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Old October 4, 2012   #8
carolyn137
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Upstate NY, zone 4b/5a
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Quote:
Originally Posted by harveyc View Post
Not quite "commercial". I'm a farmer but the tomatoes were grown for a teenage son's summer job. He/we sold mostly to a roadside stand and he did very well. Once some of the other tomatoes reached peaked production some of the SunGold were abandoned as that is more than we could keep up with.

I plan to take several cuttings, figuring I'll try to start 10 new plants and will share with a couple of friends and figure it out after that. I could always take cuttings from the new plants over the winter but I'd rather just see if these give similar results next year.

I noticed your seed offer too late last year but will watch more closely.
And please remember to report back b'c a true somatic mutation usually results in a single fruit of a different color or shape or a branch which has all fruits of a different color or shape than the ones expected for the variety.

I've been lucky enough to see only two somatic mutations myself.

One was with the v ariety Dix Doight de Naples where one branch still had red red fruits but with an entirely different shape. The other was with the varity Green Gage which should have yellow fruits but one branch had all red fruits.

perhaps you've seen the variety Casino Chips mentioned here. It arose as a somatic mutation from the variety Casino which is a very large red plum shaped variety from Italy and one branch had these cherry sized ones.

But for all three that I just mentioned the varieties were OP so saving the seeds gave rise to the fruits determined by the somatic mutation.

You know, I've been trying to think of a somatic mutation with a hybrid variety and I can't come up with a single one. Do they never happen, are they just not reported, I wonder why I;ve seen no reference to somatic mutations with hybrids.

BTW, I'm the farmer's daughter since I was raised on a farm where we had acres and acres of tomatoes and I was out there helping when I was maybe 5-6 years old.
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