Profoundly Promiscuous and Totally Tasty Tomato Project

William Schlegel wrote:This question Joseph posed. I think we can generalize it a little bit. To "have we previously accidentally produced any promiscuous lines".
So ultimately I think from my experience an accidental promiscuous line seems unlikely. Though possible.

I'm not sure what you mean. Is a promiscuous line one that has to cross, not self pollinate? If so I'm pretty sure this one does not qualify.

It makes lots of fruits, most all the flowers produce one and except for varying some in the number per cluster and a little bit in size they are all basically the same yellow tropical fruit flavor. The fruits are not fuzzy, the plant does not look a lot different than other tomatoes. It also is not disease resistant. It makes lots of fruits mostly all at once and then the leaves dry up and fall off but any remaining green fruits go ahead and ripen. Or maybe that isn't disease but instead, just what it does.

I'm regretting now not paying better attention and taking pictures and saving more seeds. Most all my attention on breeding has been on other crops. This tomato is just a nice surprise and a great snack while working in the garden, very few ever make it farther than from plant to mouth.

Promiscuous = Obligate Outcrossing

Its fun to think about this promiscuous / obligate outcrossing trait now that its in tasty forms in my garden. Next year I may direct seed a row of the now tasty promiscuous lines.

I think that the single plant of fuzzy fruited / other habrochaites cytoplasm line surrounded by lots of tasty promiscuous plants is by far the space efficient method to introduces habrochaites cytoplasm lines into the promiscuous project. Planting large numbers of the hard green fruited sorts of obligate outcrossing tomatoes is getting less exciting now that the tasty sorts have arrived. I have the seeds to do it though if need be or if needed.

It was interesting to me just how much more fruitful the Lofthouse habrochaites cytoplasm line was then the new fuzzy habrochaites cytoplasm line. New Fuzzy Hab really struggled to set fruits with only a few mothers actually bearing despite ~10 fuzzy hab plants and lots of lofthouse strain hab x plants around them, I expect better results from the saved seed, and am curious to see signs of hybridization between the hab lines next year. I have plates full of the seeds that need put into packets.

There was one clump of something Joseph sent that is a three species hybrid. Mostly green fruits but one kinda peach colored. Unsure what the cytoplasm was on that? If its a hab or penellii cytoplasm I need to seperate that peachy fruit.

I have been using "panamorous" for lines that are capable of selfing, and that have wide open flowers. Botanically they could be called facultative outcrossers.

When I first started growing habrochaites, it was quite unsuitable to my garden. It has become much more fruitful and early over the years.

The line I'm calling "3 species hybrid" has domestic cytoplasm. The genealogy is: descendant of [domestic X pennellii] X [descendant of [domestic X habrochaites] or pure habrochaites]. With my usual caveat that these are promiscuously pollinated, and I only know the mammas, not the daddies.

So far, I haven't found a non-green fruit with habrochaites or pennellii cytoplasm.

This project is really coming together. There were a lot a highly promiscuous and very tasty tomatoes this summer.

Thank you William and Andrew for your collaboration on understanding the crossing abilities of the wild tomatoes. I have updated the working drawing to add (green lines) showing which pollinations appear to have been successful in the past year.



peruvianum X pennellii

One peruvianum was planted in a patch of 4 to 8 pennellii. It set a few fruits, which had seeds in them. The seeds germinated well. About a week after germination, the seedlings lack vigor and are twisted.

habrochaites X pennellii

One habrochaites was planted in the same patch of pennellii. It set a few fruits, which had seeds in them. The seeds germinated at a low rate. The seedlings look normal. An alternate pollinator for this plant is the original clone of BH x W - XL, which is a synonym for C31. If pennellii was the pollen donor, I expect the pennellii leaf type to be dominant, and to show up in the first true leaves.

habrochaites X interspecies crosses

A BC2 was made in a greenhouse in California over the winter. The genetics are (habrochaites X [domestic X habrochaites]) X (BH X [domestic X (habrochaites or pennellii)]). If I'm thinking about the math right, that makes this population 50% domestic, 50% wild, with a fully functional self-incompatibility system. I only grew about 5 plants from this cross during the summer, which gave enough seeds to play around with next summer. They were all wild-phenotypes. It was grown next to the BC1 population.

domestic X pimpinellifolium

A naturally occurring hybrid between a lycopersicon cherry tomato and pimpinellifolium showed up in a neighbor's garden. He gave me seed. It's not of immediate use for this project, but I may plant it just to explore the diversity.

domestic X peruvianum

In 1971 to 1974, Donald W Denna was working on a project to make it easier and less expensive to make F1 hybrid tomatoes. He was interested in the self-incompatibility mechanism for that purpose, and transferred that trait into domestic tomatoes by crossing with Solanum peruvianum. I don't know the method he used. It's generally only possible via tissue culture.

I recently visited a seed temple in Colorado which is the current home of Denna's seeds. The project ended prematurely when Denna died untimely. When I explained the importance of Denna's work, the guardian sent seeds home with me. It seems like sacred work to me, to inherit his seeds which are exactly what I am working on, and to continue his legacy. The seeds are almost 50 years old, and no telling how they were stored. We are intending to be very deliberate about attempting to germinate them.

Here's a summary of the seeds she shared:

The dates are consistent with what I would expect
from this type of breeding project. Starting with
pure wild (1971), then to a cross (1972), then to an elite
line re-selected for self-incompatibility (1974).

Peruvianum crosses
~300 seeds. 1971. Tiny seeds. (Pure wild)

L. Esculentum X L. peruvianum F2
~300 seeds. 1972. hybrids with domestic tomato
as mother and Solanum peruvianum as pollen donor.

L peruvianum. S.I. F2 Intercrosses
~40 seeds. 1974. Large-ish seeds indicating domestic ancestors.
S.I. = Self-incompatible, therefore this seems like the most
advanced line, and the most in harmony with the goals of
the Beautifully Promiscuous and Tasty Tomato Project.

"Wild Tomato Crosses"
~80 seeds. Large-ish seeds indicating domestic ancestors.
I didn't write down a date for these.

Pollinator Attractive Tomato OP
13 seeds. 1974. larger domestic-type seeds.

I guess you're not looking to introduce these qualities into dark-fleshed standard slicing tomatoes (or vice versa)?

I'll have a garden full of oxhearts and dark-fleshed varieties I intend to selectively remove stamen cones from and hand pollinate, and I'd love to put some of these traits into the eventual landrace.

Dark-fleshed standard tasting slicing tomatoes are the antithesis of this project. Sometimes dark red tomatoes show up among the offspring, and then get culled because of the flavor. However, this fall, I saved the seeds from the culled fruits and sent them to Experimental Farm Network for distribution. People that value that type of tomato may use these seeds in their breeding projects. I expect them to show up in the catalog in the next few months.

BH-series Panamorous Tomato

The BH-series of tomatoes are derived from the Beautifully Promiscuous and Tasty Tomato Project. They are descended from crosses between wild tomatoes and domestic tomatoes. The primary domestic ancestor was Big Hill, a super-tasty, early, red/yellow bicolor, determinate, dwarf, beefsteak. The wild ancestors were Solanum habrochaites and/or Solanum pennellii. The flowers are panamorous, facultative-outcrossing, meaning that they have much higher ability to cross pollinate than is typical for domestic tomatoes. They are most fruitful in gardens with lots of pollinator insects, particularly bumblebees and digger bees. The mothers that these seeds were collected from were large red beefsteaks on early dwarf determinate plants. Pollen donors may have included obligate-outcrossers, therefore planting 7 or more plants is recommended, even if they are crowded. Because of the panamorous nature of this population interesting traits, flavors, and fruit-colors are likely in the descendants.

Q-series Panamorous Tomato

The Q-series of tomatoes are derived from the Beautifully Promiscuous and Tasty Tomato Project. They are descended from crosses between wild tomatoes and domestic tomatoes. The domestic ancestors included Brad, Jagodka, and Big Hill. The wild ancestors were Solanum habrochaites and/or Solanum pennellii. The flowers are panamorous, facultative-outcrossing, meaning that they have much higher ability to cross pollinate than is typical for domestic tomatoes. They are most fruitful in gardens with lots of pollinator insects, particularly bumblebees and digger bees. The mothers that these seeds were collected from were red or orange fruited, with a fruity flavor profile, on dwarf determinate plants. Pollen donors may have included obligate-outcrossers, therefore planting 7 or more plants is recommended, even if they are crowded. Because of the panamorous nature of this population  interesting traits, flavors, and fruit-colors are likely in the descendants. Due to the wild ancestry, germination may be erratic.


Exserted Orange Tomato

OSSI Pledged as a breeding population. This tomato is the result of an open cross between determinate beefsteak Big Hill which has open and exserted flowers and putatively an unknown orange indeterminate tomato in a Lofthouse collaborator’s garden in 2017. Joseph grew the F1 in 2018. In 2019 William Schlegel grew the F2 and selected the plant with the best Big Hill type exsertion on the stigma. In 2020 it was grown in isolation, but not selected. Further crosses from 2019 were not detected but could be present. Fruit is variable in size between plants, orange and bi-color fruits are both present in the populations. Plants may be either determinate or indeterminate. This should be a good population to select from. Because of the flower type it should be an occasionally out-crossing tomato (to borrow language from Alan Kapuler). Isolate 150 feet for pure seed or plant as close as possible to another variety if crosses are desired.

Link to Alan Kapuler's article

Did you use any of these results in drying/cooking capacities or only eaten fresh?

I'll be watching the EFN for updates as there are several other perennials I'd like from there that are still unavailable.

The current project goals are to develop fruity-tasting fresh-eating saladette tomatoes.

I treated the culls just like any other tomato, and made tomato sauce out of them. Tomato sauce at my place is just an excuse to make spiced pepper, onion, garlic sauce. Tomatoes are merely a filler.

The seed catalog went online today! Experimental Farm Network

I had enough seed for distribution of the varieties I mentioned above, and the population of Solanum habrochaites which were the ancestor lines of this project, AND I released a population which consisted of anything from the elite field which managed to produce fruit. Here's the description:

Wildling Panamorous Tomato

This incredibly diverse population is descended from crosses between domestic tomatoes and two wild tomato species (Solanum habrochaites and Solanum pennellii). These are part of Joseph's Beautifully Promiscuous and Tasty Tomato Project. This is an amazing assortment of genetics. Leaf shapes can be anything from potato-leaved, rugose, regular-leaved, habrochaites-leaved, fern-leaved, pennellii-leaved, anything in-between, and other shapes. Fruit color might be green, pink, red, yellow, orange, white, or purple. Mostly cherry to saladette-sized tomatoes. Plant size varies between dwarf and monster, with vines that are determinate, indeterminate, or semi-determinate. These are a mix of self-compatible and self-incompatible plants. We are beyond excited to release these seeds because of the tremendous amount of diversity they carry. There are all sorts of paths that your selection and breeding might take.

Some of these may be immune to tomato blights. Joseph would love both good and bad grow reports, especially from areas in which tomatoes are nearly impossible to grow because of diseases or pests. He’d be particularly interested in getting seeds back from any that are grown untreated in a garden with terrible blight problems where they survive as if the blight wasn't even there.

As these are descended from inter-species hybrids, germination may be erratic.

Have fun!

I ordered a packet of the wildling panamorous tomatoes, I'm very curious to see what pops up !

I got the Neandermato and the Panamorous tomatoes. The Wildling seems quite nice as it is probably all descended from wilds and elites. The others also look promising.
I get a good bit of blight towards the end of my season, so selection for resistant traits should be fairly easy. I might select away from red tomatoes and more towards orange, yellow or "cream" colored.
I might select out a few tasty - disease resistant cherry-currant types for a separate project. Still selecting for the same things as in "Beautifully Promiscuous and Tasty Tomato Project" in this. I might add in anthocyanin traits, striping from black vernissage, upper green variegation from habrochaites. Stems on my F1 between a habrochaites(not Neandermato, just a random accession) and pimpinellifolium have purple streaks on the stems. The habrochaites had the same streaking, so I may select for that as well for a wild ornamental type trait. Leaves and everything else look fine so it isn't a deficiency in anything. Having cherry tomatoes in clusters sticking out from the plant would probably be easier to find/collect than usual.
Thanks for distributing these!

Here's a greatly simplified pedigree of the Beautifully Promiscuous and Tasty Tomato Project, and the lines that Experimental Farm Network is offereing this winter.

Last night, I made a  more complete, (but still simplified) pedigree of this project. Each dot or line represents a family of 1-20 members. Is it any wonder that I'm loath to keep records?

When breeding domestic tomatoes, the pairing method is one-to-one. Each generation is inbred to itself.

In promiscuous tomatoes, the pairing method is many-to-many. Took a while to for me to learn that lesson. It's still a work in progress helping collaborators to think that way.

These are graphics for the Landrace Gardening book that I'm writing.

I'm interested in getting a pack of these this year, but I'm just a seed saver and not a professional breeder or anything. As much as I'm thinking about the wildling, should I consider the Q-series instead? I'm here in central florida and between the heat, humidity, rampant disease, and invasive insects it can be hard to get much of anything to last very long here, if that makes a difference.

Jeremiah Squingelli wrote:I'm interested in getting a pack of these this year, but I'm just a seed saver and not a professional breeder or anything. As much as I'm thinking about the wildling, should I consider the Q-series instead? I'm here in central florida and between the heat, humidity, rampant disease, and invasive insects it can be hard to get much of anything to last very long here, if that makes a difference.

Hi Jeremiah,

This is plant breeding anyone can do. If you save seed and you have likes and dislikes you are qualified. Try any or all of the tomato accessions Joseph has on EFN. Save seed from any that survive your conditions and taste good to you in central Florida and repeat till they thrive and taste great for you. If they don't thrive for you then try something else.

The Beautifully Promiscuous & Tasty Tomato project got it's own chapter in the book that I'm writing. The book is currently being reviewed by the first wave of beta-readers.

As a sneak peak, I sent a PDF file of the tomato chapter to permies staff for inclusion in the digital marketplace.
https://permies.com/t/157129f396/Joseph-Lofthouse-Chapter-Landrace-Gardening

Promiscuous tomatoes are in the ground



Here are some tucked in and comfy



and here are some extras I have left over, I think I can get most of them in, I just need to fill some more pots first.
I'll update in a couple weeks or so when they start to get their true leaves
if pictures are upside down just do a handstand

Mix of Peruvianum seedlings:

Top Right: Joseph's Peruvianum
Top Left: HRseeds Peruvianum
Bottom Right: J&L Gardens L. glandalosum (S. corneliomulleri)
Bottom Left: Woodland Creationz Peruvianum

J&L Gardens: has a more pungent smell than the others, leaves also want to curl inwards - small bumps on the back of the leaves tell me this is probably edema. Might stop watering those ones as much - should be fixed when they finally go outdoors.

HRseeds Peruvianum: Small seedlings / leaves, some diversity in leaf shape so far.

Woodland Creationz Peruvianum: Also diverse, has some leaf types that I haven't seen in the others.

Joseph's Peruvianum: Lot of diversity. There is a very small seedling in the image, probably not visible - has leaves that are cupped inwards, slow growing and fragile. There is also a large leaved seedling, elongated leaves as well- looks odd compared to the others.

Most of these are on their second set of leaves, none are in their third.

Hoping to find a wide diversity of flavors, leaf types, flower shape / exertion, pest  / disease resistances. I have some habrochaites started as well.

Assuming that Joseph's will be the earliest and tastiest. Not too concerned with the taste. I can probably reselect for it pretty easily, if not I can backcross.

Really hoping to see the flowers on these, planting more of these in cells / pot soon.

I quite like this project. Last I was watching bumblebees go back and forth between habrochaites flowers quite frequently. Usually bees don't seem interested in new flowers until the year after I plant them.

I also have joseph's peruvianum, two of them shot straight up, while the other 3 are struggling to do much of anything. They also have some spotting and they're a bit crispy at parts, but they're looking a lot better since I moved them to their current location. They're a little crowded in there, but hopefully they don't mind too much, I just wanted to keep them together and only have so much space.

They're very cute plants, I like how fuzzy and soft their stems are.

I purchased Joseph's wildling tomato and planted them alongside Ildi and OSU P20 tomatoes. The difference in color is already very interesting, while Ildi seems completely green, from stem to leaf, the wildlings and P20 seedlings have a red tint to their stem and leaves. The tint being the darkest in the P20 tomatoes, which also has red dots all over it's leaves. They all seem to have equally hairy stems, while the wildling tomatoes have the hairiest leaves.

Patrick Marchand wrote:I purchased Joseph's wildling tomato

I got both the wildling and Q series. True to the lofthouse philosophy though, I didn't bother to differentiate or sort them, they're all just sorta interplanted. So far, probably a third of them have multiple small leaves, a third are only just starting to get true leaves, and the other third still only have cotyledons. I'd post a picture of them, but so far they all just look like fairly uniform little tomato seedlings, it'll probably be another 2-3 weeks before they're big enough to start seeing any notable differences.

The Wildling, and Q-series are sister lines, and were both grown in the same field. There is probably crossing between them.  

Patrick mentioned the pigment on the underside of the young tomato plants, and it got me to go look at mine. There really is a lot of variation in the pigment, some of them are very deep purple on the underside, some of them have purple splotches, some of them are kind of a reddish-purple, and others of the same size have absolutely no pigment at all.

I wonder if the pigment has any significance beyond aesthetic. I thought for a moment it was probably to do with how much sun it got, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Anybody know?

Anthocyanin pigment is a plant sunscreen. It might help certain wild tomato species or populations live in harsh environments.

In breeding it is significant because the genes that express stem and leaf anthocyanins can help the expression of the trait that expresses blue / purple tomato fruit skin. Which has some health benefits but also just contributes to some good looking varieties. I've also read that when expressed in fruit the fruit tends to store longer and be less prone to sunburn.

Consider if you live in a sun drenched local climate that anthocyanin expression might be a good thing and the reverse in a constantly cloudy or shady environment.

Hairiness is another adaptation that can have similar purposes it can slow wind, raise humidity, provide some shade, and repel insects to some extent.  

William Schlegel wrote:Anthocyanin pigment is a plant sunscreen. It might help certain wild tomato species or populations live in harsh environments.

I was aware of this, my main confusion is that most of the anthocyanin pigment is on the underside of the leaf and the stem, and only on the young plants. I know tomatoes originated around the andes, I'm reading that it's pretty rainy and temperate in the andes. I'm assuming it's pretty regularly cloudy and overcast, so it needs to be able to reliably photosynthesize, and I assume too much pigment would interfere with that. But also it needs some degree of UV protection due to the elevation, so rather than a full coverage it just protects the more vulnerable areas.

Bet they have ancestors in a region with high UV and light colored soil that reflects light to the underside of the leaf.

I start my seeds in a cold room - not ideal.

Only one of the Peruvianums that I grew had any sort of purpling on the underside of the leaves - even then it was just a few splotches on the first true leaves - it also had purple veins on the upper side.

My habrochites all had purpling on the underside of the leaves - along with purple / pink stems.

My full anthocyanin fruited plants had quite a bit of purpling on the cotyledon - underside of leaves - etc.

The pigment on the underside of the leaves could just be for helping seedlings survive harsh environments - once the plant develops it makes another sort of natural sunscreen depending on the lighting.