F1 surprises
 

I decided to start a thread to show some of the F1 results from the crosses I'm growing out this year... there are many traits of interest with unclear or unknown dominance, in whole or part due to my lack of experience, so some surprises are expected, for me at least!

But first, I have a really surprising result, which seems to contradict what I expected from the known dominance of cherry fruit over multi-locule fruit.
The cross is Kimberley X Zolotye Kupola, which was made very late last fall - only a few seeds were harvested from an immature fruit. Seedlings were all RL like the pollen donor ZK, which shows that the cross was successful. The first fruit are clearly not cherries, and both of the two seedlings I kept appear to be producing a mix of cherry and multi-locule fruit (time will tell for sure).

Any idea what could cause this result? :surprised: (The "twin" fruit is wierd enough:twisted:)

Bower, Kimberly is NOT a cherry. I don't know the exact gene it is expressing, but I am certain it is not a cherry. It looks like you crossed two fasciated varieties.

I had to do some digging around to see what genes are being expressed. You have 2 copies of fasciated, 1 copy of el, and one copy of a penetrant gene for round fruit. They will be interesting to watch as they ripen, expect the fruit to make lots of unusual shapes.

[LEFT]Aha! I misjudged little Kimberley then.:D
Thanks very much for the genetic information, it's going to be a lot of fun to watch this one. :yes:
I must admit, I had been thinking of the F1 as more of a 'nuisance' generation which is necessary to get the F2 seed... but it's been slowly dawning on me, how much there is to be learned from them - especially for the inexperienced like me.:roll:
[/LEFT]

Here is another happy surprise. The cross of PI120256 X Danko is already setting and growing fruit.
PI 120256 was very vigorous but very late to fruit last year, in spite of many small flower clusters along the main stem which were all dropped. It had flower clusters of 4-6 later in the season but never set more than 2-3 for me in a cluster. Danko was a complete contrast to this, a very sparsely foliated and weakly suckering plant with large flower clusters that set with no drops, although the fruit were not grown all at once; some of the first cluster fruit were merrily grown to a good size late in the season. I thought Danko would benefit from some of that vegetative vigour as well as the cold tolerance trait in PI 120256, but I expected the F1 grow to be a tedious wait and a taxing use of space.

The F1 plant has decent clusters of about 7 flowers each, and the first cluster has behaved more like the Danko parent, with at least one fruit well under way and no sign of dropping the other, less than pea sized set. The plant is sturdy and vigorous and should have enough leaf area to be more productive.... high hopes! ;)

PI 120256 was interesting, it is a Costoluto Genovese type with typical vigor and high production. What I saw in it was significant stress tolerance, probably associated with the extreme plant vigor. It is interesting for several reasons, not least of which is flavor.

I liked the flavour too, also thin skinned with nice texture, and the fluted shape is very pretty. Most of my fruit were so thin and flat they only made two slices. The ones I saved seed from, I stuffed the little locules with crumbs and cheese and roasted em... pretty and delicious. :yes:

I can offer no information regarding genetics but I am very interested in learning here on your thread Bower. You struck a chord with me when you speak of calling the F1 a "nuisance" generation. In my haste to get to F2 seed I grew mine in the house over winter as you know . The plants were big and vigorous and bloomed at less than 50 days. The fruit tasted good even under such poor conditions and I really should give them a try under good conditions outdoors but since I had my handful of f2 seeds I didn't grow any.
Interesting thread, keep posting.
Karen

Hi KarenO,
If you have some F1 seed left it would be cool to grow them out some year, with the parents on side to evaluate the 'combining ability' or heterosis. From what I see published, a random block design with only a couple of replicates is considered enough to draw conclusions. Even you or I could squeeze that in... ;) It looks pretty simple...
Thanks for the encouragement..

From Bower...[QUOTE]I must admit, I had been thinking of the F1 as more of a 'nuisance' generation which is necessary to get the F2 seed... but it's been slowly dawning on me, how much there is to be learned from them - especially for the inexperienced like me.[/QUOTE]

The 'Nuisance" hybrids! Yep, I know what that means. Way too many splendid varieties can be put together in a hybrid but disappointment sets in invariably. The traits seem to cancel each other to the point that the tomato is "Ho-hum" and is a waste of space. I make it even worse by crossing F-1's to F-1's and even more cancelling goes on. Rather than illustrating what I mean, I am posting the following which is part of a larger discussion about the Dark Orange Muscat on my tatermater forum.

i.imgur.com/rp3ooFH.jpg
[QUOTE]The link above shows what is left of a butchered tomato after seed extraction and tasting.

This is an F-1 cross of Dark Orange Muscat x Skykomish. Both parents are orange but the hybrid is mostly red. The oranges colors seem to cancel each other out and reverts to the wild type which is red. Obviously we don't have the same gene for orange/gold flesh.

The seed extracted is complicated...a four way cross:

.... F-1 (Dark Orange Muscat x Skykomish)
F-1 ___________________________________

.... F-1 (Tegucigalpa Paste x Blush)

I have this seed and hundreds of other freshly extracted seed awaiting my sowing for a late high row tunnel grow out hopefully down in Woodburn, Oregon.

Trying to photograph all of my crosses along with flavor tests and seed processing is taxing to say the least. Hundreds of varieties yet to extract

How many seed are put away for the cross above? About 40

What is my perceived best clone to pull out of this mess? In a generation or two...a long fruit like Tegucigalpa with the Blush trait on a bicolor orange with late blight resistance! I may need all need all forty seed to set up the segregation right off, reselecting during the F-3 progeny[/QUOTE]

Tom, your comments about using F1's in hybrids, in Fred's thread a few days ago, have given me a lot of food for thought.... It's wonderful that you can do that. I have no doubt you'll find something amazing down the line from the forty seeds.

I've just been learning about those tricky 'orange' genes this winter.. three of my F1's are crosses with Zolotoe Serdtse, and from what I understand, the F1 should be red if the orange gene is 'tangerine', but the F1 should be orange-red if the gene is 'Beta'. I just hope I can tell the difference. :twisted: I'm not even going to think about 'Delta' or "apricot', I'm telling myself the possibility is too remote to consider, at least until I run into a surprise down the line. Yep, the F1 fruit may be ho hum, but learning something about the genetics will make it worthwhile. ;) And ho hum, it'll be sauce for the winter.

So far, Zolotoe Serdtse X Black Early ("Zosbe") has set the first fruit of the lot. ( ZS hasn't set yet either). The fruit is too small to be certain of the shape, but so far looks a bit like mother.:cute:

Just thinking of the fruits that I opened up for seed extraction in the last two days
involving the "orange' genes.

Gold Keeper crossed to Yellow Trifele resulted in gold fruit.

Flaming Burst crossed to King Umberto resulted in red fruit.

Skykomish crossed to Brandywine resulted in red fruit.

Hipa Gold Dwarf and Pixie Olympic Gold Dwarf, both had crosses with red fruit

Brady Bunch crossed to Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge were red.

Each of the lines above had different ancestry of different 'orange' flesh (gold).

I made an extraction of F-1 seed of F-1 Sun Sugar to Paul Robeson...and the seed will be sown soon for a fall crop. I expect 50-50 orange fruit. My grower/cooperator likes both of these varieties, therefore I will offer him some F-2 seed next January out of the 'orange group which will segregate 75-25 in favor of the 'orange'.

I have several plants of the Delta about ready to bloom. I have to make time to swing by the many plots I have to make crosses with it.

Other hybrids evaluated today indicate that they are 'finished' hybrids. I can test them again to see if I want to market them directly and produce more seed.
A beautiful mahogany brown is tentatively named [B]Kodiak Dawg[/B]. All of the combining traits seem to be in unison for a good flavored hybrid with high yields and quality.

My guess is that about 10 to 20 % of my hybrids could be considered candidates for hybrid release, but even then half of those could be improved with a few tweaks. With thousands of hybrids made over the last few years....maybe 100 could be contestants.

[url]http://i.imgur.com/4kIcIdY.jpg[/url] One of three totes yet to do

Tom, that isfascinating... and what a beautiful tote! Assessing the deliciousness of the hybrids.... what a job! :D
One in five or even one in ten worthy hybrids is pretty good. I think it's enough to make evaluating the F1 generation worthwhile. As Joseph commented before, the earliness factor can be critical for those of us with cool or short seasons, and can make the difference between crop or no crop. From the humble need for a fresh tomato that is fit to eat, the pursuit of the most beautiful and delicious fruit by yourself and others is an inspiration. (And your own work on tomatoes for cool and short seasons as well!)

Some of the traits that interest me in the short and cool season context don't appear to be well documented, so this is something I'm eager to see in the F1's. Whether the plant sets full clusters and promptly grows the fruit, especially that first cluster in the cool of spring, ranks high on my list of desired traits. Zolotoe Serdtse has a habit of dropping a flower or two in almost every cluster, although being a great producer due to the growth habit and sheer number of clusters. I'm closely watching the F1's to see if they also drop.

My two Black Cherry crosses are performing as well or better than expected. Stupice X Black Cherry (Stubche) has the same size, number and pattern of fruit set as Moravsky Div grown this year from the Stupice clan. Fruit is setting in the second cluster while the first is still opening its last blossoms. Petals drop clean, and there is full set with no drops, and growth in cool conditions (many 60 F days).
The other, Napoli a Fiaschetto X Black Cherry, is later and the fruit set is still quite small. But I'm happy to see that first cluster setting and growing, since Black Cherry has a tendency to leave the first cluster of 'empty nests' - sets that never grow, at least in the conditions of early spring here..

Rozoviy Kuffa F1
 

I have one more F1 which has already set fruit. This is a selection for resistance to foliage disease especially botrytis which is a killer here. The mother Rozoviy Flamingo heart was the winner of the autumn botrytis challenge last year, and stayed disease free even past the end of season. The pollen donor, the indeterminate dwarf Al Kuffa, was free of foliage disease during the whole growing season and a steady producer of three locule small red fruit, but fell to the blight with others in the fall.
Rozoviy Flamingo heart was a large, beautiful and tasty pink heart with clusters of only 2-3 flowers, full set even in the cold, but long internodes so overall a small production per yardage of vine. When I saw the F1 had a first cluster of two flowers, I thought maybe the cross didn't take . Now they have set and grown a bit, I can see the fruit are quite round with no nipple, and the second cluster has seven flowers, so the cross did take after all.

[QUOTE]Some of the traits that interest me in the short and cool season context don't appear to be well documented, so this is something I'm eager to see in the F1's. Whether the plant sets full clusters and promptly grows the fruit, especially that first cluster in the cool of spring, ranks high on my list of desired traits.[/QUOTE]

Bower, my weather here for tomorrow is 59 for a high and 46 for a low. I have to breed for cool weather. I have a friend who invested in many, many early tomato varieties and has a single plant of all of them potted up in five gallon buckets and has invested in me a bit to come over and cross to my heart's content with them. She also gave me a single plant of each to plant elsewhere to cross. Funny, she included my Betimes Macbeth in the offering. The Betimes Macbeth is doing better than most blooming well despite a heavy rain the other day. It will be on the top priority list to use as a male parent. The tops traits of it are precocious blooming, early ripening after blooming by two weeks, frost resistance, chilling tolerance, high lycopene, super firmness, best used for homemade sauce, and perfect shelf life. Many plants were made available for the local nurseries on grafted rootstock so that will be very interesting. And to think it derived from heat tolerance in California, frost resistance from Peru, and earliness from upstate New York.

I taught my webmaster to cross over the years and he made reciprocal crosses of Betimes Macbeth with Kanaan last year and they look great on his porch in West Seattle.

The need for verticillium wilt resistance is so important here that the main reason for grafted tomatoes is to have resistance and the plant the tomato graft showing above the soil. Good news! It is almost assuredly inheriting v tolerance. So you can bury this plant deep even if it is grafted.

I just happened to remember that i sent a hybrid of one of the parents that went into Betimes Macbeth to Simcoe Ontario Canada near 35 years ago and it was the earliest and highest yielding in the test plot of hybrids. I should dig out the Research Bulletin of 1981 to prove it.

Tom,
It's amazing that your temperatures are so similar to ours.

I've heard great things about Betimes MacBeth but haven't yet acquired the seed.. it's on my must grow list for sure.

Last year I trialed all the 'small early reds' I could get my hands on... they all had some useful traits but almost without exception the good traits were outweighed by fatal flaws, whether fruit quality or disease susceptibility.. This winter I received seed for a LOT of other ones in Gary's swap, but was not motivated to give them so much of my space this year.

Bearing in mind your comments in other threads about the difficulty of bringing flavour into the early equation, the prospect of breeding another early 'pumper' with bland or worse, coarse and mealy fruit, is not appealing.. the space and the patience are both lacking here for that monumental grow out effort with a high percent disappointment expected.

I don't find Stupice, Moravsky Div, Al Kuffa or even Kimberley very exciting flavour wise, but the fruit is acceptable quality, and production is reliable. If the offspring are early and no worse than the parent, it'll be okay. 8-)