Red fruit)
Glacial Zebra x galahad F1 (Heterozygous for gf, gs and r. Red fruit)

After how many days should I see a difference in the discoloration of the leaves?

The results after 9 days in the dark:
green leaf: Absinthe (gf and r, green fruit)
green leaf: Black Cherry (gf and R, brown fruit)
yellowish leaf LA3005 (hp-2dg gene)
yellowish leaf Galahad (pink fruit)
yellowish leaf Piccolo OP (Red fruit)
yellowish leaf Glacial Zebra x galahad F1 (Heterozygous for gf, gs and r. Red fruit)

These were old leaves of the plants and after 9 days they were almost through, or dried up or full of diseases such as late blight.

Now to test again with young suckers...