Mid-Ohio Valley Tomatoes

[reed]

Here is the most surprising of the phenotypes from the Mr. S cross. Looks a lot like Utah Hoosier Heart, which I'm positive it isn't. Inside looks different and flavor is a bit sweeter.



Here is a partial selection of the phenotypes from that cross. Apparently, every plant, all from the same fruit in the F1 year came out different. Unfortunately, the little yellow ones that I hoped would be good for drying do not taste very good.



I'm a bit disappointed that no blue pigment showed up, maybe in the F3?

[William Schlegel]

Blue is less likely to show back up now. Usually you can see it at about half strength if it's still there. The ones in my garden from the cross seem to be strong on both blue and stripes.

[reed]

Here is what those look like before ripening. I thought the coloration might result in color when ripe too, but I guess not.



Is this coloration in these two strains of Cherokee Purple blue but mixed with other colors so it isn't really blue?



Don't have photo right now but the winner for stripes is Hot Streak F2.  It isn't awful but flavor just isn't there. Too sweet for what I'll call red tomato flavor, and too red for some other ways we like tomatoes. I'm keeping it around next year though because it is early, very conditions tolerant and makes a lot of tomatoes. I've searched for a smallish beefsteak tomato that make lots of tomatoes and HS does that. From three to five or six baseball sized tomatoes in clusters.

If there is any difference between the F2 and the F1 it is the F2 is more productive. There is no real visible evidence of a variation in phenotype. Sure, would be a good one though, if I can ever master crossing tomatoes.

[William Schlegel]

Cherokee Purple is supposed to get its purple from an entirely different source that doesn't involve anthocyanins.

[reed]

I still have some of the F1 seeds, so I guess if I want some blue, I'll have to try with the rest of them. I've never actually seen a blue tomato, except in photos.

[Adrian]

Aniway they seem very tasty!
They also seem return little of water.

[William Schlegel]

Here is a fun segregate from the number 365 cross with Mr. Stripey.

Some folks don't like the blue and knock it off deliberately. I happen to think it is really cool and it came out just as my wife graduated from Oregon State so it is a fun reminder of her alma mater (and I've taken a few classes there too). Just took a bite and I think the flavor is superior. Gotta go get a pen. I think I should cross this segregate with number 286 which is currently a non-dwarf bicolor cherry tomato with all the flavor of its mother Dwarf Gloria's Treat.

This segregate has the gold spots, stripes, full anthocyanin, the pointed end, and is a very tasty bicolor. It does have a woody green core area.

[reed]

I think some extra color would be really cool, don't know why anyone would select against it. Well as long as flavor and production aren't diminished but I've never tasted a tomato with the blue coloration.

I'm completely ok with the green cores. It's mostly just in the top third or so of the fruits and the flavor of the red/orange/yellow part far outweighs it. It might be an issue in a sauce/juice tomato but that's not what we use the sweet tomatoes for. I don't mind the thick skins either and think it is at least partly environmental as some of our other tomatoes had a touch of it too.

Of course, you can't tell by a photo, but the flesh of my favorite one is very firm, like some kind of exotic fruit. That solid orange core and the red center could be used by Jolly Rancher as a guide to add tomato flavor to their candy. I think the orange/red core is maybe about the same as the green core. They just lack the uniform ripening gene; I'm fine with that too.

[reed]

I tell ya what you don't make it easy on a fellow trying keep it simple. I hoped to get at least one fruit this year that I could select out to be the only one I grow out the F3. That already bit the dust with just the Mr. S crossed group.

I've sort of been purposely ignoring the HR group. They are just little red tomatoes nothing really special, but I can't pretend that anymore. They are really good, with more than enough what I call red flavor but quite sweet as well. Some of the HR are also interesting looking too. I wouldn't grow something just because it's interesting looking but they also have the flavor and production, so now I'm up to at least four that I want to take on to the next generation.

Here is what they look like.

[reed]

All of my tomatoes are doing well so far this year. My old Utah Heart is a bit behind but that is because it is panted in a newer part of the garden that has only had about ten years of soil improvement where all the rest is closer to thirty years. To compensate, I mulched them with lots of freshy chopped weeds covered with two or three inches of good compost. Did that just a few days ago and with some water added on top, they are already looking happier.

The dehybridizing Plum Regal and Super sauce look great this year but they are just F2, I apparently misplaced my F3 seeds. F3 of Hot streak doing very well with a bit of openness to the flowers. I suspect that it may be one like Carol Deppe mentioned where the F1 was just in name only because I could tell no difference between the F1 and the F2. If nothing different shows up this year, I'm just going to call it done and rename it.

The F3 of (Hoosier Rose x W), one of those William did for me are looking good too and bloom like crazy. All but one in the starting pot came out potato leaf. I planted five PL and the RL one. I'll watch closely and unless the RL plant is amazing in some way, I'm going to cull it out so that going on all of them are PL. I left a couple volunteer PL plants over in the same spot they grew last year. So far these have all been smallish red tomatoes with green/purple tops and very nice flavor.

The F3 of (Mr. Stripy x W) are also doing great and were the first of all my big tomatoes to set fruit and they are doing it in clusters of three to five instead of just one or two like my old heirlooms. A small number of fruits per plant is my biggest complaint, well really my only complaint about my old tomatoes. Feels a bit disloyal to think I may abandon my old fried Mr. Stripy but o well.

The flowers on the (Mr. S x W) are very open and the stigmas elongated and exposed. Although I have never been successful at it, I may try to cross it to something, but I'll probably wait until next year for that.

O' I forgot. When I went to discard extra plants, I realized I had not planted any of the red heart type that showed up last year in the Mr. S x W. There is about a dozen of them in the one-gallon pot I started them in. They are a bit stunted due to neglect and lack of watering but alive. It's a really interesting segregation so need to find a spot and get them in the ground, ASAP. 

[reed]

I've really been neglecting my tomato thread. They are doing very well this year; in fact, I tore out some still producing sauce / juice types to make room to plant some fall brussels sprouts. Already got plenty of those things in jars. The F2 of Plum Regal is really putting out fruit. Not all that great flavor but much better if dried or roasted. I'm going to try sun drying some. F2 of Super sauce looking good too. 

Both the Mr. Stripey and Hoosier Rose crosses William did are doing still yielding and expect they will until frost. A new Hoosier Rose segregation showed up. It is bigger than any last year and has deep lobes. It's a cool looking tomato and tastes fine. Little disappointed in that it's a regular leaf but o'well.

[Carol Deppe]

Commercial F1 hybrids are usually crosses between two inbred very uniform lines. So you don't need many plants to start a dehybridization project or to cross to something else. One plant might do fine for hybrid tomatoes. I usually have at least three plants with bee-pollinated crops because bees can fail to find a single isolated plant.

If you cross two relatively uniform lines one cross involving just one plant of each parent is fine if the cross works. I am more likely to grow at least three plants of each parent and cross them in all possible combinations.

How many F2s you "need" is a matter of what you are trying to do. If the cross involves four genes segregating in a diploid plant like tomatoes, and you want all the recessives in one variety, with each recessive having  a 1/4 probability, the probability of getting all four simultaneously, assuming independence, is one in 256. And you would probably want more than just one. So if you had unlimited land and labor, probably more like a thousand.

As far as I am concerned, I don't ever "need" 1000 F2s of anything, because growing and evaluating 1000 F2s of anything is too many to be fun. And I would probably not notice totally unexpected things that might turn up that may be as important or more important than what I thought I wanted. So I might figure out different parents that share one or two of the recessives.

Or I get what I want by selecting in stages. I will grow as many as I can grow and evaluate so it will still be fun. And then, for example, I select for just one of the recessives and ignore the others. Then the next year I can select for another recessive. Doing it that way, if I plant 40-80, the number of most projects that I find manageable and fun, I can fix (make homozygous) one gene per season and have odds of 1/4 each year. That is roughly 10 to 20 plants of the type I want each year.