Dice,
My early lines are all still either cherry sized or a bit bigger. I'm aiming for some in the small to medium size range, perhaps fist sized or a bit bigger, but flavor is always a much higher priority for me, so size might take a while to achieve.
I grow 50-60 plants for my F2 populations, and then knock those numbers down in subsequent generations depending on how much variability I'm still seeing. One trick I use to maximize the number of seedlings I can evaluate is to make selections as early in their growth as I can. If I have room for 50 mature plants, I'll sow 100 and space them very tightly. The first 50 to show flower buds get to stay, the others get pulled out. Anything with poor flavor gets yanked as soon as I evaluate it as well, so I can then focus on a much smaller number of plants to evaluate yield, disease resistance, plant habit, etc.
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