I just bought a packet of Mountain Gem for next season.
I was really overjoyed to find this old thread with all the discussion of Mountain Gem genetics and Randy's kind suggestion we should work with it. As it happens, my breeding efforts in recent seasons have been focused on stabilizing some determinate lines which are early, well adapted to our short cooler season, non-red and tasty.
Meanwhile, in the past couple of seasons the effects of climate change are becoming more clear, and in particular the combination of heat and high humidity is making Alternaria blight severe at my location. I've not found any unpatented tomatoes, at this point, which rated high resistance to Alternaria - I have seen Mountain Gem rated as intermediate in resistance, so this is at least a place to start and evaluate by comparison to my most resistant lines, I expect it will be at least as good and hopefully even better, so I'm looking forward to making some crosses to improve the disease resistance in my lines.
A lot of growers across Canada were downed by late blight in 2023. Nicky saved seed from Mountain Magic, one of the few to make a crop, and shared with me. It would be nice to work with some growers who regularly face late blight in order to select the heterozygous resistance genes in the Gem, and perhaps we can do that through our swap network. I expect our turn with LB will also come here. I've never seen so many fungal pathogens as 2023, what a year.. We are going to see more of them in a more humid world.
Anyway I wanted to express my thanks and admiration for the work bringing disease resistance together with the determinate challenges.
If anyone has any suggestions of heirlooms or other varieties with specific resistance to Alternaria alternata, I'd be grateful to hear about it.
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