Hi Vladimir,
Great project!
Your F1 cross between PL variety and determinate RL will not have PL or determinate showing in the F1 generation, because both traits are recessive.
In the F2, Mendelian ratios would give you one in four PL, and one in four sp/sp determinate, and one in sixteen both PL and sp/sp. In reality the chance (probability) is a little different than Mendel's ratios, so I usually try to grow six plants to find the 1/4 recessive trait. But I have also been lucky, and found 2 recessives together with only 12 plants. And sometimes I didn't find the 1/4 recessive even with six plants - but I think this might be due to linkages in that case, as much as luck.
The nice thing about growing an F1 in the winter, is that you only need one plant and one fruit (or more) to get your F2 seeds for the next season.
It is more challenging to grow an F2 indoors because you need more plants.
Also, in crosses between a determinate and indeterminate, you end up with a variety of growth habits where sp/sp "determinate" trait is reckoned as the forming of a terminal cluster and fewer than three leaves between terminating clusters. So you will have a variety of "semi-determinate" types in there as well, some of which can be quite tall instead of terminating quickly as a stable determinate does.
This would depend entirely on the parents you choose as well. I know Sophie's Choice for example is a very compact determinate where some others are taller. Likewise in your PL parent you may have a choice between taller or more compact plants, and that will affect the amount of variation in your "determinate/semi-determinate" growth habits emerging in F2, F3 etc.
The semi-determinate can be difficult or impossible to identify while the plants are still young and small. But maybe you could screen them out and only select F2 plants that are compact and terminate the main stem very soon. You would need to grow more seedlings to do that, depending on how your two parents interact on growth habit, it may be quite feasible.
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