OSU Blue observations
 

This is my first year growing OSU blue, and I've encountered a few surprizes. It was one of the first tomato plants to flower in my garden, though fruit development has lagged behind a few of the other "earlies". The anthocyanin accumulation in vegetative parts is very strong early, and then fades rapidly. The purple pigmentation now remains only in the base of the stem. Pigmentation in the fruit is very light dependent (see photo). This plant is on the west edge of a raised bed, with the top of the fruit getting exposed full sun for a couple hours late in the day. Where fruit is shaded all day by foliage, pigmentation is muted. I've made several crosses now with OSU Blue/P20 as both the male and female parent (other photo). The seedling "anthocyanin phenotype" is so strong, I think with OSU as the female I can segregate selfs from F1 crosses - plus I emasculated early. Most of the OSU male parent crosses are to PL females (e.g. PPPxPP "C"). One last observation, OSU Blue appears to be a Septoria magnet.

Frogleaper's quotes followed by my responses....

[quote]This is my first year growing OSU blue, and I've encountered a few surprises[/quote]I picked up the rate of hybridization of the P-20 Blue the last couple of years. And I, too, encounter surprises.

[quote]It was one of the first tomato plants to flower in my garden, though fruit development has lagged behind a few of the other "earlies". [/quote]I notice also that it forms fruit early


[quote]The anthocyanin accumulation in vegetative parts is very strong early, and then fades rapidly. The purple pigmentation now remains only in the base of the stem.[/quote]I have found that somewhat the opposite, the stems remain purplish.

[quote]Pigmentation in the fruit is very light dependent (see photo). This plant is on the west edge of a raised bed, with the top of the fruit getting exposed full sun for a couple hours late in the day. Where fruit is shaded all day by foliage, pigmentation is muted.[/quote]Yes, light makes for purple, pure and simple.

[quote]I've made several crosses now with OSU Blue/P20 as both the male and female parent (other photo). The seedling "anthocyanin phenotype" is so strong, I think with OSU as the female I can segregate selfs from F1 crosses[/quote]I make crosses in different directions and can see the purple trait in the stem even when the male parent is P-20, but it is muted a bit. The selfs and backcrosses are and will be important to breed away from the compact mechanical harvester type of foliage.

[quote]One last observation, OSU Blue appears to be a Septoria magnet. [/quote]I have to agree with you that the foliage of P-20 seems to draw foliar diseases.

I seem to have lost the ability to put pictures on forum messages, but if you go to my blog, pasted somewhere below, I have posted a couple of photos: One of the P-20 and another of a cross of Blue 20 X Woolly Green Zebra. I weeded right after the photos to assuage my guilt.

That last cross will produce hybrid F-1 fruit that probably won't be that interesting. But the saved seed (F-2) will segregate for stripes, green flesh, woolly foliage, blue anthocyanins, indeterminate vines, etc.

I will know more about the [I][B]CrossTalk[/B][/I] elements of the breeding work later. I am trying to figure out what a true breeding green flesh/anthocyanin fruit would look like. Since I have a myriad of crosses, 4-way crosses going on, I will not have conclusive evidence of the value of such breeding work for a few generations of breeding and selfing.


[URL]http://tater-mater.blogspot.com/[/URL]

Tom Wagner

Tom - interesting that we are seeing pretty striking differences in vegetative accumulation of anthocyanin in OSU Blue/P20. Note the "blue fruit" at the base of this plant and the "normal" foliage pigmentation. I wonder if anthocyanin accumulation in vegetative tissue is both developmentally and environmentally regulated? We are now in a reliably 80-85 degree day, 65-70 degree night cylcle. Are your temperatures cooler than this? Another observation this afternoon is plant to plant variation in the number of fruits per truss, note the L. pimpinellifolium type truss on this OSU Blue plant.

frogsleap and Tom -
My experience is similar. Cooler temperatures and strong, direct light bring out the color. My plant habit appears slightly different, though that might be culture. I would expect the color to be partially dominant, but we'll have to grow out the F2 to know. Sounds like that's where you are, Tom. I am trying crosses to both yellow and red tomatoes using OSU as the mother. I wonder if we'll see anything resembling the peruvian complex parent in the next generation since they probably used a bridge species and who knows what else. Here are a couple of photos. What do you guys think we should try?

Lee

Wow, what a tomato, where do you lay your hands on seed for these?

[quote]Cooler temperatures and strong, direct light bring out the color[/quote]I am still trying to find out why I am getting such an array of expression of the blue coloration in the immature fruit, stems and leaves. One of the areas I am growing the tomatoes is up in the mountains, so high the clouds are nestled around the peaks and the clouds drift by the greenhouse and field plots. Misting nearly all day and it hampered my potato breeding work in the field. So I worked in the greenhouse taking notes and picking the early ripe tomatoes from the first earlies.
None of the first earlies have blue genes.
Yesterday and today I took some more photos of the P-20 Blues and the hybrids. I made a series of crosses: Hybrid blues to hybrid blues of different fruit colors and shapes. By making these crosses, fully one quarter of the progeny will be true breeding blues with a variety of other characteristics floating around. I see that many of my backcrosses are taking; A yellow segregate of the selfed population of (Match X Green Zebra) X Blue with a fruit of this hybrid bred back to blue. The seed will include half true blues and half carrying the blue gene. The need for homozygous blues is important to get the full expression of blue.

I see some great hybrid vigor in most of the blue crosses. I am putting white labels on the tomato trusses to aid the picking process later. I often look at the tomato plants without referring to the pedigree and can almost almost identify the blue crosses just by looking at the foliage and fruit shoulders. I then look at my map to see which hybrid it is.

Some of you know my variety Green Sleeves, aka, Green Sausage. The crosses I am making using this background will allow more light to penetrate the narrow leaves and hanging basket type vines. By making the fruit longer and with more shoulder color, the blue should be spectacular.

My friend, Woody, asked what color the blue and Green Zebra crosses will turn out to be. Turquoise? I told him I was looking for a Sherwin Williams paint type. A globe half covered in paint. Imagine a green zebra type with a blue shoulder.....What?....A [B][I]Blue Zebra[/I][/B]?

[quote]Wow, what a tomato, where do you lay your hands on seed for these?[/quote]That question is from Frog of Kent, England. My response is that I won't be sending any of the original seed of P-20 out, but time will tell if any of the segregations merit a release. I will be showing PowerPoint photos of the blues, the hybrids and seedlings showing the segregation of blue stems. Frog should try to drive from Kent to Oxford, England this October 24 to view this presentation first hand. I will be addressing how such germplasm may be made more easily available. I should be close to an answer by that time after my many workshops in Europe this Fall. In fact Oxford will be my last stop. There is room for only 25 attendees as I take it.

When I get around to it I will post some more photos on my blog.

Tom Wagner

[quote=Tom Wagner;136821]
That question is from Frog of Kent, England. My response is that I won't be sending any of the original seed of P-20 out, but time will tell if any of the segregations merit a release. I will be showing PowerPoint photos of the blues, the hybrids and seedlings showing the segregation of blue stems. Frog should try to drive from Kent to Oxford, England this October 24 to view this presentation first hand. I will be addressing how such germplasm may be made more easily available. I should be close to an answer by that time after my many workshops in Europe this Fall. In fact Oxford will be my last stop. There is room for only 25 attendees as I take it.

When I get around to it I will post some more photos on my blog.

Tom Wagner[/quote]

That sounds great Tom, I shall pencil it into my diary. Is there a need to book if only 25 can attend?

I am putting more and more effort into the blue tomato thing.
I have people organizing events for me as I write......
I am hoping to provide an extension of the workshop off site in case of too many folks showing up.

[URL]http://www.patnsteph.net/weblog/2009/06/oxford-2009-and-tom-wagner/[/URL]

I think the location below would a fine venue for tomato and potato discussion topics

The University of Oxford Botanic Garden
Rose Lane
Oxford OX1 4AZ

For a preview of some of the PowerPoint presentations I am putting together...go to:
[URL]http://tater-mater.blogspot.com/[/URL]
[URL]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wz6KH09KtYk/SlYFnFQbxXI/AAAAAAAAA4M/VKQQ8IdSCZo/s400/July+8,+2009+030.JPG[/URL]

The link shows a cross of Blue P-20 to Woolly Green Zebra and the plants developing from a variety of locations throughout Washington are doing splendid.

Tom Wagner

Nice clusters, and they are beginning to ripen.

Tasting results
 

My first OSU Blue ripe fruit harvested and sampled today. This was just a few days behind Stupice, so pretty darned early. Flavor was nothing to brag about, but not bad. I've got crosses set to some tasty partners, so let's see where that goes. There's a little bite to the anthocyanin rich skin, but you have to be looking for it to notice.

That is stunning. I'd love to see this purple skin on other coloured tomatoes.

Frogsleap Farm,

Curious on your results for:

[quote]
Most of the OSU male parent crosses are to PL females ([COLOR=black]e.g. PPPxPP[/COLOR] "C")
[/quote]

[URL]http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/PPP_x_PP_%22C%22[/URL]

Some good flavour genes in this one - even "A" and "B" were good:

[FONT=Times New Roman]“A” approx GDD: 1460[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman]4.5 oz./130 g. last to ripen, not a heavy producer[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]Nice tomatoes, but not quite the heavy weight as “C”, slightly less flavour[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]But my notes from Sept. 11 say “yum” and Sept. 9 – softer, more mellow vague sweetness[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman]“B” approx. GDD: 1300[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman]6.5 oz./180 g. first to ripen, good production[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]Much sweeter than “C”, good but less balanced flavoured [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]More 2006 Notes: mildly sweet, very juicy clear skin (Aug. 21)[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman]“C” approx. GDD: 1460[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman]10.5 oz./300 g. one ripened mid August, then nothing until today, not a heavy producer, but good size[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman]Really nice texture and complex, deep, sweet/tart flavour; meaty and juicy [/FONT]

Not much time to type as I am vacationing on the Isle of Man right now.

My photos of Blue P-20 crossed to other varieties were among the favorites among the workshop attendees. I think the new varieties created out of the blue OSU line will be more significant than the original.

Tom Wagner

The pic of the ripening tomato in post 9 looks a lot like that odd variety Orange Flesh Purple Smudge.

Is it possible that it comes from someone that used this OSU Blue for breeding ?? Just curious as that variety has gotten a good amount of publicity this year.

Carol

I will contact a few of the folks I have been meeting here in Europe the last two months to see if anyone knows of the traffic of that one

Tom

I grew the two side-by-side this year and they don't have a lot in common. Purple Smudge is the result of a very early cross back to a wild relative. OSU is a much more recent and sophisticated cross - though probably using some of the same or similar lines. So the two are distant cousins.

[quote=frogsleap farm;136500]This is my first year growing OSU blue, and I've encountered a few surprizes. It was one of the first tomato plants to flower in my garden, though fruit development has lagged behind a few of the other "earlies". The anthocyanin accumulation in vegetative parts is very strong early, and then fades rapidly. The purple pigmentation now remains only in the base of the stem. Pigmentation in the fruit is very light dependent (see photo). This plant is on the west edge of a raised bed, with the top of the fruit getting exposed full sun for a couple hours late in the day. Where fruit is shaded all day by foliage, pigmentation is muted. I've made several crosses now with OSU Blue/P20 as both the male and female parent (other photo). The seedling "anthocyanin phenotype" is so strong, I think with OSU as the female I can segregate selfs from F1 crosses - plus I emasculated early. Most of the OSU male parent crosses are to PL females (e.g. PPPxPP "C"). One last observation, OSU Blue appears to be a Septoria magnet.[/quote]

Is that the same tomato as Blueberry or is it totally different? I am interested in that color and the purple smudge and does that have the same antioxidents as anything else that carries anthocyanin ?

Dean

Blueberry tomato is genetically engineered. OSU Blue or P20 is bred by traditional methods using a wild tomato as a parent rather than material extracted from another genus and blasted into the strand.

There's also a research group in Italy working on a very similar project, using the same "wild" parents and genes for anthocyanin expression. The yet to be released variety is called Sun Black. Pretty cool photo. The Italian group is also looking at various cultural treatments that can be used to strongly induce gene expression and anthocyanin production.

I am going to begin to show that I obtained this year with blue tomato OSU.
Here is a young plantation at the beginning of juin:il was planted on May 15th.
Anthocyanes colors the stalk and the sheets(leaves)

[URL="http://img514.imageshack.us/i/premiersboutons090609.jpg/"][IMG]http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/7628/premiersboutons090609.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Here are the first tomatoes compared with one of the matt's wild cherry.

[URL="http://img11.imageshack.us/i/mattswildcherry70809.jpg/"][IMG]http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/2548/mattswildcherry70809.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

P 20
 

Beauty!!! I am in the loop, someone is sending me the coveted P 20!!
Any informaton I should know about, special growing condition? Light, temp, watering etc? I am obssesd with new things. And wondering if a crossback would intensify color and anthocyanin content. We can work on the flavor later. Are the seedlings weak? and is it a determinate?
I know they might be basic questions. But I keep a log of everything I do.

Thank you for your time, Icelord

[quote=Ambiorix;147888]



Here are the first tomatoes compared with one of the matt's wild cherry.

[URL="http://img11.imageshack.us/i/mattswildcherry70809.jpg/"][IMG]http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/2548/mattswildcherry70809.jpg[/IMG][/URL][/quote]

Beautiful :wait::dizzy:

Ice, I heard there are 3 genes controlling the anthocyanin and one is dominant. So I guess back crossing would give you a better chance of capturing the two recessive genes. Don't know the actual percentages.

I believe the plant is determinate but I'm not sure because the breeder contends it's still unstable. So just consider some have grown determinate plants from reports I have.

The breeder has asked that no seeds be shared until he releases stable germplasm possibly in 2010.

Here is an almost ripe(mature) tomato

[URL="http://img43.imageshack.us/i/premirescouleursz.jpg/"][IMG]http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/7707/premirescouleursz.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

Colors evolve according to the exhibition(exposure) in the light:mallum red,mallum orange,brown yellow,mallum orange,brown or winy.

I am aware, but was still able to get some of the seeds, secret squirrel like. And boy am I happy! I also have some of the ones called Blueberry
someone said it was gmo and someone said it wasnt. I will plant it and see what happens! I certainly wont wont to give it to anyone if it is gmo.

Dean

It seems like blue might be the next black!?

[B][FONT=Times New Roman]Ohers observations over the tomatoes:[/FONT][/B]

[B][FONT=Times New Roman]Tomato OSU is indeteminate.[/FONT][/B]
[B][FONT=Times New Roman]The leaves are regular, green and covered with blue, purple colors.[/FONT][/B]
[B][FONT=Times New Roman]The most found shape is the round shape but certain tomatoes are flat or semi flat, irregular or really special.[/FONT][/B]
[B][FONT=Times New Roman]The double flower can appear wherever.[/FONT][/B]
[B][FONT=Times New Roman]There are allogames flowers.[/FONT][/B]
[B][FONT=Times New Roman]The number of rooms in tomatoes are 2,3,5,7,9and more for the double flower.[/FONT][/B]

[B][FONT=Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman]I observed 3 plantations of tomatoes protected from the rain by a roof sides of which were opened to the four winds. A plantation often in the shadow, a plantation often in the sun, an intermediate plantation.[/FONT][/FONT][/B]
[B][FONT=Times New Roman][FONT=Times New Roman][B][FONT=Times New Roman]The method to make make blue the tomato changes in time.[/FONT][/B]
[B][FONT=Times New Roman]At first the tomato turns blue on the plantation. The position of the tomato with regard to the sun can change in time.[/FONT][/B]

[B][FONT=Times New Roman]The tomato detached time can continue to turn blue by turning her some time over a week.[/FONT][/B]

[B][FONT=Times New Roman]Later in the season, you can continue to make blue inside the house on edges of a window[/FONT][/B]

[URL="http://img176.imageshack.us/i/tomates123sanspdancule.jpg/"][IMG]http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/4255/tomates123sanspdancule.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[URL="http://img148.imageshack.us/i/p2b1g1t53.jpg/"][IMG]http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/3486/p2b1g1t53.jpg[/IMG][/URL]
[/FONT][/FONT][/B]

[quote=icelord;147975]I am aware, but was still able to get some of the seeds, secret squirrel like. And boy am I happy! [B]I also have some of the ones called Blueberry. someone said it was gmo and someone said it wasnt.[/B] I will plant it and see what happens! I certainly wont wont to give it to anyone if it is gmo.

Dean[/quote]

Depends on where you got the seeds. There is a GE tomato given the potential release name [B]Blueberry[/B] from Europe I think but that one hasn't been released to the general public as of the last article I read. Then there is the OSU Blue seeds that were sent to a lady in PNW who creatively named it [B]Blueberry[/B] for other reasons and possibly is now distributing seeds under that name. :?

Why so disturbed, you would think that the more people working for the same goal would be a positive. I dont think anything should be withheld when it comes to a breakthrough or reserved for a special few. I could understand if it were given to someone that didn't know what to do with it. which is not the case in my situation. But I try to keep up with any latest developements on this and a couple other ones I am working on.

Dean

I'm not disturbed about you or anyone else having OSU Blue tomato seeds. My frowning face is in regard to someone renaming OSU Blue to Blueberry which is a name already in use for a European GE tomato.