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Old September 28, 2016   #175
bower
Tomatovillian™
 
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Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Posts: 6,794
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Joseph, really love the diversity in those trays of fruit for market.

One thing I wondered about, is how you will deal with the really awful taste traits coming from wild parents, especially if the whole point is to get their big blooms into the promiscuous pollination project. This would potentially risk a return from your crop, and maybe introduce bad tastes into the lines you've already established.

I grew a Pimpinellifolium one year and found the fruits were inedible. I know some of them are not bad but this one was awful. I can only imagine that the road to introduce desired characteristics from something that's not a decent food would be long and hard, and require a fair bit of control to select the undesired traits out of the pool.
BTW I had an extra row of tomatoes outdoors this year that extended towards the herb/flower garden. Being close enough to the major bee action I guess, these plants and the ones near the house were ALL worked over diligently by bumblebees. I took some time to watch a bee early one morning before it got crowded - the bee zipped around looking for open flowers and worked it back and forth visiting every plant several times. The only flowers rejected by the bumblebee were the ones it had already visited! Apparently they can tell.
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