Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - View Single Post - My first (unintentional) cross! Now what?

jenn_sc · July 13, 2007

Last year I grew Galina's and Matt's Wild Cherry next to each other. This year I'm growing out two MWC plants, or so I thought...

The two plants look the same, (low, spreading, thick bushy plants, regular leaf) and the size of the cherries are the same (small side) but one plant has the expected sweet, tangy red fruit, and one has extra sweet (almost sungold sweet) YELLOW fruit! I guess I have myself a cross, huh? I can't think of anything else that could have happened. If I mixed in some Galina's seed by accident, they should be potato leaf, right? And these cherries taste much sweeter than I remember Galina's tasting.

So what do I do now? Save seed for a growout next year? I guess I should warn the folks I sent seed to. Some people got seed at Tomatopalooza last year. And to add to the confusion, several people wondered if I had the "real" MWC or not, b/c mine were richer and had more bite than it has a reputation for.

These yellow cherries are good, but really sweet. I did let them get super-ripe though, b/c I thought they were just taking a long time to turn red! So less ripe ones might not be quite so sugary.

So what do I do now?

July 13, 2007	#1
jenn_sc SPLATT™ Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Florence, SC Posts: 502	My first (unintentional) cross! Now what? Last year I grew Galina's and Matt's Wild Cherry next to each other. This year I'm growing out two MWC plants, or so I thought... The two plants look the same, (low, spreading, thick bushy plants, regular leaf) and the size of the cherries are the same (small side) but one plant has the expected sweet, tangy red fruit, and one has extra sweet (almost sungold sweet) YELLOW fruit! I guess I have myself a cross, huh? I can't think of anything else that could have happened. If I mixed in some Galina's seed by accident, they should be potato leaf, right? And these cherries taste much sweeter than I remember Galina's tasting. So what do I do now? Save seed for a growout next year? I guess I should warn the folks I sent seed to. Some people got seed at Tomatopalooza last year. And to add to the confusion, several people wondered if I had the "real" MWC or not, b/c mine were richer and had more bite than it has a reputation for. These yellow cherries are good, but really sweet. I did let them get super-ripe though, b/c I thought they were just taking a long time to turn red! So less ripe ones might not be quite so sugary. So what do I do now?