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#91

Tomatoes / Re: F1s for the People! 2026

Last post by Tim DH - 2026-07-12, 12:05:36 PM

Hi Steph,
   I wish had the space to grow rows of things!

   I'm growing two LatahXThaiPinkEgg. (One at each of my outdoor sites.) So statistically your suggested explanation for them being determinate is not impossible. If the original TPE itself was a cross between TPE and an unknown determinate, AND if the determinate gene was the same one as Latah has, then each seed would have a 50/50 chance of being determinate.
   I'm still curious tho' because I wouldn't have thought that the fruit colour of TPE was dominant, so if it had outcrossed I would expect the original plant to be not true to type.

   Either way, I don't have a better explanation! BUT....  It is all a bit academic, because unless LatahXTPE does something REMARKABLE in the flavour department, I'm not curious enough to pursue the matter any further. There are far too many other F1s out there to be trialled.

        I'm glad RodneyxPervayaLyubov is working for you. Since your curiosity has been piqued AND rewarded, will you be trialling any other F1s in future? 

#92

OSSI / Re: OSSI breeding funding

Last post by reed - 2026-07-12, 07:50:37 AM

Also have some lines with PH3 and PH2 ancestry from commercially available hybrids like Galahad and Purple Zebra

I've grown tomatoes in the same small garden for nearly thirty years and think if there is a disease of any kind, it is probably here but I still get tomatoes. I don't pay all that much attention to it, but I do try to bring in new varieties that might have resistance(s). I don't know what infection it was, but when I grew Galahad, it was not at all happy in my garden. Leaves got brown spots, curled up on the edges and dropped off. It may have been some other than what the PH2 and 3 brings resistance for. I still got some tomatoes, but I didn't save the seeds. The variety Hotstreak, which I think is supposed to have a lot of the same resistances as Galahad did a LOT better. I'm growing the F3 of it this year.

#93

OSSI / Re: OSSI breeding funding

Last post by William Schlegel - 2026-07-12, 06:22:20 AM

Thank you for the suggestion. I had ruled MAS out initially for my proposal, but perhaps I should reconsider. I'm not sure if markers are available for all the traits I'm interested in. Like arthropod resistance and brown rugose fruit virus. I was thinking grow outs on an organic farm would be more practical given the 3-4 year timeline. That would allow me to finish a few more varieties and have more time for other breeding tasks.

However some markers from wild and domestic tomatoes are available. PH3 maybe PH5, certainly PH2 and some other common resistance markers. I have the PH3 currant and the PH5 currant. Also have some lines with PH3 and PH2 ancestry from commercially available hybrids like Galahad and Purple Zebra. It might be nice just to sort of characterize which lines have which traits. Especially once they are stable.

Winter grow outs would put an entire tomato breeding program almost into a 3 or 4 year timeline. If you could afford to do MAS and winter growouts- you could get professional results. For instance you could cross a arthropod resistant line with say Purple Zebra F1 and select each generation by observing the type IV trichomes and testing for the many known markers in purple zebra. Though I'd prefer to do my usual double cross and characterize those offspring.
 
If I'm wrong and brown rugose fruit virus resistance markers are available I do have some lines that are very far along and no way to test for that trait short of sending lines to an infested region of the world.

Also uncertain what all this level of funding would fund. Grow outs sounded practical and focused to me.

#94

Tomatoes / Re: Better combinaison for get...

Last post by Alex - 2026-07-12, 04:40:21 AM

To achieve maximum heterosis, parents must be very different genetically, originate from different parts of the world, or, in the best case, be different species altogether. If you're growing cultivated tomatoes, crossing them with wild tomatoes will produce desired heterosis. If you read thread https://opensourceplantbreeding.org/forum/index.php/topic,642.msg17965.html#msg17965 , a feral cultivated tomato from Texas was crossed with a stable wild hybrid from the Galapagos Islands, resulting in a very strong heterosis—a result unattainable by simply crossing different varieties.

#95

OSSI / Re: OSSI breeding funding

Last post by Steph S - 2026-07-11, 04:57:21 PM

William, you could apply for marker assisted tech, WRT all your hard work with introgressing genes from the wild relatives.  So worth it!!
I do think this application of funds is very very worthwhile for OSSI.

#96

Tomatoes / 2026 Avalon Peninsula Newfound...

Last post by Steph S - 2026-07-11, 04:07:36 PM

After three brutally hot summers, evidently the "cold blob" has reformed in the Atlantic and we are pretty much blowing hot and cold at this point, July being our hottest month, so I really don't know if we will have the same trying conditions in July - but so far it's still getting pretty hot.

The determinate tomatoes I bred for our decade of cold summers are still my favorite tomatoes.  Skipper Pink and Rodney are stable now and I missed them in my off summer last year.  So especially considering the grocery price issues I did start them among my plants and shared them out to my community of growers.  And as usual they are doing what I expect of them.

Since Early Blight/Alternaria is maybe our biggest climate change challenge, and indeterminates are reported in general to be more resistant, I also revived a couple of my small fruited indeterminate lines, as well as including some indeterminate OP's with larger fruit:  Rose, recommended by a friend for superlative taste, and Mazarini which I have grown before and is fairly early and very productive with probably the largest fruit I've ever grown.  So Mazarini is very stacked for  size genes and I am interested in seeing how that might bump up production in the smaller fruited determinate lines.  Although actually Mazarini is such a beast and very early to flower and set - earlier than I recalled - I am thinking to try Maz as a mother and diversify my maternal dna. She is very vigorous with short internodes and large, rambling clusters, and was extremely productive in the year grown.  I don't recall tasting them because they were so large (never eat anything bigger than your head?) anyway my production goes to big eaters of tomatoes, I don't want to cut something I can't eat in one sitting!
Rose, in contrast, is quite late to produce any flowers, small clusters, weakly suckering, and overall seems poorly adapted to the conditions here.  But I do hope to get some of her pollen onto Rodney and see what kind of extra tasty and better adapted beef might result.   

My own smaller fruited indeterminate lines are F4's with very different albeit equally large growth habits.   Black Kitten Paws is Stupice X Black Cherry which somehow became multiflora at F2, the black showed up in F3.  Clusters are 20-40 fruit, a pink-black minibeef with excellent taste.  I am thinking about the multiflora cluster trait as a climate change benefit - aside from the fact that Stupice is on the upper end of heat tolerance, and the plants have good self-shade architecture.  Just thinking, if your season is cut short but your first cluster has 35 tomatoes you got something. 
The other line is Medovaya Kaplya X (Kimberley X Zolotye Kupola) and is a large cherry or salad sized amber yellow fruit with a ladder type truss, very rambling and productive.  The plant is at the hotter end of the greenhouse and I'm hoping to train the long (ever so long) leaders downward in that space to really test the heat tolerance, so far fruit set is excellent.  Very vigorous grower which had some disease issues in the past but so far looking healthy.

Although I was reluctant to load up on unstable plants for selection, I had to include 8 plants from the tangerine crosses out of Amish Orange-Yellow Oxheart. Golden Songs I tried one of the lines that was put outdoors for failing to set, and did very well outside.  Kept the earliest in, two others are in the outdoor setup with a third on the fence.  Jolly Boat is an F3 out of that cross with no tangerine (afaik) and a pink black very similar to the Skipper Pink parent only larger.  Again kept the earliest in greenhouse while three others are now outdoors.    These lines have given me a lot to think about in terms of growth habit, just looking at them and how they are different from each other and from the stabilized Rodney and Skipper, in terms of needing support or not, how readily they set etc.  In the summer when I weighed out the production to compare plants, these lines did come up short.  So thinking about the reasons for that and how you would cross, select or otherwise compensate.

Also rounded out my selection of visitors with the dwarf Lime Green Salad and the micro Aztec Yellow.  Neither of them are doing particularly well but they do have some fruit growing at this point, just a bit late compared to the home tomatoes.
Oh and Tim inspired me to give actual production space to the F1 cross of Rodney x Pervaya Lyubov, which are doing fantastic and if I counted the fruit set are likely way ahead of anything except maybe Skipper Pink, in sturdy trusses of 5 or 6 fruit.  Definitely worth the space allocated.

I started my tomatoes on the late side, around April 15.   I did an experimental seed treatment with garlic after reading about some trials in that regard.  10 g of fresh garlic finely rasped to 100 ml of water.  Filtered and used to soak seeds overnight.  Hoping to remove any trace of Alternaria or other fungal disease and give the plants a fresh start.  Everything seems AOK for that but there is some new to me or previously unnoticed spot especially on Rose which I've had to prune off and evidently not garlic susceptible. 
WRT Alternaria, temperatures over 30C and sunny high UV are key to activate the spores, but IME plants rarely show susceptibility unless they are at the point of ripening the fruit.  At that time they are vulnerable and the disease shows up.  We have definitely had the conditions for spore germination but I am not seeing disease as the plants are still setting.
Wondering if fertilizing before the fruit ripening hormone change might help to ward it off...
Not everything is genetic but also our growing techniques have to be optimized for extreme conditions.

Tomato plants went into the greenhouse early in their small pots to make space for peppers under the lights, and actually seem to have matured more quickly that way.  Starting early doesn't always mean earlier fruit - we did have a very cold and late spring after a super long heavy snow winter. But greenhouse temperatures have been higher than I expected as well. It's a rocky place and maybe there is just residual heat from the mass here. IDK.
 
The season is going pretty well so far, with decent set not a lot of lossy temperatures. The greenhouse has been between 90-95F but has not exceeded 95F.  So there are some drops attributable to that but there have been sets on the same days as well.  Skipper Pink will have the first ripe fruit, some time in July and probably getting close.  They still have tons of flowers to set though.

So that's about the size of it. Will post some pics later.
 

#97

Tomatoes / Re: Better combinaison for get...

Last post by Steph S - 2026-07-10, 08:03:16 PM

I think Tim's point is that you can't really answer those questions that you asked, if the parents are unstable - because each F1 seed will be genetically different, and whatever you are looking for in the way of 'heterosis' effects will be variable from plant to plant.  So you won't get a general answer to any of those questions.

There's nothing wrong with using F1 in a cross, but the real benefit of crossing unstable plants is to get a broader look at the diversity available in the cross, by growing large numbers of the F1.  You sort of skip ahead to a highly variable population in the first generation.   There is also the possibility of dislodging linkages or obtaining outliers that wouldn't be so easy to find by growing each OP x OP to stability, I think.

Ultimately the point of any cross is to combine desired traits from two parents.  So if you have a weak plant that needs strengthening to be productive (but has other traits that you like) then I would cross it with a more vigorous plant to bring the trait, as you're doing here.
If you think about plant architecture, fruit size, truss architecture, earliness, reliable set, and all the things that make a plant more fruitful or less so, then you need to bring those traits to your weaker plant, and choose a parent with the traits that it needed.

#98

OSSI / Re: OSSI breeding funding

Last post by Steph S - 2026-07-10, 07:21:43 PM

Yes it's perfect for that!
I read through it and am really impressed with how thoughtful this is about the real needs of independent non funded breeders, to get your seed ready to pledge and release.
Kudos.

#99

Tomatoes / Re: F1s for the People! 2026

Last post by Steph S - 2026-07-10, 07:08:42 PM

Perhaps your TPE seed was crossed with a determinate?  Or are you growing multiple plants of the F1 and seeing a row of determinates?
I haven't grown Thai Pink Egg, but another thing is, seed sellers often misidentify determinate vs indeterminate plants.  Still you would have noticed it when making your F1, right?

Tim, I'm so glad you piqued my curiosity about F1 bounty, because the RodneyxPervayaLyubov is doing amazing,  Really good set of fruit, vigorous sturdy plants.   Not close to ripe yet but one of the earliest to set.

#100

OSSI / OSSI Minecraft

Last post by William Schlegel - 2026-07-10, 01:38:05 PM

My child likes Minecraft. So, I play it quite a bit. What if we built a Minecraft mod with OSSI vegetables?