HX-9 tomato thrilled me more than any other among the 62 F2 hybrid tomatoes that I grew this year. It has many traits that are expected to be stable because they are due to recessive genes. I'm expecting to share seed later this fall as part of the Open Source Seed Initiative. I'm creating this thread as a public place to discuss the variety and it's evolution.
Breeding Goal
The primary goal of the breeding project that created HX-9 Tomato, was to obtain
short-season promiscuously-pollinating determinate bicolor tomatoes that can ripen in Cache Valley.
Origin of Material
The tomato variety Jagoka was identified during a frost/cold tolerance trial as being a variety that grows very well and is highly productive in Cache Valley. Its flowers were highly attractive to bumblebees. It is determinate and bears very early red saladette sized fruits. Jagodka was originally developed in Russia. It is currently my main market tomato.
The heirloom tomato variety Hillbilly (or Virginia Sweets) is a super-long season indeterminate beefsteak that has bicolor (red/yellow) fruits and an open flower structure, making it in theory more susceptible to promiscuous pollination.
A Hillbilly flower was manually pollinated with pollen from Jagoka. The F1 was selfed.
Description and Selection Process
HX-9 Tomato originated from one F2 plant. This plant was selected from the F2 offspring because it combined a whole string of recessive traits that the project was hoping to achieve: Determinate growth habit, bicolor fruits, open flowers, and exerted stigma (all fixed recessive traits). Additionally, the plant was the earliest to produce fruit, and the most productive overall. The fruits were large. It had a showy floral display, and big flower petals. Days To Maturity, fruit size, and productivity are QTL traits, so ongoing segregation in those traits is possible.
HX-9 Tomato
