I'm really loving the decorative flowers on the wild tomato Solanum habrochaites.

Here's some photos of fruits of some of the wild tomato species. Taste of fully ripe fruits is sweet and very fruity. Lots of possibilities for selecting new tomato flavors.

Solanum peruvianum


Inter-species hybrid between domestic mother and S. habrochaites father. From the wild species, the plants are exhibiting: huge flower petals, striped fruits, hairy fruits, and wild leaves. The plants inherited inserted stigma from the domestic tomatoes. With so many wild traits showing up in the F1, it makes it easy to confirm that the crosses were successful.


Solanum corneliomulleri

Joseph Lofthouse October 2nd wrote:F1: [WXO X (Sun4 X Pink)].

Nine weeks later, and these plants have produced ripe fruits. Yay! Looks like I'll be able to grow one more generation this winter.

I'm continuing to work on this project overwinter. I have about 30 plants growing in a south facing window. Some of them are ripening fruit. For example: Here is an F1 hybrid. The mother was a red NoID from my landrace. Fruit was about 2" in diameter. The pollen donor was LA1777, Solanum habrochaites, a wild tomato with green/white fruits about 1/2" in diameter. So the cross took on the small-fruit size of the wild parent, and it picked up some genetics for a hint of yellow color from the domestic tomato. I expect the next generation to segregate into plants with lots of different colors and shapes of fruits, and lots of different leaf and vine shapes.

The F1 hybrid: [NOID Red X LA1777]


The wild species was the pollen donor.


This is the mother.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:The F1 hybrid: [NOID Red X LA1777]

This morning, the seedlings from these fruits had germinated. That makes them the grandchildren of the original cross between wild tomatoes and domestic tomatoes. That's the generation where things get really exciting for a plant breeder! Things are looking good for this generation to produce seeds before I'll be wanting them for planting in the spring. Happy Dance!!!

This project just keeps getting more exciting.  Nice that the greenhouse is allowing you to get multiple generations per year.  Can't recall if you mentioned the diameter of the fruits at this point...does the grid below the fruit in the photo indicate a 1 cm x 1 cm square with the + signs at the corners?  Or is that 1" x 1"?  Will you then be backcrossing for larger fruit size?  It would be really cool down the road if a seed packet ordered from your catalog would contain all of the genetics being compiled in these current crosses for re-selection by gardeners from Tierra del Fuego to Tuktoyaktuk.  A legacy project, Joseph!.....

John Weiland:

Thanks. The + signs on the grid are 1 cm apart. The dots are 1 mm apart. That's the only size grid that I use for photography. I aughta modify the graphic to include that info.

The domestic tomato that was the mother of this cross was about 2" in diameter, so I'm expecting that some of the offspring will be that size as well. I made crosses with other domestic mothers, with fruits about 6 oz, and the same wild pollen donor, so I expect fruits of that size to be showing up also. Next summer, I intend to make a back-cross to mothers with 12 oz fruits. That's about the biggest fruits I can expect to ripen in my climate.

I'm attempting to keep the first generation plants alive for the whole winter, so that I can plant them in dirt this spring, and generate lots of second generation seeds for sharing. That will give the widest possible selection choices for people in other areas.  They are currently growing in my bedroom window. In 6 weeks I'll be able to move them back out to the greenhouse. They are not currently flowering, but fruits that formed earlier are continuing to ripen.

I attempted the back-cross to S. habrochaites in the fall. Fruits from the attempt are growing fine. I expect them to ripen within a month. I don't expect to be able to tell if the cross was successful until the fruits ripen in about 4 months.  I'm expecting to attempt many more back-crosses to S. habrochaites,  trying to incorporate the self-incompatibility gene into domestic tomatoes. That's the primary focus of this project.

I also  attempted back-crosses to a different line of domestic tomatoes. Those seedlings have also germinated, I'll know in a few weeks if the cross was successful.  I'm only contemplating making one more manual back-cross to domestic tomatoes in order to recover larger fruits... Additionally, I'll watch my tomatoes carefully, because some naturally occurring back-crosses will be happening because I am encouraging promiscuous pollination.

Hi Joseph
Interesting stuff but above my head these days . Yesterday the weather was grotty so I decided to look though my seed catalogue that came  in the post that morning . In it I found something that might interest yourself and others thinking of breeding some tomatoes . As I understand it  most tomatoes have been so inbread they cannot breed with other tomatoes bit like the Royal families of europe  . So I was surprised to find this in the catalogue  Tomato Groseille / Red Current  Lycospersicon  pimpinellifolium with the warning dont grow this if you want to save seeds as it pollinates other tomatoes http://www.germinance.com/tomate_groseille_27-F9-E91.php ( yes I know its in French but since I live in France you have to go with the flow non? ) Could this be used by others seeking to make their own land race ?

David: I'm loving it! A warning from a seed company that a tomato is promiscuous. I'm currently growing Lycospersicon  pimpinellifolium. It does really well in my frost/cold tolerance trials. It would be a good species to use for those wishing to add diversity to their tomato landraces. The flowers are super-tiny, so I'm not currently using it in the auto-hybridizing project. For that project, I am targeting huge flowers.

Here's the pedigree of some the tomatoes that are currently growing in my bedroom window that are part of the auto-hybridizing tomato project. I've been saying that the pedigrees for the promiscuous pollination project are complicated. I didn't realize the magnitude of the complexity until today. There is a mix of naturally occurring and manual cross-pollenations.  There are four lines of 7-way crosses.This graph represents the core of the most advanced lines, where there was a favorable intersection of my desires, dumb chance, plant compatibility, etc. Some varieties that I wish were included are completely missing.

A single arrow on the graphic is flow of pollen from the father of a cross to the mother. If the arrow is circular, the plant self-pollinated. The doubled arrows lead to offspring through one or more generations of selfing or selection. The boxes represent the current generation of seeds or seedlings that are only a few weeks old. Perhaps some of them will produce seeds before spring.

I'm really loving this project. The box labeled "BC1"  may contain self-incompatible tomatoes. I harvested 15 seeds for BC1 this morning. The other two boxes probably contain lots of different types of promiscuously pollinating tomatoes, but I don't expect them to be self-incompatible.

Pedigree of auto-hybridizing tomato project.

Joseph, Did you apply for Patent Variety Protection on your "WTF" seed accession shown in your flow-chart??  

Saw an article that promotes what you do.....keep up the great breeding! :  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tomato-flavor-science_us_5889d3fae4b061cf898cdc9b?ykjdvidf8tkmlsor&

"One big exception to the sad state of the average beefsteak is the resurgence of so-called heirloom varieties seen in farmers markets and upscale grocery stores. Those vegetables are often grown using generations-old seeds, selected for their flavor above all else. But they come at a premium."

The thing that sticks with me from that article is how they're all like "Look at how advanced we are. We have the technology now to tell if a tomato tastes good. NOW we can grow tasty tomatoes." Now that it can use expensive and specialized equipment the farmers will be expected to by, it's becoming an industry priority? Anyone else seeing that?

@Casie B.: "Now that it can use expensive and specialized equipment the farmers will be expected to by, it's becoming an industry priority? Anyone else seeing that?"

Yup....when it comes to standard industry interests and practices, "follow the green".....and I'm not talking about the color of the foliage.  

What has been cool about following Joseph's and others progress is that, for most of the breeding projects, it's about everything *but* uniformity of product.  Taste is only one of many traits for which the different collections are being saved and propagated.  And when it does come to taste, why create a machine for what your own taste buds and olfactories can do cheaper, more sensitively, more accurately,.....and more uniquely to the palate of the taster?  Imagine if over half of your neighbors had their own selection/breeding projects going where taste to the grower was key and seeds were shared between homes.  You might end up liking 'Jane's sweet corn' who lives two doors down more than others on the block, but may like 'Bill's paste tomato' who lives across the back alley more than anyone else's, simply because you share their same respective palate for those flavors.

I'm continuing to work on this project overwinter. I'm growing about 30 plants in a bedroom window, and just started their offspring in a germination chamber. Another week or so, and I'll be able to take them out to the greenhouse during warmer days. Some of the offspring are forming flower buds, so it's looking good to get one more generation of seeds grown out before I start the spring tomatoes.

I didn't realize, before I started this project, how beautiful the offspring would be. Here's some tomato flowers that are a hybrid between domestic and wild tomatoes. I'm loving the bold floral display.

Am I right in guessing these are determinate tomatoes? Or has your focus on the flowers allowed some indeterminate traits to survive?

Casie Becker wrote:Am I right in guessing these are determinate tomatoes? Or has your focus on the flowers allowed some indeterminate traits to survive?

My starting varieties were a mix of determinates and indeterminates. Fruits were red, yellow, purple, or white. Fruit size was between 0.5" and 2.5", so offspring are likely to have a wide range of traits. My primary selection criteria is for promiscuous flowering traits, and ability to make viable seeds. Once that is well established, then I'll select for other traits like taste, and large fruits. I'm likely to settle on determinate growth pattern, cause that tends to work best with my short season. I'm likely to select for yellow, orange,  or white fruited tomatoes because I don't much care for the taste of red or purple fruits. A tremendous amount of diversity is expected, and I'm sharing seeds widely, so all sorts of wonderful traits and varieties are likely to arise from this project.

There are currently 16 fruits growing in my bedroom window, so I may have more seeds to share before spring.

It's funny how completely opposite your tomato taste and needs are to mine. The deep darker red a tomato is, the better it tastes to me. Yellow and orange tomatoes taste rather insipid to me. The best of them taste like a typical supermarket red tomato. I've never tried a purple tomato, but I suspect I'd like it. On top of that, I have a very long growing season and I'm happiest when I get a tomato plant through all eight months we can grow them here. Most people just plant a second set of plants in the fall because disease pressure and heat stress can be so hard on the spring plants.

Unfortunately, I also have a family member in the house who is deathly allergic to tomatoes. She can't even stand near the plants. I only grow a couple of plants each year, in beds at the far reaches of the yard. I've already planted saved seed from a variety I was impressed with. If it wouldn't risk sending my sister into anaphylatic shock I would consider trying to make next year my 'year of tomatoes'.

Hi Joseph
I thought of you today as I have been reading " Legumes " by JM Pelt ( it's in French I doubt it's available in the. uSA ) where he states that until the 1780s tomatoes where grown more for decoration than fruit in France . I wonder if these veg had flowers like yours
People did not eat the fruit because it raised unhealthy appetites strangely he gives no more details on this

David

Though not part of Joseph's project yet, his efforts have inspired my own goings and tinkering in the wild tomato breeding area.

Today i planted seed for 4 accessions of S. galapagense, one S. cheesmaiae, 2 S. habrochaites, and 1 S. peruvianum. I used the 1:1 ratio of water:bleach method soaked for 30 min for all of them (with a little lemon juice and cream of tartar mixed in). For S. galapagense and S. cheesmaniae they actually recommend 1 hour soaking, but i only did 30 min.

My earlier pots of test S. galapagense and S. cheesmaniae seemed to have germinated well. I have at least 5 seedlings of each that i can probably separate at some point into separate pots. The S. galapagense did take longer to germinate though and when i was still unsure if they would germinate at all i did add a little lemon juice to the soil one day. Not sure if it helped, but i guess it didn't hurt.

One of the accessions i think for S. cheesmaniae for the notes i wrote on the seed packet said exerted stigma and antho, so that sounds exciting. One of the S. galapagense accessions said red fruit which is unusual. I'm hoping the orange-brown fruit one actually is brown.

In a flat of seedlings which were harvested from S. peruvianum, that were inter-planted with S. habrochaites, there is one seedling that is off-type. Perhaps it's an interspecies hybrid? I'll keep watch on it, and see if other traits diverge later on.

The second photo is what is typical of the mother on the right. What is typical of the father on the left, and what looks like a plant with traits mid-way between the suspected parents in the middle.

The third photo shows a ripe tomato from a cross between a red domestic tomato, and S. habrochaites. Andrew: If it has any seeds in it, some of them are intended for you. The fruit turned more yellow under the sunlight in the greenhouse than it did in a low-light bedroom window.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:The third photo shows a ripe tomato from a cross between a red domestic tomato, and S. habrochaites. Andrew: If it has any seeds in it, some of them are intended for you. The fruit turned more yellow under the sunlight in the greenhouse than it did in a low-light bedroom window.

Wow! Thanks!

Here's my update so far.

Photo 1: Solanum galapagense. I LOVE these leaves!



2. Solanum cheesmaniae



3. Solanum habrochaites



4. Misidentified as Wx5 but really Solanum cheesmaniae?



5. Regular Tomato for comparison. I believe this is the variety known as "Anasazi" that i got from Boulder, CO.

Andrew Barney wrote:4. Misidentified as Wx5 but really Solanum cheesmaniae?

Looks like what I call WxO, or Wild Orange (synonymns) The defining characteristic of the variety is that it's the sweetest variety that I have grown. It came from the same set of crosses as Wx5, so recently descended from an unknown wild ancestor.

Wild Orange Flower


Wild Orange Fruit (aka WxO)

One of the second generation plants from this project is currently flowering. The anther cones are loosely-connected, and open, and the stigmas are somewhat exerted (inside red circles). Yay! The petals are small. Oh well. The floral display is decent in spite of the small petals. So it's OK as a first approximation. I am pollinating it with other plants from this project that have huge petals. The plant has a determinate growth pattern, which tends to work well in my garden.

Here's what part of the project looks like as of 2017-04-08.

Fruits ripened for the panamorous pollination project last week. I squeezed the juice/seeds out of them into a bottle to ferment. The fermentation finished today, so I harvested about 118 seeds. These are F2 seeds, the second generation since the cross. This is the most exciting generation for a plant breeder, because that's where the most diversity shows up in crosses.

I love this project... Fruits are ripe today from a fine specimen of "Oh My!". They were pollinated by "F1" in the pedigree shown a few posts ago. And by other pollen donors, some shown on the pedigree and others not shown.  What the pedigree didn't show is that F1 is 4 distinct lines of tomatoes. So the pedigree is more like a mesh-network. There is plenty of time this growing season to grow out the seeds, and select for traits that will further the project. Additionally, many more lines are currently flowering, and I am able to select for desired traits before planting them out into the garden, which I expect to do in about 2 weeks.

I love the flowers of the wild species. There are 3 different wild species in the following photo, and inter-species hybrids  between wild and domestic tomatoes.

found some interesting info today. Are you working with  S. sitiens and S. lycopersicoides? Because apparently they have scented flowers....

http://vanderknaaplab.uga.edu/files/Bedinger_Sex_Plant_Review.pdf

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10681-008-9863-6?LI=true

Variation in mating systems and correlated floral traits
in the tomato clade

The wild relatives of the cultivated tomato provide a
great diversity in mating systems and reproductive biology
(Rick 1988). Several species, including cultivated tomato,
S. lycopersicum (formerly Lycopersicon esculentum), are
autogamous, i.e. self-compatible (SC) and normally selfpollinating
(Table 1). They bear small- to modest-sized
flowers, on mostly simple and short inflorescences; their
corolla segments are relatively pale colored, the anthers
short, and the stigma surface does not protrude (exsert) far
beyond the tip of the anther cone, all traits that promote
self-pollination and discourage outcrossing.

At the other end of the spectrum are several allogamous
(outcrossing) species. These taxa are all self-incompatible
(SI) and have floral traits that promote cross-pollination,
including large, highly divided inflorescences, brightly
colored petals and anthers, and exserted stigmas. This
group includes two pairs of sister taxa—S. juglandifolium
and S. ochranthum, and S. lycopersicoides and S. sitiens—
that are closely allied with the tomato clade, but are classified
in two other sections of the genus (Peralta et al.
2008). All four of these tomato allies have unique floral
traits that set them apart from the tomatoes: anthers lack
the sterile appendage typical of tomato flowers, pollen is
shed via terminal anther pores instead of through longitudinal
slits, anthers are unattached rather than fused, and
flowers are noticeably scented (Chetelat et al. 2009). It
should be noted that S. pennellii lacks the sterile appendage
and has terminal pollen dehiscence, but in all other respects
more closely resembles the other members of the tomato
clade.

Between these extremes are two groups of species with
facultative mating systems. The first group, which includes
S. pimpinellifolium and S. chmielewskii, is SC but their
floral structures promote outcrossing. Within S. pimpinellifolium,
there is significant variation in both flower size
and outcrossing rate. Under field conditions with native bee
pollinators, the rate of outcrossing in S. pimpinellifolium
was positively correlated with anther length and stigma
exsertion (Rick et al. 1978).

Another striking difference is that flowers of S. sitiens and S. lycopersicoides are strongly scented, whereas those of S. chilense and S. peruvianum—like all other members of Solanum sect. Lycopersicon—have no obvious odor (Table 3). The production of volatile scent compounds presumably serves to attract insect pollinators, perhaps a broader suite of bee species or other types of insects. Interestingly, the floral scent of S. sitiens, a ‘mothball-like’ odor, is noticeably different from that of S. lycopersicoides, which is more reminiscent of honey or nectar.

Andrew, I'm currently growing 9 species of tomatoes, but not S. sitiens or S. lycopersicoides.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:2017-04-11: Fruits ripened for the panamorous pollination project [...] I harvested about 118 seeds.

Today I transplanted the seedlings into larger pots. There were 54 plants -- all derived from the same grandmother and grandfather. The seeds germinated and grew unevenly, so some are much more developed than others. I am thrilled with just under 50% germination! Some of the plants have fern-like leaves like their grandmother. With so many plants, there should be lots of opportunity to select for desired traits like flower characteristics, fruit size, and taste. I tasted some of the fruits from this family today. I was pleased that they picked up fruity flavors from the wild ancestor.

I planted about 40 seeds today from a different grandmother (same grandfather).

I have saved plenty of room in my fields to plant these widely separated so that I can easily evaluate each plant.

In the next few weeks, I expect more fruits to be developing. If any of you have been wanting to participate in this project, send me a first class postage stamp, and I'll share about a dozen F2 seeds as they become available.

Also, the most precocious of the F2 plants, from a different family, has fruits on it that are almost ripe. It's great-grandfather is the same as the grandfather of the plants in the other photo. I was able to grow out 3 generations of this family in a single growing season.

F1 = the first generation (children) of the cross
F2 = The second generation (grandchildren) of the cross

I love this thread. Joseph sent me some seed for a Solanum cornelio-muellerii x S. Peruvianum hybrid and the second plant just bloomed. Kind of exciting and it's different from the first the exserted stigma is much shorter. I call the first plant "faster father" and the second "slower father" because Joseph speculated over in a thread where I've been writing about my direct seeding adventures that two different accessions of S. Peruvianum he grew out were the pollen donors for the two accessions. One which grew faster and the other slower. Pictures below.

Might as well also show pictures of some other interesting wild tomatoes. The solanum habrochaites Joseph sent me "one from each accession" and a photo of a potato leaf plant called "Dwarf Hirsutum cross" from J&L Gardens in NM.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:In a flat of seedlings which were harvested from S. peruvianum, that were inter-planted with S. habrochaites, there is one seedling that is off-type. Perhaps it's an interspecies hybrid? I'll keep watch on it, and see if other traits diverge later on.

The second photo is what is typical of the mother on the right. What is typical of the father on the left, and what looks like a plant with traits mid-way between the suspected parents in the middle.

This seedling is very interesting and if it is indeed a cross between Habrochaites and Peruvianum I would love to have some seed from it! However it occurred to me it might possibly be the reciprocal cross from that Joseph sent me. Peruvianum x Cornelio muellerii. Though depending on circumstances this might not even be a possibility. I've been thinking I had 5 Cornelio-muelleri x peruvianum plants and 1 Solanum peruvianum. In examining my photos I think my tiniest Cornelio-muelleri x peruvianum is a second pure peruvianum and my labeling diligence needs work. So here are photos of the five for comparison.

I did a search for promiscuous individuals and varieties amongst my domestic tomatoes. Some of the beefsteaks are a little promising with some big messy double flowers with fused stigmas that should have higher outcrossing rates. One of the potato leaved Matina plants has slightly exserted stigmas. 2 of the JL landrace 2015 Potato Leaves are about the same and my real big Blue Gold is about the same- it has a slight tendency to push its stigmas out the side of its anther cone- and it'd the first domestic I spotted a bumble bee on. I found a few flowers of 42 days that seemed exserted but this seems to happen later in the flower development. However then I hit a jackpot. Blue Ambrosia has highly exserted stigmas comparable to those on the Solanum cornelio muelleri x S. Peruvianum and S. Peruvianum. Looks like I have five plants of this variety with two in bloom already and both of the two have the trait. It starts early on the young flowers and continues until they are old comparable again to the wild tomatoes.

I'm excited about this as I bet this means something like a 20% outcrossing rate or better for these plants. I'll definitely be saving a lot of seed and planting a lot of Blue Ambrosia next year. Most of the hybrids should have red fruit. Since Blue Ambrosia is a yellow/blue tomato which is doing well in direct seeding attempts (55 DTM) it should be possible to direct seed a lot of it next year. Hundred row feet next year? You bet! Hmm- hope it tastes good!

So I went a little crazy with the new vegibee pollinator this morning. I started with some of the pampered backyard tomatoes. Got a mix of pollen on the spoon from White Shah, Michael Pollen, Pineapple, D5 frost Trials, and maybe some from Krainy Sever. Then I ripped apart some young sweet Cherriette flowers. Pulled off the anther cone and dipped the stigma in the pollen spoon.

Then I went out to the land with those exposed stigmas of Blue Ambrosia on my mind.

I mixed pollen on the spoon from Forest Fire, Sweet Cherriette, 42 Days and Jagodka and dipped the Stigmas of the first Blue Ambrosia plant.

Then I added pollen from Siletz and dipped the stigmas of the second plant (March direct seeded).

Not done I went to the Solanum cornelio-muelleri x S. Peruvianum patch. I left the domestic pollen on the spoon just for luck and collected pollen from slow father, fast father, straight peruvianum, and that faster growing plant from the second batch (might be a fast father full sibling). Then I dipped the stigmas of the five or so flowers on the 2 frost top survivor with the different colored foliage. I went back to fast and slow for some more stigma dipping.

My wild promiscuous tomato patch has progressed in my absence. My LA 1777 descended Neandermato has grown and is putting out some tight buds.

However Slow Father and Fast Father have green fruits. However fast father has a purple stripe while slow father is uniformly purple. I just checked above and that stripe can be normal for peruvianum.

Also the plant of that same Cornelio-muelleri x which survived two frosts seems yet to have formed any fruits. With its different coloration I have to wonder if it has a different father- but what or whom?

William Schlegel wrote:My wild promiscuous tomato patch has progressed in my absence. My LA 1777 descended Neandermato has grown and is putting out some tight buds.

However Slow Father and Fast Father have green fruits. However fast father has a purple stripe while slow father is uniformly purple. I just checked above and that stripe can be normal for peruvianum.

Also the plant of that same Cornelio-muelleri x which survived two frosts seems yet to have formed any fruits. With its different coloration I have to wonder if it has a different father- but what or whom?

We'll amend that upon further observation. The LA 1777 descended plant buds are larger- close to blooming but not quite. Also interestingly the stigma has yet to emerge.

The plant which survived two frosts has formed a few fruits!- yay it is also the plant which I really want to plant the descendents of and ultimately cross with domestics.

Joseph, how do you think you are coming along with this or similar projects as related to your original posts and original stated goals? Perhaps a hard and complex question with an equally complex answer.

For everyone else, i am on the hunt for Solanum sitiens and Solanum lycopersicoides as these are two wild species of tomatoes that have scented flowers. I am highly interested in those and could see them enhancing this project even more.

Andrew Barney wrote:Joseph, how do you think you are coming along with this or similar projects as related to your original posts and original stated goals? Perhaps a hard and complex question with an equally complex answer.

This project is going wonderful. A lot of progress was made during the past year.

Some observations -----

It looks like the self-incompatibility trait is restored by simple segregation. So selecting for self-incompatible plants can be as easy as watching the plants and selecting for those that are self-incompatible. I estimate that about 10% of the F2 plants are self-incompatible. It looks like back-crossing the inter-species hybrids to wild species was also successful, so I'm following both paths to select for self-incompatibility.

The domestic-type flowering traits are highly pervasive among the offspring, By that I mean that about 90% of the offspring are reverting to domestic-type flowers rather than promiscuous flowers. It's just a numbers game at this point, so for the coming growing season, I'm intending to grow out large numbers of plants in the greenhouse in tiny pots, and selecting among them for promiscuous type flowers. The plants with promiscuous flowers can be planted together into the field. Those with industrialized flowers can be planted highly crowded into a different field, and selection among them gets to be for large or tasty fruits.

There is tremendous potential to select for fruits that are sweet, fruity, and aromatic. I might actually develop a tomato that pleases my taste buds, rather than something that is merely tolerated.

Many of these plants are huge monstrosities that seem to want to take over the garden! My selection criteria for the time being is first for promiscuity, but eventually for determinate growth habit. I'm sharing seed widely so that other people can select for what they find valuable.

The idea of using the plants promiscuity to make natural hybrids, which was suggested by John Weiland, was tried by Gilbert Fritz, who planted a Big Hill tomato surrounded by Neandermato (Solanum habrochaites). Gilbert shared seeds with me from Big Hill. I am super-excited about it.  Big Hill was my first attempt at making a promiscuous tomato. It combines my life-long favorite tasting tomato, Hillbilly, with Jagodka, my earliest and primary market tomato. Big Hill has open flowers, and is fairly susceptible to cross pollination. So last night I planted about 40 seeds provided by Gilbert. By the time they are a couple weeks old, it will be obvious if any of them are hybrids, because the leaf shape of Neandermato will be dominant in any crosses. If I find any hybrids, it will save me a year on my breeding goals, maybe two if I can get a seedcrop grown over-winter.

Inter-species hybrid fruits: [Domestic tomatoes X Neandermato]


There's some exciting leaf shapes showing up.




Bees continue to love the flowers




I collected lots of seed, so I am sharing widely. I highly value the collaborators that are working on this project with me. Thank you for growing these out, and doing your own experiments, and developing your own varieties.

Inter-species tomato hybrids


Where am I headed with this project?

Selecting for self-incompatibility ==> Polyamorous tomatoes

Selecting for beautifully promiscuous flowers ==> Panamorous tomatoes

Watching for anything clever that emerges ==> Conventional varieties of tomatoes

This summer, I intend to promote natural cross pollination between [domestic X S. habrochaites] and [domestic X S. pennellii]. I might attempt manual crossing as well, but I'm moving the whole project towards natural cross pollination as much as possible. I attempted natural inter-species crossing by planting one S. habrochaites plant into a patch of S. peruvianum plants. No fruits were produced by the S. habrochaites plant, indicating perhaps that they are pretty far apart genetically.

I'm intending to introduce more  diversity of s-alleles into the hybrid population.

I'm also working on adapting the wild species to my garden. I have now grown two generations of S. corneliomulleri. This year much more fruit was produced than last year, so it seems like survival of the fittest selection is working on it.

I'm not expecting to use S. galapagense, S. cheesmanae, or S pimpinellifolium in the beautifully promiscuous tomato project, but I was able to successfully grow seed from them, and expect to continue adapting them to my garden.

A somewhat related side project that I am working on, is growing wild tomato species. One of them that I am working with is Solanum galapagense. The seed for it came to me with complex instructions about how I should treat the seed so that it will germinate. Instructions I suppose that were someone's idea of what conditions the seed might experience if it were eaten by a turtle...

As usual, I said, "That's nonsense! I want to select for seed that grows just like any other garden vegetable." So I merely planted the seeds without treatment. Most of them failed to germinate. But a few germinated after a long time, so I grew out the plants and collected seeds from them. A few days ago, I planted some of the collected seeds. Plants germinated in a few days. Wow! That was quick. Seems like you get what you select for. I'm mainly selecting for plants that produce seeds in my garden. And that germinate quickly.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:A somewhat related side project that I am working on, is growing wild tomato species. One of them that I am working with it Solanum galapagense. The seed for it came to me with complex instructions about how I should treat the seed so that it will germinate. Instructions I suppose that were someone's idea of what conditions the seed might experience if it were eaten by a turtle...

As usual, I said, "That's nonsense! I want to select for seed that grows just like any other garden vegetable." So I merely planted the seeds without treatment. Most of them failed to germinate. But a few germinated after a long time, so I grew out the plants and collected seeds from them. A few days ago, I planted some of the collected seeds. Plants germinated in a few days. Wow! That was quick. Seems like you get what you select for. I'm mainly selecting for plants that produce seeds in my garden. And that germinate quickly.

haha, nice. What are you planning on doing with them? I had trouble with the S. cheesmaniae and S. galapagense. The galapagense has a more interesting genome, but for most of the season they grew very bushy and did not want to flower. Seemed like most of the few flowers that formed fell off like some sort of nutrient deficiency.  I had several accession going, one that supposedly had brown-ish fruits, and one that was an outlier having red fruits supposedly. Both of those failed to produce fruit for me sadly. But i did collect a few fruits from one plant that were small, orange, and hairy. So that's encouraging. The cheesmaiae produced small smooth orange fruit very late in the season, but i got a few of those too. The pimpinellifolium i grew seemed to grow fine on their own. Got plenty of fruits from them, but they were not very tasty at all so i am not particularly interested in them. I also grew out fruit from a company that was claiming to sell S. cheesmaniae tomatoes, and those turned out NOT to be pure cheesmaniae as they were some sort of domestic hybrid. But those actually did really well for me and were very tasty non-the-less so i am keeping them anyway.

No, thank you for all the inspiring hard work you do. When you first announced this project i don't think i had much if any interest in it other that the curious notion that yes i would like to see a domestic tomato that attracts pollinators to help them out. Little did i know then how much this project would become interesting and exciting. I LOVE working with the wild tomato species, there is just something special about them. Reminds me of the fun experiments with weird corn traits and growing teosinte. I get much of the same satisfaction from growing these as i did those. Hope to grow those again someday. I am very much enjoying doing my own grow outs and experiments that are synergistic to yours, but different. A good compliment as i feel your stuff encourages me and perhaps mine encourages you.

I have a lead on some germplasm for S. lycopersicoides from a chilean seed company / preservation company. They are currently out of stock according to their website, but i sent them an email to try and find out. That species sounds very interesting because it is supposed to have great frost tolerance, it has unique nectar smelling flowers, and it has small jet-black tomato fruits. All very interesting traits. Think it also has highly exerted stigmas ans SI.

You may have already answered this, i will have to go back reread your last post. But, what are your side project goals? Are you just intending on maintaining wild populations to continue to allow natural back-crossing? I think you teased at hinting that you are planning on trying for more natural bee hybrids with the wild tomatoes. I like your idea of planting the industrialized flowers in one group versus the non-industrialized flowers in another group. Great idea. The small galapagos and pimp. tomatoes all had tiny closed up industrial flowers in my garden.

I realized that one of the tomatoes in another pot here inside that i was not really paying much attention to other than keeping it alive has S. habrochaites type leaves-ish and smell-ish. What is strange is that i was pretty sure i planted F2 S. pennellii hybrids in that pot. So... wondering if it actually is a natural bee hybrid between the pennellii ancestry domestic and S. habrochaites... It might be.. According to this clade diagram both pennellii and habrocaites are in the same group next to each other...

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:The domestic-type flowering traits are highly pervasive among the offspring, By that I mean that about 90% of the offspring are reverting to domestic-type flowers rather than promiscuous flowers. It's just a numbers game at this point, so for the coming growing season, I'm intending to grow out large numbers of plants in the greenhouse in tiny pots, and selecting among them for promiscuous type flowers. The plants with promiscuous flowers can be planted together into the field. Those with industrialized flowers can be planted highly crowded into a different field, and selection among them gets to be for large or tasty fruits.

There is tremendous potential to select for fruits that are sweet, fruity, and aromatic. I might actually develop a tomato that pleases my taste buds, rather than something that is merely tolerated.

Many of these plants are huge monstrosities that seem to want to take over the garden! My selection criteria for the time being is first for promiscuity, but eventually for determinate growth habit. I'm sharing seed widely so that other people can select for what they find valuable.

The idea of using the plants promiscuity to make natural hybrids, which was suggested by John Weiland, was tried by Gilbert Fritz, who planted a Big Hill tomato surrounded by Neandermato (Solanum habrochaites). Gilbert shared seeds with me from Big Hill. I am super-excited about it.  Big Hill was my first attempt at making a promiscuous tomato. It combines my life-long favorite tasting tomato, Hillbilly, with Jagodka, my earliest and primary market tomato. Big Hill has open flowers, and is fairly susceptible to cross pollination. So last night I planted about 40 seeds provided by Gilbert. By the time they are a couple weeks old, it will be obvious if any of them are hybrids, because the leaf shape of Neandermato will be dominant in any crosses. If I find any hybrids, it will save me a year on my breeding goals, maybe two if I can get a seedcrop grown over-winter.

I applaud the idea for selecting for new flavors and sugars and tastes. Though, i wonder how complex that may turn out to be. This year i grew out one of the strange "peach" tomatoes. It actually had peach colored flesh which was weird, but i grew it for the hairy fruit novelty. They actually had less hair or fuzz than i was hoping for. They are probably they weirdest tomato i have ever tasted. Flavor was similar to eating an aromatic flower, yet sugar was non-existent. Not really a good tomato at all despite my openness to new flavors and tastes that are not traditional tomato flavors Ie. an acidic tomato or a high-sugar tomato.

So far i like the pennellii monster plants. Quite nice to see a tomato that thrives in my soil for once!

But, this year i grew out the Aft tomatoes (LA1996), one of the precursor lines to the famous OSU blue tomato. I found it to be fantastic! The fruits really were not blue, but had some antho smudging on them. Actually made the tomatoes look kinda dirty, but it was genetics not dirt. The plant itself was a short determinate plant but produced large tomatoes with an abundant crop in my garden which is rare on all counts! I am going to keep this line as it is one of the best i have found so far. Finally know what it is like to grow some decent tomatoes. I may share some seed with you for it at some point since you like determinates so much.