Suggestions of a "wow factor" tomato variety ?

[Nicolas]

Hi,

I'm looking for a tomato with the most potential for bringing special features in a breeding project.

What variety would you recommend that packs the most unusual features ?

I'm thinking traits like variegation, stripes or speckles, wooly, dwarf, multiflora, etc.
Bonus points if it has big fruits to be able to breed big fruits without too much trouble.

Thanks !

[William Schlegel]

I made a cross with Brad's Atomic Grape last year which has anthocyanin, stripes, and tricolor flesh and I am excited to see the F2 next year. I generally agree that making well considered crosses with tomatoes with a lot of interesting traits is a good approach but it almost would turn into a need to back cross to the fancy parent if you want everything it has.

Other wow factors might include multiple disease resistance for example.

[Cathy A]

Are you looking for interesting "artistic" wow factors, or "practical" productive wow factors?

You will get a different list of varieties for the two cases.

Sungold has a lot of good traits that suggest it is good breeding material, such as taste, beta orange, high fruit productivity per plant, and earliness. I am growing quit a few Sungold F2 plants this with the intent of using them for crosses.

Uluru Ochre is a dwarf that seems to be very early. I am cautiously optimistic about this variety, both as-is and as breeding material.

Joseph's charts suggest that Jagodka is extremely productive in the early season and Nevsky is more productive in late season. I have found both Earl's Jagodka (a different strain from Joseph's) and Nevsky reliably produce large, healthy-looking plants from seed.

William reported that he found Krainy Sever to be the best of the Soviet dwarves. My single plant is very healthy; I hope it will do well here.

Big Hill has been used as a parent in several breeding projects.

If you are looking for more artistic traits, I'm the wrong person to ask. :-)

[Nicolas]

Yeah more artistic/unusual genes

[Cathy A]

Have a look at the Baker Creek site, https://rareseeds.com. They have a lot of crazy-looking varieties.

[William Schlegel]

There are a subset of tomato breeders who seem inclined towards trying to make the fanciest possible tomatoes. I feel like their work is best found at the sites of extensive tomato collectors and seed sellers. Brad Gates is probably the most mainstream of them. I want that too but with good flavor and short season. I discovered Tom Wagners Muddy Waters last year. It has superior flavor, stripes, and anthocyanin. At least the strain I found. I feel like there might be varieties out there with more fantastic combinations though. Like Seattle Blue Woolly Mammoth  https://tatermater.proboards.com/thread/912/seattle-blue-woolly-mammoth

[Steph S]

It sounds to me like 'wow' factor tomato is the one you want to breed yourself.
I recall that a lot of the traits you mentioned were being explored by Dan and collaborators - breeding projects that started at Tville and are now hosted at Tomato Talk. 
So you might actually find an existing line or variety that combined multiple traits you mentioned, at the Micro Tomato Diversity project, here:
https://www.tomato-talk.com/

[Nicolas]

Thanks for the reply

I'm not really interested in strange features myself, but it could be fun to propose some F2 between a good tasting and a fun looking tomatoes