Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - A few observations on recent crosses

Such fun, this tomato crossing thing - especially when making the crosses somewhat wide and mysterious, and just playing a guessing game on what to expect, rather than digging deep into tomato genetics literature.

A few tidbits (growth is in progress, so this is just a fraction of the story to come)

[B]Mexico Midget[/B] (the real one as I received it in 1990 from Barney Laman, tiny, probably a currant type - seems like lots of seed companies are selling a crossed version in which the fruit is larger than it should be)[B] X Summertime Green[/B] (12+ ounce regular leaf clear skinned green when ripe dwarf). Summertime Green is an offspring of Green Giant X Golden Dwarf Champion. I am calling this family [B]Teensy[/B].

The hybrid is incredibly vigorous, large regular leaf foliage not at all like Mexico Midget. It is setting fruit in clusters of 5 or 6. Fruit thus far is about an inch in diameter, not completely round - the bottom is just slightly flattened. Probably a few weeks from ripeness. Just a bit of an idea what to expect in the F2 - and I will only focus on dwarf offspring.

[B]Sun Gold [/B](F1 hybrid) [B]X Dwarf Beryl Beauty[/B] (potato leaf dwarf with 4-6 ounce clear skinned green fleshed when ripe fruit, faint pink blush on the blossom end. Dwarf Beryl Beauty is also an offspring of Green Giant X Golden Dwarf Champion. This is now the [B]Burly[/B] family.

The hybrid is so distinctive - long gaps between foliage and blossom clusters, very large regular leaf foliage, a distinct purplish cast on the stems (much more pronounced than I've seen in the past on tomato plants). Fruit are in long cascading clusters of 8 fruit - long sepals, fruit are round to just slightly oval (a bit deeper stem to blossom end). Again - what to expect from this - since the Sun Gold parents (unknown of course) will be segregating out. Hoping for the Sun Gold flavor, but lots of colors and sizes possible - and will only be looking at dwarfs, with an eye toward potato leaf dwarfs.

I will share one more now, though I managed to get more than 20 to cross.

[B]Speckled Roman X Dwarf Golden Heart[/B] (regular leaf dwarf with 4-8 ounce blunt hearts,, yellow skin, pale yellow flesh, a trace of a red swirl in the flesh on the larger fruit). The family for the heart is Anna Banana Russian X Roza Vetrov. I named this hybrid [B]Speckly[/B].

The hybrid is what you would expect, mimicking the Speckled Roman parent - weepy, weak looking droopy foliage, long sepals, fruit in clusters of 2-8, quite vigorous plant. Fruit shape is oval with a point (nipple) on the end, and looking like Speckled Roman instead of Golden Heart (so paste seems dominant over heart). I expect that the fruit, when it ripens, will have some light striping. The F2 is going to be lots of fun to play with on this one, and again, I will be focusing only on dwarf offfspring.

One of the widest crosses, in terms of possibilities in outcomes, is [B]Speckled Roman X Wherokowhai[/B] (one of our potato leaf dwarfs which has large yellow/red bicolored fruit). The parents of that one are Lucky Cross and Dwarf Russian Swirl (another of our Dwarfs, which is from Orange Russian 117 X Golden Dwarf Champion). Due to the potato leaf, stripes, yellow/red swirl and choice of long paste or oblate, I think I came up with 32 possibilities (at least) for this one. The plant not as advanced, but the foliage is weepy, the sepals of the forming buds are long. This is called [B]Worry[/B].

I've not determined yet if I am going to get any of these into the Dwarf project yet, since we already have so much in progress work to finish.

If anyone wants to take a guess on outcomes of any of the above, I'd love to see what you think may be possible. Of course, flavor will be first and foremost - then visual interest, then yield.