Breeding for bland fruits
 

It seems that combining uniform ripening (u), jointless pedicels (j, j-2) and determinate habit (sp) genes is a good recipe for bland fruits. Do you know any other widely available genes in modern/hybrids cultivars that we should [B]breed out[/B] of when using one of those variety in an amateur breeding scheme ?

I wasn't aware that the jointless pedicels and determinate habit genes had any impact on fruit taste. There are several mutations around that inhibit ripening, if you're trying to breed for bland fruits... but why would you want to breed for bland fruits?

I've been wondering about part of this. Det tomato plants do produce grocery store tasting tomatoes. Grocery store Hybrid tomatoes are nasty and they always have been.

That was a joke Darren :)

But knowing what genes make bland fruit allow to account for them in the breeding scheme, because you'll have to select for the complementary allele so it adds up to the number of plants to grow, unfortunately.

For the determinate, it is just the ratio of leaves wrt fruits that impact sugar (and flavor ? dont remember). For the jointless pedicels, i'll have to look again in that book about tomato breeding i can't remember the name right now.

Ok i've just seen that i forget one word, so the joke was clearly not obvious :) So the goal is of course to breed out those genes !

I think uniform ripening and long storage life genetics is more responsible than the other traits mentioned so far.

However, I would avoid the older skin striped varieties and the initial anthocyanin lines if your intent is to breed for flavor right off the bat.

If you do want to incorporate skin stripes and anthocyanin skin tones, then I would select your breeding parents very carefully to ensure using only those with proven superior flavor.

My position on breeding for taste is that I do not have a genetics laboratory on my farm, and can't afford to hire one. Therefore, I don't have a clue what genes are in my tomatoes... However, I have a fully functional mouth and nose. So if I plant genetically-diverse tomatoes, and mix up their genetics through promiscuous pollination, and taste every fruit before saving seeds from it, then I can select for great tasting fruits.

I found one "grocery store" tomato in my patch this summer. Bleck! I really like the phenotype of the plant and fruits except for the taste. Too bad.

There are determinates that taste good. Cole and Titan Red are my favorite so far. I also like Terrenzo F1.

Nicolas, jointless is not linked with bland flavor. Determinate is not linked with bland flavor directly, but indirectly can cause reduction in flavor because the leaf surface area per fruit is lower than for determinate varieties. Uniform ripening affects flavor directly though we could have quite a discussion whether this is primarly from reduction of fruit sugars or from restriction of the flavonoid biopath.

I read this a couple of years ago, it does make sense.
[url]http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112648268/scientists-find-gene-behind-ripe-tasteless-tomatoes/[/url]

So does this mean that if you could get rugose leaves on a high yielding determinate, you might have better flavor... Or the ability to have better flavor?

I believe some of the Homestead lines have rugose foliage and are determinate.

From GENETICS, GENOMICS
AND BREEDING OF
TOMATO

[QUOTE]Flavor of many jointless lines tested has been
bland (JW Scott, unpublished data), and this could also relate to more water
entering the fruit and diluting the fl avor.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=nicollas;519139]Ok i've just seen that i forget one word, so the joke was clearly not obvious :) So the goal is of course to breed out those genes ![/QUOTE]

My reading got stuck on that one missing word, leading to my uncertainty of meaning.

Nicolas, correlation does not equal causation. Jointless has been bred into a lot of commercial hybrids. That gets you a bunch of genes that compromise flavor. I have a couple of jointless lines that are decent flavored.