Direct Seeded Tomato Breeding Project Year 2

Homegrown Goodness seems to be down.

Regardless,  William, did i tell you i in fact had some volunteer tomatoes this year that self seeded from last year.  They are flowering and fruiting now.  Im interested to see what i get. It will be a surprise.

One of the cheesmaniae or pimpinellifolium that self seeded in the spot where the pimpinellifolium / peruvianum was growing last year looks like it May have a purple stripe on it! I wonder if it got bee crossed with peruvianum! Neither have stripes!

.. let me see if i can link the photo. . Be back soon!

EDIT:

20180828_195032 by Andrew Barney, on Flickr

Andrew Barney wrote:Homegrown Goodness seems to be down.

Regardless,  William, did i tell you i in fact had some volunteer tomatoes this year that self seeded from last year.  They are flowering and fruiting now.  Im interested to see what i get. It will be a surprise.

One of the cheesmaniae or pimpinellifolium that self seeded in the spot where the pimpinellifolium / peruvianum was growing last year looks like it May have a purple stripe on it! I wonder if it got bee crossed with peruvianum! Neither have stripes!

.. let me see if i can link the photo. . Be back soon!

EDIT:

20180828_195032 by Andrew Barney, on Flickr

Interesting! Looks like a interspecies hybrid of some kind! How far away was the habrochaites also? When you say neither have stripes do you mean the two possible mothers you listed?

William Schlegel wrote:

Andrew Barney wrote:Homegrown Goodness seems to be down.

Regardless,  William, did i tell you i in fact had some volunteer tomatoes this year that self seeded from last year.  They are flowering and fruiting now.  Im interested to see what i get. It will be a surprise.

One of the cheesmaniae or pimpinellifolium that self seeded in the spot where the pimpinellifolium / peruvianum was growing last year looks like it May have a purple stripe on it! I wonder if it got bee crossed with peruvianum! Neither have stripes!

.. let me see if i can link the photo. . Be back soon!

EDIT:

20180828_195032 by Andrew Barney, on Flickr

Interesting! Looks like a interspecies hybrid of some kind! How far away was the habrochaites also? When you say neither have stripes do you mean the two possible mothers you listed?

The Hab. was pretty close also,  maybe 2 feet away.  They're was also an F2 or F3 from Joseph that was [fern x hab.] About 5 feet away,  also with closed flowers.

Yes both possible mothers have tiny closed flowers and no stripes.  Only tiny red or tiny yellow tomatoes.  So this is unexpected and exciting!

Back home after a long seed collecting trip for work.

Several of my volunteer tomato plants have turned out to be yellow pear. Yellow pear is a very old variety and I suspect it has just the right combination of seed size and high productivity to make it so that it is hard to pick all the tomatoes and so those seeds volunteer well. It also tastes really good.

Joseph sent me some seed for his Brad x Yellow Pear cross. I saved a little bit an early yellow round, and an early red round tomato, but most of the results seemed pretty ordinary, so I will grow out more of the original packet next year. I hope to find an earlier yellow pear and perhaps a early red pear. Nonetheless it seems yellow pear has some potential for breeding a direct seeded tomato and it might work even better if it were an earlier tomato.

The direct seeded patch, all descended from Blue Ambrosia, has a lot of large red tomatoes in it. These are all putative hybrids using  higher natural outcrossing rates of exserted stigma tomatoes!

Which means that grown out again next year, they should produce great variation! A breeders grex!

One of my sweet cherriettes looks like a yellow pear as well...

William, if you want the 10 seeds i got from TGRC for "Long John" mutant,  you can have them.  It's the same basic mutation as pear, but another one for extra long.  Very weird.  I think it would be interesting crossed to one of those "stuffing tomato" mutants.

Mike Jay wrote:One of my sweet cherriettes looks like a yellow pear as well...

Some sweet cherriettes are pear shaped. Some of mine last year were, and my plant this year is.

Andrew Barney wrote:William, if you want the 10 seeds i got from TGRC for "Long John" mutant,  you can have them.  It's the same basic mutation as pear, but another one for extra long.  Very weird.  I think it would be interesting crossed to one of those "stuffing tomato" mutants.

That sounds like a neat tomato, but I think I want to concentrate my direct seeded efforts a bit on Blue Ambrosia and Big Hill descendents next year. Oh and my not direct seeded efforts on the wild tomatoes- for eventual inclusion in the direct seeded project. I just need enough half wild seed for direct seeding trials.

On the wild note a red partially eaten Penellii X domestic greeted me on my return home and I got about twenty seeds from it. That might be it from my 12 plants. I managed to abuse them into terrible productivity. Maybe I am exerting a strong selective force that will result in something cool later?

Here are some photos of Blue Ambrosia descendent diversity.

Some of the reds look like they could have been fathered by Krainy Sever which has green shoulders that eventually turn orangish.

Update: got the hybrid red blue ambrosia descendents, the dark blue blue amrosias, some more big hills, and some blue skinned regular leafed descendents of potato leafed exserted stigma into fermentation. Have six fermentation containers with twork tiny wild tomato cups. With the previously saved seeds should have plenty for direct seeding next year.

My basic scheme is to exploit the exserted stigma trait for multi generation direct seeded landrace breeding. I plan to use yellow tomatoes, blue skinned tomatoes, and potato leafed tomatoes as markers.

This year's accomplishments:

Blue skinned regular leaved descendent of a potato leaved exserted tomato from JL's landrace. That is itself modestly exserted.

Grex seed mix of red F1 hybrids which should segregate back to yellow and exserted stigmas in the F2

Possible goals in the way of future direct seeded tomatoes:

Exserted stigma Blue skinned Big Hill x Blue Ambrosia descendent's

Yellow fruited potato leafed extreme form exserted stigma tomato (this might be a useful breeding tool for this type of breeding)


To do next year by direct seeding:

Grow out Big Hill saved seeds looking for blue skinned and other off type F1 hybrids.

Grow out F2 of red descendents of Blue Ambrosia.

Grow out F2 of blue skinned RL descendent of PL exserted

Save seeds of promising PL plants, any blue big hills, look for large yellow segregates of blue ambrosia descendents.

I am planning a new sub project with the wild tomatoes, currently getting some supplies and picking out some plants to dig up for winter breeding. Basically Solananum Peruvianum has a lot of potential for direct seeding but I want a hybrid and there are multiple possible ways to get that: Joseph and Andrew even have a few possibilities in their gardens now. However I want to make a serious attempt over the winter to get that hybrid, so we will see. My previous track record with winter plants is that not much happens over the winter. I'll fill you in a bit more as I get some supplies ordered in the next few days.

William Schlegel wrote:On the wild note a red partially eaten Penellii X domestic greeted me on my return home and I got about twenty seeds from it.

Very nice. So far, all  of my ripe fruits from this cross have been green or yellowish-green. I haven't found any reds yet. I might be within a week of frost. Already frost has killed the squash leaves in one of my fields.

William Schlegel wrote:On the wild note a red partially eaten Penellii X domestic greeted me on my return home and I got about twenty seeds from it.

Yeah,  that red one sounds interesting. How does it taste? Maybe you should save it or a cutting?

Andrew Barney wrote:

William Schlegel wrote:On the wild note a red partially eaten Penellii X domestic greeted me on my return home and I got about twenty seeds from it.

Yeah,  that red one sounds interesting. How does it taste? Maybe you should save it or a cutting?

I didn't try it, the partially eaten nature of the fruit was unappetizing. I am however considering digging up the plant today. For winter gardening!

One sub project I am working on is trying to get wild tomatoes to a point where they can be direct seeded in my climate. Of the species I have been growing the Solanum peruvianum complex tomatoes have been showing the most promise for direct seeding. They reseeded themselves for me, and they've been reseeding themselves for Joseph and Andrew. Unfortunately they have a reputation for requiring extreme measures to cross with domestic tomato. We don't necessarily need them to cross directly with domestic. So there are two well known approaches. Crossing with Solanum chilense as a bridge, or doing embryo rescue. I plan to dust off my plant tissue culture kit and laminar flow hood from fungi perfecti.com and have a go at the latter. Joseph and Andrew have both tried growing chilense before with no flowers, but I will try as well with the understanding that it's a total houseplant in my climate!

So flirting with the first fall frost I made some pollinations in the garden today which will hopefully mature enough to be rescued as embryos. I brought some spiffy new tags with me and my pollinator tool was already out there. So using my forceps I stripped off all the too old and too young flowers off each cluster I victimized leaving 1 to 4 in the goldilocks zone. These I emasculated, dipped in Peruvianum complex pollen, and tagged. I did five clusters of domestic (Blue Ambrosia and descendents), two penellii x domestic, hab x domestic, and a BC1. Oddly I forgot to bring my rite in the rain pen and didn't grab a pencil that I knew where was so the labels are blank for now. Perhaps I should redip them in peruvianum pollen tomorrow? Might have a proposal to help write tomorrow though.

Then I dug up one domestic (blue ambrosia), one penellii x, one hab cross, and a peruvianum complex. I've potted these back up and put them in the unheated greenhouse. [br][br]I've also planted seed for peruvianum complex, and blue ambrosia.

I ordered a few supplies and they arrived today. The tags, a small digital scope designed for soddering, a packet of media, some forceps, and some insulin needles someone told me might be useful for picking up the embryos (I think I need a handle to screw them onto though- ideally autoclavable).

The biggest problem is the media. I have a lot of old media, and realized that the new packet I bought has a hormone added which I didn't mean to get. The protocol a researcher sent me that started me down this rabbit hole has a specialty media. I asked the media supply houses I usually use and they wanted $400 and $700 respectively for a 100 liter batch. Which is a bit pricey for me. Though I may be able to mix up my own if I can find a lab that will let me use their facilities. The other protocol suggests three hormones added to a basic MS media. I might have some old hormones still. May just have to try it, or order some basic MS with the hormones recommended in the second protocol. The two protocols also differ in the timing of embryo excision. Sounds like more than one media might work so Maybe I will mix up several different kinds and see. Folks have been doing this with varying degrees of success for 80 years so!

I've also ordered seed for chilense and golden tressette. From sacred succulents and the kapulers respectively.

Now if I can just figure out how to keep the plants warm and well lit for the winter...

Im Not sure if I've put my thoughts into coherent words that I've shared all in one place,  but i have a theory of sorts that not just S. Chilense can be used as a bridge species.  I think others like pennellii might also work and other F1 or F2 hybrids as their genetics is already really crazy that they seem like they have greater potential to give or accept pollen from or to sources that wouldn't necessarily accept it. Even More so if you had some F1 species from one group crossing with F1 crosses of other species.

That Interesting plant in my garden that is most likely from natural direct seeded fruits from last year (mother is either pimpinellifolium or cheesmaniae) seems to be showing green striped fruits like habrochiates. It is possible it got crossed by bees with joseph's [F2/F3 fern x hab.]

I'm Not sure what you mean by the goldilocks zone haha,  but if your referring to the (-5 days) method of pollinating inmature flowers to try and bypass any incompatibilities, you May need to use some oil to get the pollen to stick. Out of MANY hand pollinations this winter with that F2 pennellii, and some attempting cutting the stigma/style shorter for domestic pollen to reach the ovaries just in case,  i had About 4 fruits develop.  But i lost them when i planted it out.

Andrew Barney wrote:Im Not sure if I've put my thoughts into coherent words that I've shared all in one place,  but i have a theory of sorts that not just S. Chilense can be used as a bridge species.  I think others like pennellii might also work and other F1 or F2 hybrids as their genetics is already really crazy that they seem like they have greater potential to give or accept pollen from or to sources that wouldn't necessarily accept it. Even More so if you had some F1 species from one group crossing with F1 crosses of other species.

That Interesting plant in my garden that is most likely from natural direct seeded fruits from last year (mother is either pimpinellifolium or cheesmaniae) seems to be showing green striped fruits like habrochiates. It is possible it got crossed by bees with joseph's [F2/F3 fern x hab.]

I'm Not sure what you mean by the goldilocks zone haha,  but if your referring to the (-5 days) method of pollinating inmature flowers to try and bypass any incompatibilities, you May need to use some oil to get the pollen to stick. Out of MANY hand pollinations this winter with that F2 pennellii, and some attempting cutting the stigma/style shorter for domestic pollen to reach the ovaries just in case,  i had About 4 fruits develop.  But i lost them when i planted it out.

My plan is to try for a bit without oil. By the goldilocks zone I am actually thinking of this guide to organic tomato breeding I was reviewing lately. They don't call it the goldilocks zone, they just have photos of an tomato inflorescence maybe with little circles and arrows and such saying things like: "too old", "too young", "just right". I've also reviewed some YouTube videos, and books in the past. I'm not really quite up to speed yet about the -5 days technique you use, or the oil except I have been following along (or trying) as you write about it. At this point I am still curious to see if regular pollinations will take. If these take that's great. If not I'll up my game!

I agree that the other species and hybrids might be possible bridges as well. A week or two ago I found an old post of yours where you had found a figure someone made of exactly the sort of hybrids we need for peruvianum. It was photos of crosses of things like S. Cornelio muelleri x S. Habrochaites. Which is part of why I dug up as many plants as I did and tried crosses yesterday with all the hybrids I did. If it turns out for instance that (Penellii x domestic) x peruvianum is an easier cross to make and: requires no oil, no -5 days, no cut style, and no embryo rescue (or any combinatiom of simplification ). Well then I would be growing a lot more of that hybrid in order to get the peruvianum hybrid!

I get an awful lot of my tomato breeding info from you and Joseph! Also much of my breeding stock!

The two putative hybrids Joseph found and your interesting plant are another example of how the peruvianum crossing problem might be solved (maybe even already) If we just get one seedling that turns out to be a hybrid for sure, it may bridge the divide. You got Penellii better in the mix for us this year with your seed share of the hybrid last winter which could lead to things next year who knows?

When I was making the deliberate crosses yesterday and redipping them today especially in the wild tomato bed it struck me as funny to be grabbing peruvianum pollen literally right next to my target plant. Its very possible that the bees have already done this work and the desired hybrid is already in a packet or heading into my soil seed bank. I thought that last year as well.

Another route might be to get chilense crossed in. If growing Chilense in a pot year round we can get it to bloom and set seed, we can try crosses as follows: Chilense x peruvianum complex, chilense x (Penellii x domestic), chilense x domestic, chilense x habrochaites, and Chilense x (habrochaites x domestic)...  we may also soon from what Joseph has written have some three way  1/4 Penellii x 1/4 hab x 1/2 domestic.

Making more hand pollinations for the Peruvianum hybridization sub-project.

My garden got frosted today September 14th which puts an end to my outdoor gardening season.

I lost some pollinations for the embryo rescue but that's ok will continue on with potted plants.

The main direct seeded experiment this year was not remotely as productive as last year's.  Reason probably has to do with weeding, watering, and plant genetics including fruit size as Blue Ambrosia fruits are small, and they aren't as lightning fast as some I tried last year in 2017.

Biggest success was getting some natural hybrids that happened in the 2017 garden. These hybrids Blue Ambrosia x unknown reds will get direct seeded again hopefully next year for the F2 grow out. Now that should be interesting- and the start of tomatoes that are truly bred for this method, in my climate.

So we can call this a "good selection year".  Got plenty of seed, which should be highly variable.  Joseph considers the third year of a breeding project to be an important one. Will see.

Made two more pollination's on the plants I potted up this evening. Should redip them in pollen tomorrow to make sure. That brings me up to 7 pollinated flowers. It would be better to do this at the height of the growing season when there are hundreds of flowers, but I am busy then.

In general I am all for tomatoes that breed themselves and a side project to make some crosses that require embryo rescue to happen seems antithetical to that, even though I am doing that as a step towards the goal.

I mentally went down a similar rabbit hole today. Some wild tomato species do better if grafted. So I looked into tomato grafting a little. Also an idea I am generally opposed to, I want instead tomato genetics that don't need to be grafted. However I could see it being a useful intermediary step for breeding with those species. Which could lead to tomatoes that don't need to be grafted.

Generally though I suspect that I may already have in the Peruvianum complex plants the wild tomatoes with potentially the most to contribute to my direct seeded tomatoes. Thus the plan to do embryo rescue with them.

Pollination seems to be taking on Blue Ambrosia from Peruvianum pollen.

There is a red tomato on the penelli x domestic with some fuzz and some blue pigment.

William Schlegel wrote:

Mike Jay wrote:Hi William, the three batches of seeds I planted mostly all sprouted.  Despite being planted over the course of three weeks they are all about the same size (1" high).  We haven't had a frost in a month and we're past the "normal" last frost date.  

Are these indeterminate varieties?  I'm trying to figure out if I need to get some cages ready or not.

Hi Mike,

I checked our Purple Moosages and it looks like I sent you Anmore Dewdrop, Sweet Cherriette, and F3 Sungold or thereabouts. Did I throw in any other tomatoes? Anmore Dewdrop is semi determinate with petite plants. Sweet Cherriette is indeterminate but plants were small, and Sungolds are hmm- some of the F2's stopped producing in a very determinate sort of way. The way I grew tomatoes last year only my long season tomatoes really benefited from tomato cages. Nothing direct seeded much needed or got caged. Though some of the big direct seeded planting could have benefited from cages, but none of the three I mentioned above would much need a cage. When I had tons and tons of direct seeded plants last year I didn't cage much because honestly I don't own enough cages. Last year I caged what I could but also found that tomato cages are really useful for peas and favas. That said I should probably pop on a cage here and there just for show if nothing else. Might do it about the end of June when I have a little time off.

Mine are about 1 inch to three inches high with volunteers still popping up with each good rain event. My focus this year is on trying to grow lots of the Blue Ambrosia which I thought/think based on the observed nature of its exserted style should have a high outcrossing rate. So I literally just have a few or a clump of some of the most promising 2017 varieties for use as pollen donors and I started them inside.

Right now I am fighting weeds between schoolwork and getting ready for a work trip as soon as finals are over and my BCS rototiller won't start. Will get as much done as I can.

Oh man I have a lot to learn. I'm trying, so here goes, "determinate?"  From the Web: BOTANY
(of a flowering shoot) having the main axis ending in a flower bud and therefore no longer extending in length, as in a cyme.
If you wouldn't mind translating this for me?
I really need to learn about plants and this thread looks perfect, thank you William
Brian

Brian Rodgers wrote:
Oh man I have a lot to learn. I'm trying, so here goes, "determinate?"  From the Web: BOTANY
(of a flowering shoot) having the main axis ending in a flower bud and therefore no longer extending in length, as in a cyme.
If you wouldn't mind translating this for me?
I really need to learn about plants and this thread looks perfect, thank you William
Brian

Hi Brian,

Determinate tomatoes produce a single crop of tomatoes. Indeterminate tomatoes keep producing.

My mom always liked indeterminate best. Joseph Loft house my mentor here on Permies in vegetable breeding likes determinate best.

The local lady who raises seed  for the local vegetable seed co-op of Silvery Fir Tree a determinate variety explained it well a few years ago. She thinks we should be growing them around here because all the tomatoes get ripe before frost.

The disadvantage is that once determinates have produced they are done. I think this led to my mom's dislike. If you treat them badly they might only produce say two tomatoes. Per plant. That's pretty much what I got from Big Hill this year. Though my indeterminates grown under the same conditions didn't fare much better. Also indeterminates can spread out the tomato harvest and canning season and give you a giant box of green tomatoes at the end of the growing season which my mom, and my mom's mom always allowed to slowly ripen inside into relatively tasteless tomatoes. Lately I have just been leaving the green ones on the vine at the end. Though I still have frozen tomatoes from last year.

In my breeding program I am pretty excited about using Big Hill a determinate bred by Joseph Lofthouse and Blue Ambrosia a indeterminate bred by Lee Goodwin. Both these tomatoes are what Joseph calls "promiscuous"  Which means they should have a high rate of natural crosses- and why I intermixed the plants this year in my garden, hoping for a few natural crosses to show up in 2019.

I don't plan to try for a winter generation of Big Hill because it's determinate- I don't think it would do well under the sub optimal growing conditions and it would only give me a limited window for pollinations during which time I might be too busy. Blue Ambrosia, being indeterminate, should give at least a few flowers continuously over a long time period.

I grew some plants this year that were naturally-occurring, indeterminate hybrids with Big Hill as the mother of the cross. I really enjoyed them.

Thank you so much for the clear explanation. That really helps. This sparked another question. Do tomato vines work well for chop and drop? Having a greenhouse full I get a lot of trimmings, which I put in the compost. Something seems different about the way tomato vines break down or don't.
Brian  

Brian Rodgers wrote:Thank you so much for the clear explanation. That really helps. This sparked another question. Do tomato vines work well for chop and drop? Having a greenhouse full I get a lot of trimmings, which I put in the compost. Something seems different about the way tomato vines break down or don't.
Brian  

Hi Brian,

I don't chop and drop. I till in my tomato plants at the end or beginning of the growing season. They decompose eventually. I also haven't been doing crop rotation. I want my tomatoes to experience any disease pressures I have here in my low tomato disease pressure area. That's a plant breeding thing though, not a general gardening thing.

Ok, here's my report.  All the varieties made a ton of tomatoes.  This year was unusual, we had three Augusts and it was dry.  So better than average tomato weather.  As you can tell from the photo I haven't been harvesting them lately.  We've found most of our tomato harvest is either for the market or for canning.  We did harvest and sell every other week for market, but picking them for canning isn't worthwhile.  I taste tested them all and the only one I was really interested in was the rogue yellow pear one.  So I saved those seeds.

I was impressed that they took off and fruited so quickly.  I probably should have put them on trelli or something.  Maybe these are the only situation where those crappy tomato cages would actually work (due to the shorter stature of the plants).

Mike Jay wrote:Ok, here's my report.  All the varieties made a ton of tomatoes.  This year was unusual, we had three Augusts and it was dry.  So better than average tomato weather.  As you can tell from the photo I haven't been harvesting them lately.  We've found most of our tomato harvest is either for the market or for canning.  We did harvest and sell every other week for market, but picking them for canning isn't worthwhile.  I taste tested them all and the only one I was really interested in was the rogue yellow pear one.  So I saved those seeds.

I was impressed that they took off and fruited so quickly.  I probably should have put them on trelli or something.  Maybe these are the only situation where those crappy tomato cages would actually work (due to the shorter stature of the plants).

Do you think the yellow pear one is a dropped seed or a hybrid? Is it yellow? Some of the sweet cherriettes are pear shaped but red, before I thought that was what you were mentioning.

I hear you about the flavor. I really only see the ultra early reds as breeding stock. For instance: I have it in mind to cross sweet cherriette with coyote and amethyst cream both of which are small cherries with better flavor in my opinion. Sub project is to get better flavored and fancier ultra earlies in general. Josephs Brad x yellow pear is a step in that direction as is his Big Hill. Big Hill x Blue Ambrosia kind of kills a few birds with one stone. Both parents are exserted. Blue Ambrosia has good flavor probably from Sungold ancestry. Big Hill is a bicolor which are also very good flavored. They both have open flowers so my planting them together this year should lead to some natural crosses next year. Only problem is they are only medium early probably in the 55 day range from transplant. Good enough I think for direct seeding here, but maybe not in a little bit shorter season. Maybe if I get a cross between those two I will cross it back to something really early like 42 days.