Making Lemonade?
 

(i.e. if life hand you lemons...)

As some may remember, I've been interested in breeding a good tasting high beta-carotene paste tomato. What I thought would be my most interesting breeding line turned out a bit differently...


The cross was originally 97L97XOpalka, and the F1 was pretty much as expected. But my F2 was very different - They were all grape sized. I did a sort of 'mass' selection of seeds of 5 of the 8 plants (they were all very similar) I grew out 8 plants of the F3 this year. Here is a sample of what I got:

[ATTACH]89812[/ATTACH]

I saved the seed from the plant 3 as I felt it had the best flavor.

So I thought "Maybe a high beta grape wouldn't be too bad, the plants are healthy (no BER). My one concern at this point is it sets well, but only has about 5-6 fruit per cluster. is this enough for a cherry/grape type tomato?

Have you grown Orange Icicle? A few of your selections look quite similar, albeit a little smaller. I grew it this season and really enjoyed the taste when fresh, would make a good sauce as well. My plant went down to disease pressure this year so I cant comment on productivity.


[QUOTE=crmauch;745388](i.e. if life hand you lemons...)

As some may remember, I've been interested in breeding a good tasting high beta-carotene paste tomato. What I thought would be my most interesting breeding line turned out a bit differently...

QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Hunt-Grow-Cook;745397]Have you grown Orange Icicle? A few of your selections look quite similar, albeit a little smaller. I grew it this season and really enjoyed the taste when fresh, would make a good sauce as well. My plant went down to disease pressure this year so I cant comment on productivity.[/QUOTE]

Do you know if Orange Icicle is a beta-carotene tomato or a 'regular' orange? Many orange tomatoes are just a limited lycopene, while Jaune Flamme and 97L97 are high in beta-carotene.

There seems to be a lot of orange russian tomatoes that are high in beta-carotene. I tried some orange heart-shaped russian tomatoes this summer and most of them came with dark-orange-red flesh, rather than golden tangerine orange flesh. I'll take pictures and make a report here soon, some of them might be good candidates for your breeding project.

Strangely, I've grown Zolotoe Serdtse for 3 years and it has always came as a tangerine orange tomato for me, while it has been reported on this forum as a beta carotene orange tomato. Maybe I do not have the original strain.

David

Those look nice Chris. :) There's nothing wrong with unexpected side journeys, as long as they're also pleasing!8-)