Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - View Single Post - japanese pink cherry or rebel yell x ? dwarf

**nctomatoman** · February 11, 2019

If anyone wants to try this, a few very brief guidelines

Know what you are aiming for - size, flavor, color - in a dwarf plant

Look through descriptions of our now more than 100 dwarfs - select a few that seem like they would be an interesting crossing partner

Understand a bit about dominant traits. Yellow skin dominates clear skin. Indeterminate growth dominates dwarf. small fruit dominate large fruit. regular leaf dominates potato leaf.

The biggest challenges are, esp if you are going for flavor, it is something you can't see- it has to be experienced, so the largest populations possible once you get to dwarf hunting.

Let's take a hypothetical - Japanese Pink Cherry - indeterminate, pink cherry fruit, regular leaf - (I am only guessing - I know nothing about the variety) - crossed with one of our already dwarf cherry varieties - say, Bendigo Blush. Or to make it more interesting, one of the white ones - Bendigo Moon - or a potato leaf yellow cherry - Galen's Yellow Cherry (all are available via Victory).

Take pollen from the Japanese cherry flower - emasculate a less than fully opened blossom on the female (the dwarf partner) - apply the pollen, repeat over several days. If a tomato forms, mark it with a twist tie - that is the F1 hybrid. Let it ripen - seeds in that tomato are F1 hybrid seeds.

Grow a few of the seeds - if the seedlings are indeterminate, the cross took (indeterminate is dominant) - you only have to grow out one hybrid and save loads of seeds. Seeds in the fruit are F2 generation.

Grow as many of the F2 seeds as possible, because 75% will be indeterminate - you will want to focus on the 25%, the dwarfs (they are easy to spot). If you use a potato leaf dwarf, 25% of the dwarfs will have potato leaf foliage. Then the fun begins - if you do cherry X cherry, all should be cherry, but colors will be as diverse as the number of different flesh and skin color genes you use.

Japanese Cherry, if pink, is clear skin, red flesh. If you cross it with Bendigo Blush - also clear skin, red flesh - you should have all pink dwarf cherries, but flavor, yield, etc will vary widely.

If you use something like Galen's Yellow (yellow skin yellow flesh), you will have tomatoes that are pink, red, pale yellow and deep yellow.

If you use a dwarf like Velvet Night - which is purple - the color range can be expanded even more.

have fun and good luck!

February 11, 2019	#8
nctomatoman Tomatoville® Moderator Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Hendersonville, NC zone 7 Posts: 10,385	If anyone wants to try this, a few very brief guidelines Know what you are aiming for - size, flavor, color - in a dwarf plant Look through descriptions of our now more than 100 dwarfs - select a few that seem like they would be an interesting crossing partner Understand a bit about dominant traits. Yellow skin dominates clear skin. Indeterminate growth dominates dwarf. small fruit dominate large fruit. regular leaf dominates potato leaf. The biggest challenges are, esp if you are going for flavor, it is something you can't see- it has to be experienced, so the largest populations possible once you get to dwarf hunting. Let's take a hypothetical - Japanese Pink Cherry - indeterminate, pink cherry fruit, regular leaf - (I am only guessing - I know nothing about the variety) - crossed with one of our already dwarf cherry varieties - say, Bendigo Blush. Or to make it more interesting, one of the white ones - Bendigo Moon - or a potato leaf yellow cherry - Galen's Yellow Cherry (all are available via Victory). Take pollen from the Japanese cherry flower - emasculate a less than fully opened blossom on the female (the dwarf partner) - apply the pollen, repeat over several days. If a tomato forms, mark it with a twist tie - that is the F1 hybrid. Let it ripen - seeds in that tomato are F1 hybrid seeds. Grow a few of the seeds - if the seedlings are indeterminate, the cross took (indeterminate is dominant) - you only have to grow out one hybrid and save loads of seeds. Seeds in the fruit are F2 generation. Grow as many of the F2 seeds as possible, because 75% will be indeterminate - you will want to focus on the 25%, the dwarfs (they are easy to spot). If you use a potato leaf dwarf, 25% of the dwarfs will have potato leaf foliage. Then the fun begins - if you do cherry X cherry, all should be cherry, but colors will be as diverse as the number of different flesh and skin color genes you use. Japanese Cherry, if pink, is clear skin, red flesh. If you cross it with Bendigo Blush - also clear skin, red flesh - you should have all pink dwarf cherries, but flavor, yield, etc will vary widely. If you use something like Galen's Yellow (yellow skin yellow flesh), you will have tomatoes that are pink, red, pale yellow and deep yellow. If you use a dwarf like Velvet Night - which is purple - the color range can be expanded even more. have fun and good luck! __________________ Craig