Direct seeded dry farmed tomato breeding project

[William Schlegel]

Taste is ok. Only a few really good looking seeds in there. Fermenting now.

7 seeds when I rinsed it just now. Feel kind of precious but I highly suspect they will have crossed back and be hard and green.

Interestingly so far the tomatoes on my Fairy Hollow plants are hard and green. Nice and big though for a hab x, very beefsteak like. Anybody else's Fairy hollow segregating drastically?

[William Schlegel]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190916143949.htm

Interesting article re: drought induced transposons.

So if we expose plants to stressors such as drought they react with a variety of mechanisms. Transposons, epigenetic change, and in the case of a variable population: simple selection.

[William Schlegel]

Got tons of seed from this project in 2019. It wasn't a great test of dry farming here in one sense- much more regular rain than usual for summer here.

[William Schlegel]

Made an experimental Farm Network project page for this project. https://www.experimentalfarmnetwork.org/group/26

[William Schlegel]

Just seeded year five or part of it. A promiscuous project strain. Put down compost and sand underneath because of all the tomato seed already in then soil. Second picture is some tomato seed I found. Since it's over by the carrots it's likely from the 2020 volunteers from the 2019 direct seeding.

[William Schlegel]

I have been doing some supplemental watering of the direct seeded tomato seeds. Now there is a good rainfall event moving in for tomorrow. Could easily deliver 3/4 of an inch. A one inch rainfall event is perfect for germination. I expect to see germination soon therefore with the supplemental.

[William Schlegel]

Found the first few germinates today May 31st. My guess is this is the latest first germination has occurred in the five years I've been doing this. However only found them in two of four garden areas and not sure how widespread they are in the rows. Turned the water on the sand beds as I found no germinates.

Curious how many volunteers there will be.

[William Schlegel]

Last year at this time.

[William Schlegel]

Sand planted direct seeded tomatoes over manure compost have just a small amount of germination in one small area. Ran the soaker hoses for 45 minutes on them again.

Overall direct seeded tomato seedlings are still emerging. Found lots of stems emerging in one section of one of the rows. Supposed to be in the 80's the next three days or so. May even break 90 F.

No rain in the forcast to speak of.

[Garrett Schantz]

I seeded solanum pimpinellifolium along a large area where I have been putting strawberries, other perennial vegetables. They are growing pretty well now, I don't water them. The only amount of rain that we have been getting here has just been showers all in a single day, usually nothing else for a few weeks.

Suppose that counts as direct seeded / dry farmed... I will post images of the seedlings at some point this week.

[William Schlegel]

Direct seeded row, doing good but definitely watering this year.

[Garrett Schantz]

I directed seeded a bunch of pimpinellifolium before the last frost - they eventually came up long after. Suppose the cloudy - cool weather prevented germination at first.

Anyway, they are flowering - plants are small though. I haven't watered them - and there has been a pretty long heatwave recently.

I might try out the dry farmed tomato project next year. Summers here are usually pretty dry in comparison to Spring / Fall.