Mid-Ohio Valley Tomatoes

[William Schlegel]

PH2 and PH3 are different genes in different locations so a tomato can be homozygous for both.

Carol Deppe was very interested in Iron Lady for that reason. She wrote up a plan to breed the traits extensively into heirlooms in one of her books. Her website still mentions the project. Iron Lady F1 is homozygous for both genes. Carol did really object to the flavor of Iron Lady F1 though. She suggested back crossing once to the heirloom parent to deal with the flavor issue.

Carol hasn't weighed in on this, but Purple Zebra F1 and Galahad F1 were bred for heirloom flavor  making her proposed project potentially much easier.

One way to do this to lower testing costs but use testing would be to test occasionally or even once at the end. You could potentially keep lots of separate lines going from your LB project up to the number in a test and test at the end of 7 years. If you had a late blight event you could eliminate some of the lines based on infection data.

Skykomish a bicolor from Tom Wagner has PH2 I think just like Legend.

[Justin Jardinier]

Do I understand correctly, that Ph2 and Ph3 are different alleles at the same locus?

If they were at the same locus wouldn't that mean you can only have 1 or the other, not both? But you can have both, homozygous. You can also test for them by infecting them. Performance is quite different between the different combinations in all the tests I have seen, having homozygous PH-2 + PH-3 is considerably better than just one or the other. Though granted, it might not be obvious depending on what they're exposed to. And as far as I understand PH-1, 2, and 3, are on different chromosomes even. I think one of the two PH-5 genes is near the locus for PH-2 but not sure if it is actually the same locus, I didn't read enough about that though, what I read was when they were trying to locate it and found it to be at least in the same area - if it's not the same locus then we could have 2+3+5 which would be awesome - otherwise could still get 2+3+ the other half of 5, though I think adding 5 to the mix for a stable variety might not be doable (or at least knowable) without marker assistance.

WRT your plans Reed, if you grow out the F1 (such as Galahad) first, your F2 of the hybrid will have a mix of LB genetics, some will be Ph2 only, some Ph3, and some heterozygous (about half of the plants).

Like I tried to explain above, Galahad F1 is homozygous for PH-2 and PH-3. So Galahad F2 is still homozygous PH-2 and PH-3.

So whether you cross with Galahad F1 or F2, F8 or whatever, your cross will be heterozygous for PH-2 and PH-3 (assuming the other parent has no PH genes to contribute), and if we can call your own cross F1, then your F2 will have some homozygous for both - now my maths is not so good but would that be maybe 1 in 16 plants?

Or do you have some evidence that Galahad is not homozygous PH-2 and PH-3? I'm fairly sure it is but please correct me if I'm wrong.

[William Schlegel]

Iron Lady and Galahad would give you two homozygous ph2 ph3 tomatoes to cross. Too bad there isn't a third or more option in a very different color and flavor. We've got threads with lots of prior posts about the options on here somewhere.

[Justin Jardinier]

Iron Lady and Galahad would give you two homozygous ph2 ph3 tomatoes to cross. Too bad there isn't a third or more option in a very different color and flavor.

I think these are also all homozygous for PH-2 and PH-3:
Mountaineer Pride
Vivagrande (red beefsteak)
Rondobella (red saladette)
Resibella (red cocktail)
Primabella (red cherry)

[reed]

And to finish it off I guess maybe I should see about bringing in a little more late blight resistance. I'll dust off some old F2 and F3 seeds of Iron Lady (yuck) and Plum Regal.

How was their performance with late blight, compared to your Mr Stripey and your sauce tomato?

This was I think in 2016, before I got distracted by something shiny, sweet potatoes. If I remember Iron Lady was kind of early, it made a decent number of tomatoes and died but I don't know why. Plum Regal went till end of season and made a lot of tomatoes, which ripened just fine after the leaves had all died, but there weren't any blemishes on the fruits. Whether it was late blight, something else or some combination, I can't say, but both of them died from something while my other tomatoes were still producing. I didn't see any variation in the F2 or F3 from Plum Regal, I don't remember for sure About Iron Lady, actually I'm not sure I planted F2 Iron Lady.

I don't really know for sure what late blight is. When I look up pictures of it and other tomato diseases, they all look familiar. Leaves that turn brown and curl up, ulcers on the stems and fruits, sometimes leaves and especially new growth tips just seem to turn black and rot. Something that causes little holes in the leaves is very common, especially early in the season, but it doesn't seem to affect growth and production at all, so I don't worry about it. Each one of those shows in varying degrees from time to time.

The only things I cull over are the rotting leaves or ulcers and rotting on the fruits. By cull I just mean I don't save seeds or allow volunteers the next year, but I don't see that all that much except from seeds that are new to me.  I might would save seeds If a plant has it just a little bit, or gets it and gets over it really quick, and still makes nice tomatoes, or that made a lot of nice tomatoes before it got it. 

[William Schlegel]

Just reading Carol's chapter on Sandwich slice squash. She was talking about the power of back crossing. She wanted to introduce more size variation into a squash so was planning a population of 7/8 genetics of the squash She liked originally but wanted larger.

The advent of tastier PH2 and PH3 homozygous flips the tools we can use from Carol's scheme of backcrossing to the good flavored heirloom to get rid of Iron Lady's bad flavor. If the flavor is already good in a homozygous PH2 and PH3 Galahad F1 for example, you can use the same scheme Carol used for her squash and make a 7/8 Galahad with 1/8 heirloom of choice to get some of the awesome morphological variation available in heirlooms into a Galahad like tomato. This gets back to Reeds question about crossing again or letting things segregate. You could simultaneously let a strain of Galahad dehybridize while repeatedly back crossing other tomatoes to it. You could also pause periodically and let your desired morphological traits segregate out for a F2 generation so you don't loose the traits you want. Also that process could be fast or slow depending on how many generations you do each year and how often you pause to let a generation segregate.

One important caveat: you would have to have good success with Galahad F1 to make it worthwhile to work with it extensively. You would need to like the flavor, and the disease resistances would need to work for your conditions. Reed has the luxury of having several tomato varieties long proven to work well for him. He might be getting a down grade with any new tomato even if it looks great on paper.

An totally alternate strategy might be to develop a grex and maintain it as germplasm. My Galahad x (MMM x Purple zebra) could be the sole parent of such a grex. As long as I grew and saved seed from say 75 plants each year without selection I would be likely to maintain much of its diversity. If some portion turn out to be exserted from their 1/8 Big Hill ancestry we could expect occassional outcrossing within that grex. I could go a additional step and include more parents. My MMM x PH5 pimp cross might be a lovely addition to the grex for example. Growing 75 plants need not take a lot of garden space. Direct seeded I could probably do that in 10 feet of row space. 15 one gallon pots with 5 seedlings each could also do the trick.

[Roland]

Iron Lady and Galahad would give you two homozygous ph2 ph3 tomatoes to cross. Too bad there isn't a third or more option in a very different color and flavor. We've got threads with lots of prior posts about the options on here somewhere.

West Virgina 17A (Mountaineer Pride), is homozygous for ph2 and ph3. Its the child of WV63 x Iron lady.
WV17A is open polinated.

[Roland]

I think these are also all homozygous for PH-2 and PH-3:
Mountaineer Pride
Vivagrande (red beefsteak)
Rondobella (red saladette)
Resibella (red cocktail)
Primabella (red cherry)

Vivagrande is homozygous ph3. No ph2.

Mountaineer Pride homozygous ph2 and ph3
Vivagrande (red beefsteak) homozygous ph3
Rondobella (red saladette)homozygous ph2 and ph3
Resibella (red cocktail)homozygous ph2 and ph3
Primabella (red cherry)homozygous ph2 and ph3

[Roland]

Sunviva Homozygous ph3 (no ph2)

[Roland]

And Plum Regal F1 is heterozygous for ph3.
its homozygous for the Crimson ogc gene for extra lycopene and dark red fruit.
Its homozygous for Verticillium wilt (Ve gene)
Its homozygous for Fusarium wilt (I and I-2 genes)

Its homozygous for some Early blight.

Heterozygous resistance to
tomato bronze spot virus (TSWV) (Sw5 gene)
Phytophthora (ph-3 gene)

Plum regal F1 segregates for the ms-10 male sterility gene linked to the green stem seedling marker gene aa.

https://opensourceplantbreeding.org/forum/index.php/topic,173.msg13697.html#msg13697

[William Schlegel]

Sunviva Homozygous ph3 (no ph2)

I think Tom Wagner's Skykomish is PH2 crossing it with Sunviva would give a heterozygous PH2 and PH3 likely with yellow or bicolor fruit.

[Steph S]

Tx for straightening me out on the Ph genes being separate, also all the examples of plants with one or both homozygous. 
I'm planning to grow Plum Regal next season as well as Mountain Gem, which is heterozygous for both ph2 and ph3 iirc.  Have not had LB here though, not on tomatoes anyway.  So I will probably lose those, without marker assisted.

[Roland]

I think Tom Wagner's Skykomish is PH2 crossing it with Sunviva would give a heterozygous PH2 and PH3 likely with yellow or bicolor fruit.

SkyReacher is a Child of Skykomisch and probarly homozygous ph2. So i made a cross with Sunvia and got very tasty tomatoes. Blight resistance was similar as heterozygous ph2 and ph3 varieties.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0ZNV9cmcfe6Nwed1NQzpjxLLg66gRVw75oFkXFVJdym9eh8cL1ASVLTngPJ4CoBhFl&id=100024953531011

[Roland]

Tx for straightening me out on the Ph genes being separate, also all the examples of plants with one or both homozygous. 
I'm planning to grow Plum Regal next season as well as Mountain Gem, which is heterozygous for both ph2 and ph3 iirc.  Have not had LB here though, not on tomatoes anyway.  So I will probably lose those, without marker assisted.

Mountain Gem F1 (NC 4GEM x NC 1GEM)
Determinated beef
homozygous for :
Ve,
I,
I-2
heterozygous:
Ph-2,
Ph-3,
Sw-5,
Tm-2.

Homozygous for the crimson (ogc) gene for extra Lycopene, dark red fruit.

Brix higher as Tasty Lee F1.

[reed]

I think the only one I'll get specifically for late blight resistance is Galahad F1 and I think I'll not cross it with anything, just observe it and collect a lot of F2 seed. I think I'll do that with the old Iron Lady and Plum Regal descendants too, just try to get a of lot of seed farther from the original F1. The Cornel list has 26 slicer tomatoes and 14 heirlooms shown as late blight resistant. One of the heirlooms is Garden Peach and looks interesting. Garden Peach Tomato

I don't think Cornel actually did any trials on all of those tomatoes, instead they just gathered info from commercial descriptions. With some of them it might just mean that somebody, sometime said they were resistant. That's actually good enough for me. I'm not trying to lock in homozygous PH genes because I'm afraid it might mess up other stuff, like when they ditched flavor for even ripening.