Ambiorix and I met in France and Belgium last September and we talked about the blue tomatoes and I agree that
2010 will be blue!!!!!!
A number of folks would bring us some blue tomatoes and I showed those fruits during part of my tomato workshops in Europe. And since a few folks requested blue seed from me, I handed out some segregating lines for them to play around with.
Since DarJones, myself and others are playing around with F-2 F-3 populations there will be no shortage of blue tomatoes popping up all over the world. Just how the atv and aft genes will manifest themselves is anybody's guess. I have not have not put a punnet square together with actual visuals or photos but I may this winter or summer. Combining the Woolly Green Zebra and OSU Blue has created quite a visual display in the greenhouse with a very few plants..extremely woolly and blue.
I believe I posted somewhere that the best way to get the bluest tomatoes will be to get the fruits down to 1/2 inch in diameter. The blue should be visible from the inside of the locule wall. These candidate plants will have to be rather sparse in foliage cover and have truss exposure to the sun.
Looks like this year I will have to grow thousands of seedling tomatoes just to select the 1:16 ratio of the bluest seedlings to go to the field or greenhouse. I wonder if there would be a way to get the Seattle Times to do a local contest looking for the bluest of the blue tomatoes?
Tom Wagner