Short and sweet winter project
 

Working toward a new tomato small enough to grow indoors yet also with a great flavour. There are many micro dwarfs that are fun to grow but not many I have tried that had much to offer in the way of that tangy sweet flavour I personally prefer.
To that end I made several crosses last spring using Andrina, Venus, gold pearl, Aztec crossed to full size OP indeterminate tomato plants that I consider to have great flavour and interesting qualities I would like to see in a small plant. I grew out the original crossed fruit, collected seed and grew out the F1’s over summer.
F2 seed has now been planted and selection has begun for dwarfs as the initial criteria, as expected approximately 25% of the F2 seedlings sown.
4 different crosses are being grown by myself and friend Teresa Smith in NC. Salsa Charley also graciously offered to participate in the F2 growout and is growing out some of the Andrina cross.
As always with F2 and with 4 different crosses in play I would expect a lot if variability which we are seeing already just as very young seedlings
I’ll post photos here once I have made my final selections to grow out and invite Teresa and Charley to do so as well if they wish.
Meantime if interested there is an album called “ The short and sweet micro project” on my northern gardener page
It’s a treat to be growing seedlings here in November.
The goal of this project is an interesting, new and tasty cherry on a small dwarf plant. Suitable to grow indoors or out. Ideally Early as well

[url]https://www.facebook.com/pg/NorthernGardenerCanada/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1193656547442198[/url]

KarenO

The micro-dwarf line I've stabilized out after the initial cross manages to produce much larger fruit than the original TinyTim I started with. The flavor is meh, but it showed me the micro plants could work with genetics for larger fruit. There are probably limits, but that will require further experimentation.

[QUOTE=Darren Abbey;719458]The micro-dwarf line I've stabilized out after the initial cross manages to produce much larger fruit than the original TinyTim I started with. The flavor is meh, but it showed me the micro plants could work with genetics for larger fruit. There are probably limits, but that will require further experimentation.[/QUOTE]

Interesting Darren, how large?
I am not aiming for fruit larger than cherry size but I did use beefsteak parents crossed to the micro in some of them in an effort to bring some flavour into mine. The F1’s all were nondescript large red cherries on non dwarf plants as expected but all of them tasted very good and notably, far better than the micro parent so
I have hope that with a fairly large F2 growout there will be something good to take forward, too early to tell of course at this point. The possibility also exists in my crosses for variety in colour, leaf form and potential for stripes as well so quite a genetic alphabet soup we have going here.
Ideal goal is a fancy striped micro that tastes great.
;) too much to ask? Who knows, we shall see.
KarenO

The average fruit size in this generation was 20.12 g. (Some plants averaged ~25g, while others ~15g. There was a strong plant-position-effect in the data.) The fruit were roughly twice as big as those on happy Tiny Tim plants I've grown in previous years. The one I grew this year was mostly ignored and had smaller than usual fruit.

I wasn't aiming for large fruit in particular, but the one micro F2 line I managed to recover and stabilize carried some larger fruit alleles along with it.

One plant this year had distinctly purple leaves, with no reduction in productivity compared to its neighbors. I saved those seeds separately. There was no anthocyanin-enhanced parentage in its history, so this was a surprise.
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My understanding is the micro-dwarfs have two recessive dwarfing loci, so they'll be 1/16 of the F2s. You can get them even smaller if one of the parents was determinate, bringing it down to 1/64. You'll pretty quick get a feel for how to identify the normal/dwarf/micro classes of seedlings. It helps if they're under bright lights. Under less-intense lighting, the dwarfs and micros will stretch up and mimic the normals. (This was very frustrating for me this year.)

I've been trying to cross some of the anthocyanin traits from Indigo Rose into a micro, but no luck yet. I still need more practice with directed crosses. I might have had a F1 turn out last year btwn Tiny Tim and a beta-carotene line I've been growing. I have a bunch of seeds from that plant I need to screen for micros.
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Too much to ask? Never!

Never indeed :)

It will be interesting to see how many of the dwarfs we are seeing stay small. We are identifying in the range of around 20%
From the four crosses, so far as dwarf but they are small seedlings still at this point.
I culled my group from 150 plants down to 45 at present and expect to cull another half of those. Charley is down to 18 small dwarf plants from his original number and his are further ahead beginning to bloom. His graciously agreed to give this project a go in his winter grow and is growing the cross I did with Andrina.
My friend Teresa in NC, like me is growing all four crosses out and is a little behind me starting to cull obvious non dwarfs so far.
I am not bent on a small micro, rather I am absolutely more focused on flavour and so if the standard definition of a micro is under 14 inches at maturity, I am very willing to stretch that to 18 in this project if the flavour is there. A plant that is attractive, healthy and reasonably early as well if I may ask for more :)

This one is one of mine from a cross I did with the yellow micr “ Venus”
Time will tell as always. Small rugose dwarf, nice looking so far.

Charley and Teresa, please feel free to chime in or post photos as you wish to.
Karen

All the F2's of the Andrina cross I'm growing are in 6" pots now. They are all just under 12" tall from their soil line. I see no multi-floral and all the plants look like they will be bigger than micro dwarfs. I included a Gold Pearl in a 4" pot to compare with the Andrina cross and you can see it is considerably smaller, not all due to the pot size, and it has substantially more flowers. The Andrina crosses are starting to flower, but they are not early. The seeds were sown for these on 9/11.

Do the Andrina cross seedlings you still have appear to be determinate Charley?
The gold pearl will be indeterminate. Like a miniature replica of an indeterminate cherry. Mine grew from January to fall and got to be about 2 feet tall outdoors. Very cute plant. Flavour fairly tart for me.
KarenO

I believe the Andrina crosses to be indeterminate.

My seeds were sown on 10/30. I did serious culling and transplanted to individual pots today. Love the potato leaf on the Gold Pearl cross. Very interesting to see the variability across the F2 selections.

[QUOTE=Americangrams;719663]My seeds were sown on 10/30. I did serious culling and transplanted to individual pots today. Love the potato leaf on the Gold Pearl cross. Very interesting to see the variability across the F2 selections.[/QUOTE]


This is one Teresa is referring to. This is Her photograph

Teresa I’ll show you how to upload pics here, it’s a bit clunky
Thanks for all the pics you sent, hopeful one among everything the three of us has growing is “ the one”

Karen

Thanks Karen! I couldn’t figure out how to upload the photos!

Here’s an odd one I have. Also from the gold pearl cross
K

Interesting upturned leaves

Great stuff guys, I look forward to the results! I’ll be doing some winter F3 micro leads with the hopefully tomato harvest coming in May again!

Thanks , it’s a needle in a haystack I’m looking for this go Around.
Best wishes with yours :)
KarenO

38 days from seeding.
A trio of my F2 Venus cross starting to bud very early. I am happy with the size and form and precocious budding so will keep my eye on these.
So far my favourites but that doesn’t mean they will taste good...
Will do another selection and pot up next week.
KarenO

Gold Pearl cross
 

These little seedlings coming along nicely

A few of the other selections
 

They’ve grown so much since last week. Venus, Aztek and Andrina selections

Oh thank you for posting Teresa! They look great, nice photos, I am so interested in all of the subtle differences between them. I am excited to see them bloom and fruit and show their full potential
Karen :)

Seed was Sown October 25,
A few have budded early and are about to bloom.
The tallest of my remaining selections at this time is about 7”
KarenO

This group are my favourites so far. Two other trays of possibilities are still growing, not pictured. Smaller, spindly, slower... but I’ll see what they do provided I have room. I don’t want to crowd the better ones limping the others along so will pot up the best to final pot and then I’ll know how much space is left for the runners up and cull the worst of them.
Karen

They look great especially with the one showing yellow flowers that want to peak through. I'm really interested in your project for growing in the opposite season - summer.

Ha, I've never thought of growing "indoors" in summer. My house actually looks normal for a few months until harvest comes in. Then the overwintering process begins and its seed starting time again. I'm really enjoying the photos in this thread. We've been having some relentless, brutally cold weather for this time of year.
This is my happy place!


Your plants are "amazingly" robust for being just over a month old. I started 4 varieties of micros last week. Nothing is sterile yet so I used the paper towel method , and the seeds really stuck royally to the brand of paper towel. They're struggling after being transplanted, and the probability favors one micro from the survivors, but it's too soon to tell. I'll just drool over your bounty for the rest.

Thanks Barb and GT :)
We are having fun with them, two early bloomers ties for earliest to flower one from the Venus cross and one from the gold pearl cross. Looking forward to some little fruits, could be all sorts of colours

Karen

Update on the micros
 

I transplanted some of mine to 6” pots today. Pleased with the variation Karen’s crosses are showing. Seeds sown 10/30

One more pic
 

Love this one

Lots of variation among yours Teresa and I love the dark green stocky little form. Just exactly what I am hoping for and I’m excited to see them start to bloom. I see buds already on one!
That’s a great sign when it’s only just over five weeks from seed
The difference lights and temperatures make is interesting
Karen

A few a the Venus cross are my current favourites, short and sturdy with nice rugose foliage and colour. Early to bloom and have set a couple of tiny fruit.( Seed sown October 25 )
These few are way ahead of most of the others at this point, hoping one might have flavour. I wonder though if the slower to develop plants might be the ones to look to for flavour, time will tell I guess.
Meantime I like these guys.
Karen

Absolutely great photos, perfect lighting for being so close. Is that the yellow one inthe bottom photo?

My memory isn't so good anymore - are you shaking or taking a toothbrush to them?


- Lisa

They are just starting to bloom. I will vibrate the blossoms a bit to help since they are indoors.
Karen