Solanum peruvianum
 

LYC 2669:
[IMG]http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/tomato/solunum-peruvianum-1.jpg[/IMG]

LYC 2669 flower. Note the curve in the style and anther cone, and the exerted stigma.
[IMG]http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/tomato/solanum-peruvianum-flower.jpg[/IMG]

LYC 2822:
[IMG]http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/tomato/solunum-peruvianum-2.jpg[/IMG]

Here's a photo of the floral display of Solanum peruvianum, LYC 2669. It is very bold. Easily visible from the other side of the garden.

[IMG]http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/tomato/solanum-peruvianum-flowers-2_640.jpg[/IMG]

Here's the Solanum peruvianum plants all grown up. There is one S. habrochaites plant with big leaves in between two S. peruvianum plants with small leaves.
[IMG]http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/tomato/solanum-peruvianum-and-habrochaites.jpg[/IMG]

And a S. peruvianum fruit. (LYC 2669)

[IMG]http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/tomato/solanum-peruvianum-fruit.jpg[/IMG]

Fruits of Solanum peruvianum, a wild species of tomato. Taste of the fully ripe fruits is decent.
[IMG]http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/tomato/solanum-peruvianum-fruits_640.jpg[/IMG]
[URL="http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/tomato/solanum-peruvianum-fruits.jpg"]High Resolution[/URL]

You think it's decent?! So does it not taste like a tomato? Any luck outcrossing with it?

jmsieglaff: I'll qualify to say "decent for a tomato". It was sweet and fruity. It wasn't no cape gooseberry, nor groundcherry, which I really like. But I thought that the taste was better than what I can get as a domesticated tomato from the grocery store.

As far as I can tell, none of the manual pollinations were successful, in which I used S. peruvianum as a pollen donor. There were a lot of pollinators working the S. peruvianum flowers which were inter-planted with S. habrochaites, S. pimpinellifolium, S. corneliomulleri, S. pennellii, and S. lycopersicum. So I'll watch for naturally occurring hybrids next year.

I have already collected several thousand seeds.

There are two S. peruvianum plants that are still ripening fruit in my garden. One with whitish fruits is tasting sweet, and aromatic. One with purple fruits is tasting nasty-ish.

I can't keep track of 20 named varieties of tomatoes. You must have a well organized mind and bookkeeping system to keep track of all the crosses. Not to mention the time required.

People spend time on what they love...

I tend to only keep records about some of the things that work. The failures go undocumented. Most of what I grow is mixes of unidentified varieties.

For example, when I attempt to make a cross, I'll sometimes put a piece of tape around the flower stem with the name of the pollen donor written on it. The mother might have a label in her pot, and she might not. If either label gets lost, then no big deal, I still know that it was a cross between a domestic tomato and a wild tomato. I can look at the offspring and tell that they are a cross.

In like manner, as I move more towards promiscuously pollinating tomatoes, more and more natural hybrids are showing up. They don't need labels or records either. If they are different than the mother that's good enough. If they have promiscuous-looking flowers, then that's good enough.

I'm attempting crosses these days without any documentation at all: Mother was a naturally occurring hybrid with exerted stigmas. Father is a made-hybrid with huge flowers. Father's father had exerted stigmas. Might as well cross them. No need to keep records. No need to emasculate mother. I'll select for the traits I want in the children. Then I can write a description of the new plants on a seed packet.

Sometimes I wish that I knew the family history of a clade. But not keeping records frees up time that allows me to grow twice as much food.

What is/are your most interesting find(s) so far? That is as far as you are concerned.
What are you ultimately chasing something like productivity, special taste, cold/disease tolerance ?

My short-term goal is to develop a population of promiscuously pollinating tomatoes.

My medium-term goal is to develop a population of self-incompatible tomatoes.

My long-term goal is for the self-incompatible tomatoes to be so productive and so resilient that they supplant all current open pollinated and hybrid tomatoes. Might as well dream big.

Interesting finds? Hmm. I still have wild species of tomatoes that look great and are flowering in my garden: two months after the beginning of the fall frosts! Those same plants survived snow and early frosts this spring. It would be nice to include traits for cold/frost tolerance into the self-incompatible tomatoes.

I might develop a line of tomatoes with such beautiful inflorescences that they could be planted as decorative plants in flower gardens.

Another interesting find was that the trait in S. habrochaites for huge flower petals is dominant in the F1 cross to domestic tomatoes, so that makes it harder to stabilize that trait. The trait for exerted stigmas is recessive, so at least that trait will be easy to stabilize.

There are certainly some interesting sugars and flavors in the wild tomatoes.

Joseph, you might be interested in this USSR information from wide tomato crosses from 1957.

[URL="keen101.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/wide_hybridization_in_plants_tsitsin1.pdf"]keen101.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/wide_hybridization_in_plants_tsitsin1.pdf[/URL]

I grew a patch of Solanum peruvianum again this year. I was able to add a couple more accessions to the patch. I allowed them to promiscuously cross pollinate, and collected the seeds in bulk. I didn't do any sort of selection on them. There was a late/hard frost that killed many plants. Other than that, they grew fine.

I planted one S. habrochaites plant on the edge of the patch. It did not set any fruits, even though it flowered all summer long. Leads me to believe that the two species are pretty far apart genetically.

I'm seeing more types of pollinators on the wild tomato flowers...
[IMG]http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/tomato/solanum-flower-wild-tomato.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1898/42302477490_3799c1dcb1_z.jpg[/IMG]

I just wanted to share an awesome showy Solanum peruvianum plant from my garden again this year. WOW, just WOW! I LOVE this species!!!

Here's some photos of S peruvianum (complex) tomatoes as grown in my garden last summer. The bumblebees loved them. I tried to key out the species of each plant, and there was so much diversity, that I stopped trying to identify them by species. I just lumped anything together into the same population that looked like peruvianum and unlike habrochaites, pennellii, or the red-fruited species.

Solanum peruvianum
[IMG]http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/tomato/tomato-beautifully-promiscuous.jpg[/IMG]

Bumblebees love Solanum peruvianum
[IMG]http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/tomato/bumblebee-convention_640.jpg[/IMG]

Tomato that I was previously calling Solanum corneliomulleri, but I can't reliably key it out as being separate from S peruvianum, so I combined them into a species complex.
[IMG]http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/tomato/corneliomulleri-2_640.jpg[/IMG]

Solanum peruvianum complex:
[IMG]http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/tomato/peruvianum-4270_640.jpg[/IMG]

Later in the season:
[IMG]http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/tomato/promiscuous-tomatoes-4566_640.jpg[/IMG]

I love the bold floral displays of the wild tomatoes. Great for attracting pollinators to self-incompatible plants.
[IMG]http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/tomato/joseph-promiscuous-tomato-flowers.jpg[/IMG]

The peruvianum complex is growing well enough for me now that I have started selecting for better flavors, and larger fruits.
[IMG]http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/tomato/peruvianum-2018-09-12.jpg[/IMG]

Demonstrating the diversity of size between fully mature tomatoes on different plants.
[IMG]http://garden.lofthouse.com/images/tomato/corneliomuleri-diversity.jpg[/IMG]