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Colorado

A butchered quote from Shakespeare Hamlet.

Random tomato rambling

While I was doing my genetic research I read a ton of comments and posts from marv. One thing he stressed was good record keeping and how we may have already lost the info to trace back linage of some tomatoes. His comments tended to keep me on track to build the genetic chart I did. The one area I tend to have a different opinion from him is stabilizing a genetic cross. His thinking was to cross a tomato and grow it out 6-8 generations to stabilize the “new” strain. This is very common practice in regular tomatoes. This is how we now have all the colors, sized, shapes, etc. When we are growing a Giant tomato we could care less if traits stabilize as long as it grows huge. Pumpkins are continually crossed and rarely if ever let to grow out past f2. I think crossing tomatoes and picking the biggest fruit might give better results than only picking the biggest fruit alone. I know to some tomatoes are the red globed stepchild in the pumpkin world, more of an afterthought than a primary concern. Tho I believe with a bit of thought, discussion and cooperation we can grow some amazing tomatoes.

2/5/2022 5:38:21 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

My personal best was grown on an F2 megamuttD seed which was a cross of a cross. For some reason, I have had more success with low F crosses than stabilized varieties. Looking at the seeds I am planning for next year,mine and ones that others grew, I would say about 3/4ths of my plants will not be stabilized. Growing out until stabilization works if you are a commercial grower and can grow hundreds of plants per year. For the rest of us...a small sample is better than no sample. The competition for the biggest result from a new cross was always fun. We need some crossers to keep this going. I am going to try Dan S method of crossing during the summer. Plant characteristics would be easier to cross without having to rely on winter growing.

It is the crosses that made tomato growing fun for me. And fun is the only reason i grow.

2/5/2022 6:20:40 PM

Colorado

I have some ideas to make it easier to do crosses. I am a tomato cloner I think taking a clone from the plants late fall
then growing them to fruit indoors might be the way to go since you don't have to guess if the next seed is as good as the one grown before.

2/5/2022 10:06:19 PM