Segregation and out-crossing in high percentage habrochaites tomatoes.

[William Schlegel]

So this year I have enough half, quarter, and three quarter habrochaites producing to have some questions arise about what is happening.

In the three offspring of last year's Fairy Hollow selection by Joseph so far I have picked at the green but easily detached stage. None have ripened further yet. Anyone else grow that one out? Perhaps it has segregated away from the original? I used the bulk of my packet of this seed as part of my direct seeding experiment and at least so far have not

I have one elite, seven seeds for it so far. Fairly edible. I suspect it has an S allele though. Thus it's offspring should all be out crossed and as hybrids mostly green when ripe hab types again.

Then I have one dubious individual with edible flesh. If it is a rare uncracked fruit that hasn't molded. I saved some seed but was dubious about its origins despite its labeling as a half hab. Since a couple things have made me reconsider my thought that it might just be a bad domestic. As its branches grow longer they look more hab like. When you save the seed there is that weird mix of small (not useful?) and large seeds that the interspecies hybrids tend towards. It doesn't seem to have an S allele for sure but does seem modestly exserted. Wondering what will segregate out of it? Can I get rid of the cracking? Will it segregate back to hard and green like Fairy Hollow seems to have? It could also pick up some pollen from surrounding 3/4 hab, penellii and half penellii plants even if it doesn't have an S allele.

So Joseph has proposed an S. Allele intact domesticate. It seems like to get there we need multiple elites with S alleles at once to get an initial all palatable population.

A step below that is non S allele individuals with exsertion. These should mostly segregate but will pick up some S. Alleles and if from hab type fruit individuals that should lead to inedibles.

The third thing that might happen or be happening here is individuals that seem promising and have no S allele still have recessive  hab traits that revert more towards the wild type.

S allele individuals tend to not produce on the first few flowers (though this isn't 100% gauranteed). So we can find individuals with probable S alleles, but not completely rule out their presence in a single generation.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

William: Yikes. Too much moderator power, too tired this week. Sorry that I edited your post rather than making my own... Fortunately I was able to undo the boo-boo.
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I grew about 20 plants of Fairy Hollow. Nothing resembling the parent has showed up yet. Season this year was super short.  Likely to get frost by morning, so boo hoo.

I received seed a couple days ago which is exerted/SI-acting 50% wild crossed with each other. Carefully selected, and manually cross-pollinated. Looking forward to growing that out next year.

I think that it's time for me to transition from trying to increase the number of s-alleles in the population to crossing elite X elite. One of the [Big Hill X 50% wild] plants (out of 250) produced 12 ounce fruits. Yay!!!! That's as elite as it gets. They were pollinated by the general population, so they are likely to segregate away from giant fruit next growing season.

The mix of small/larger seeds seems promising. Segregation for seed size is a Xenia effect that is observable in tomato seeds.

William, did you grow pure S pennellii? If yes, how did it do for you?

As a step towards a completely self-incompatible population, I planted single isolated S habrochaites plants in three fields and allowed bee-pollination with 25% or 50% wildlings. So the seeds collected from S habrochaites should be 100% self-incompatible. Then it's just a matter of growing out enough of them to find large tasty fruits. I included a 25% wild descendant of S pennellii, and of S habrochaites in the plantings, so there should be some 3 species hybrids showing up.

I only grew one purely domestic tomato plant this year. I'm leaning towards focusing solely on the self-incompatible interspecies-hybrid population next year, and not growing pure domestics, nor pure wilds. Time to start focusing on elite self-incompatible.

I'm having a tomato tasting party tomorrow to taste the 25% wildlings. Cracking has been pretty common in the 25% wild population.

First photo is 75% domestic. 25% wild. They are a full-sibling group. Each basket is the fruit from one sibling, except the two mixed baskets which were gathered from the ground, or that got missed in initial harvest.

Second photo is of fruits collected from the backcross to S habrochaites, and the 3 species hybrids. (All seeds in the fruits on the left are expected to be 3 species hybrids.

Third photo is of the fruits that are headed to the tasting party. All wildlings of one sort or another. (Notice the 12 ounce green fruit? It's a 25% wildling. Mother acted self-incompatible, and had exerted stigma.)

[William Schlegel]

I grew what turned out to be just one plant of what I dub purish penellii. Its from a packet you sent of your penellii grow out in 2018. You wrote on The packet that you isolated it but with other species around it. I wonder of it might have picked up something from those or if it selfed. I saved some seed already and it may be the smallest seed I have. It was next to penellii hybrids. It did great here in western Montana evidence of the adaptation it's made in your garden. I transplanted the whole clump (one plant outcompeted the others) and then didn't water that half of the bed. It has a few more days to live and more fruit on it. Thought for next year is to plant more clumps and repeat.

I have about 150 seeds saved from the 75% domestic you sent. None seem elite in this generation but segregation next year should be interesting.

I've made a direct seeding mix of half hab, 3/4 hab, penellii x, and Peruvianum that I am keen to weigh. This years direct seeding project was about 3/4 ounce. So an ounce of seed could seed my big field. Edit: 0.28 oz that is 7 times more than the 0.04 Oz in this year's mix which resulted in at least 2 plants.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

We had a tomato tasting (and seed saving) party today. These are mostly 25% wild. The winner was descended from S pennellii.

My favorite comment was from an executive chef, who wrote "Most Tomato Like". He was referring to the one domestic tomato that I snuck into the tasting as a control. LOL!

[triffid]

My favorite comment was from an executive chef, who wrote "Most Tomato Like". He was referring to the one domestic tomato that I snuck into the tasting as a control. LOL!

Aha that's great, I guess you could consider the tasting very much a success based on this comment - which was the 'least tomato-like'? 

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Least tomato like comments? Hmmm... Let me look for a few:

Reminds me of tomatillo
Rhubarb/celeriac
Fennel/Sweet-onion
Blueberry/Melon
Cucumber/Melon
Pleasant/balanced
Tropical Yum
Vegetable-flavor, green beans
Sweet floral
lime
Mango XXX good

For what it's worth, my report card was the most negative!!! I really don't like the taste of tomatoes!

[AndrewB]

Least tomato like comments? Hmmm... Let me look for a few:

Reminds me of tomatillo
Rhubarb/celeriac
Fennel/Sweet-onion
Blueberry/Melon
Cucumber/Melon
Pleasant/balanced
Tropical Yum
Vegetable-flavor, green beans
Sweet floral
lime
Mango XXX good

For what it's worth, my report card was the most negative!!! I really don't like the taste of tomatoes!

This is awesome! I find the range of flavors to be truly interesting,  though not entirely surprising since the wild species have more of those chemicals responsible for smells and flavors.

[Nicolas]

Ho i like the tasting labels !

[triffid]

Ooo very interesting comments, what a diverse array of flavours. 'Mango XXX good' has me wondering

[William Schlegel]

I suspect I ended up with around 600 seeds from the non-elite Big Hill x W4. I plan to plant them all in 2020, it should be a most interesting F2 judging by the elites Joseph found in the F1! Plus any new seeds Joseph sends I will plant. In my biggest tomato field, the one that I direct seeded and dry farmed last year. ~Maybe I will save twenty seeds for backup. Transplants though mostly, depending on how many seeds I have. If I end up with extra seed or can't fit it all in the greenhouse I may direct seed a portion of the field as direct seeding ability is something I would like to start selecting these for.

Things I am curious to find out in 2020 (though I may only assess these things casually):

What percentage turn out to be large fruited.

What the elites taste like

What percentage turn out to be elites

If any turn out to be bicolors that taste like Big Hill

What percentage is exserted

What percentage has beefsteak like flowers with big stigmas vs. the skinny stigmas (the skinny stigma flowers were dominant in the F1 on mine).

What percentage is obligate out-crossing vs. what percentage is selfing vs. what percentage has reproductive problems

What percentage are short season vs the longer season typical of habrochaites

percentage Determinate vs. Indeterminate

percentage Domestic leaved vs. habrochaites leaved

One curious possibility is that with this cross between an exserted domestic and a hab cross, that there will be a good possibility of exserted selfers which should pick up pollen readily from the obligate outcrossers. Making it perhaps more difficult to self the selfers or separate out the two groups perfectly. Not sure what percentage of outcross pollen exserted selfers pick up in my garden. 2020 may be a start to finding out as I plan / hope to separate out two domestics like that from my 2019 garden but they were exposed to lots of others. Also have a couple envelopes of seed from exserted selfers that were planted with and or dusted with pollen from wilds/wild crosses in 2019 and I plan to plant them in community flats and prick out obvious hybrids.

I must admit I kind of lost track of this interesting thread where Joseph posted the taste testing photos and results from the 2019 elites and have been kind of wondering where it was.   

[William Schlegel]

Iron Lady is homozygous for early and late blight, but heterozygous for septoria.  IMO, the septoria tolerance is weak.  It goes down in my garden just as fast as most other tomatoes.  I'm not sure if this is because my garden is being hit with a different strain of septoria or if something else is going on.  Regardless, LA2175 S. Habrochaites is just about immune to all three diseases in my garden.  I have some F2 seed to grow out this year from a cross of LA2175 with Piennolo Del Vesuvio.

http://tgrc.ucdavis.edu/Data/Acc/AccDetail.aspx?AccessionNum=LA2175&contains=false

Found this Darrel Jones quote on Tatermater proboards. LA2175 might be interesting to add to project if not in it already.

Hmm: searched Homegrown Goodness for chatter on it. Darrel said on there that it is self compatible. Also he probably sent seed to Joseph a long time ago.

[darjones]

LA2175 is a highly productive S. Habrochaites which means it is almost certainly self-compatible.  This brings a range of choices to the table for breeding projects.  The most important trait it carries is highly effective tolerance to septoria.  I have plenty of seed and probably will grow it out again this year to make a few crosses.

I would love to get the disease resistance into a large edible tomato.  If you are aware of the funky odor of most S. Habrochaites plants, you probably have noticed that it is present in Sungold.  LA2175 has a very strong odor which may be associated with septoria resistance, i.e. some chemical the plant produces provides the odor and also provides the septoria resistance.

I also sent seed of a single plant selection pulled out of LA0417 that is the most septoria tolerant plant I've found so far that is in the S. Pimpinellifolium X S. Lycopersicon group.  It is a 3/4 inch diameter red cherry tomato sometimes with a slight nipple.  The plants are very vigorous and productive with exceptionally good "tomato" flavor.  I sent seed to Sandhill Preservation to list for sale starting in January under the name "Lorelei".

[William Schlegel]

I suspect I ended up with around 600 seeds from the non-elite Big Hill x W4. I plan to plant them all in 2020, it should be a most interesting F2 judging by the elites Joseph found in the F1! Plus any new seeds Joseph sends I will plant. In my biggest tomato field, the one that I direct seeded and dry farmed last year. ~Maybe I will save twenty seeds for backup. Transplants though mostly, depending on how many seeds I have. If I end up with extra seed or can't fit it all in the greenhouse I may direct seed a portion of the field as direct seeding ability is something I would like to start selecting these for.

Things I am curious to find out in 2020 (though I may only assess these things casually):

What percentage turn out to be large fruited.

What the elites taste like

What percentage turn out to be elites

If any turn out to be bicolors that taste like Big Hill

What percentage is exserted

What percentage has beefsteak like flowers with big stigmas vs. the skinny stigmas (the skinny stigma flowers were dominant in the F1 on mine).

What percentage is obligate out-crossing vs. what percentage is selfing vs. what percentage has reproductive problems

What percentage are short season vs the longer season typical of habrochaites

percentage Determinate vs. Indeterminate

percentage Domestic leaved vs. habrochaites leaved

One curious possibility is that with this cross between an exserted domestic and a hab cross, that there will be a good possibility of exserted selfers which should pick up pollen readily from the obligate outcrossers. Making it perhaps more difficult to self the selfers or separate out the two groups perfectly. Not sure what percentage of outcross pollen exserted selfers pick up in my garden. 2020 may be a start to finding out as I plan / hope to separate out two domestics like that from my 2019 garden but they were exposed to lots of others. Also have a couple envelopes of seed from exserted selfers that were planted with and or dusted with pollen from wilds/wild crosses in 2019 and I plan to plant them in community flats and prick out obvious hybrids.

I must admit I kind of lost track of this interesting thread where Joseph posted the taste testing photos and results from the 2019 elites and have been kind of wondering where it was.

Interestingly between transplants and direct seeding I grew a lot of the seeds I grew in 2019 of BH x W4 and they produced negligible elites, nothing I bothered to seed save. Though some I would have.

However:

Joseph sent me new seed of his 2019 elites and overwinter generation and those were almost all awesome.

I found some good tasting bicolors in the mix.

I got a few seeds back from a new extra furry habrochaites known for insect reaistance that I hope accepted some pollen from some of the others. It was very low production but I probably planted 10 or 20 seeds and got back around 100. So that's progress.

[William Schlegel]

I crossed my LA2329 project initially with the Lofthouse promiscuous project bicolors. I think the results may be a bit better than crossing straight to domestic. Uncertain though but it seems promising.

At least as a thought experiment I like the idea of using tasty high percentage habrochaites hybrids when crossing back to habrochaites. I also think it makes sense to rapidly dilute the unpalatable strain by backcrossing. So by starting with a tomato that already has habrochaites you can dilute without loosing too much of the wild genetics because both parents have it. Then you can gradually increase the percentage.