Who says heirlooms aren't productive?

[Gerardo]

Beautiful sight. Great job.

[joseph]

I suppose that it's a percentage thing... It seems to me that modern commercial hybrid tomatoes average about 40% more tons per acre than highly inbred heirlooms. That doesn't matter much to a home gardener. It matters a lot to commercial farmers. A few heirloom tomato plants can produce more than enough tomatoes for a home gardener.

If an heirloom is growing in conditions pretty similar to where it was originally developed, then happy day. But if an heirloom is grown in conditions that are far removed in time/location from it's original setting, then all bets are off.

If an heirloom is subjected to diseases that are common today, but that were rare when it was developed, then good luck with that. Modern hybrids tend to have resistance to a number of modern diseases.

[Gardeneer]

Absolutely incredible, to me.
Enjoy !

Gardeneer

[pauldavid]

Thats great fruit set, Tracy! Very impressive.

[RJGlew]

Originally Posted by joseph

... It seems to me that modern commercial hybrid tomatoes average about 40% more tons per acre than highly inbred heirlooms.

Hi Joseph,

Is this 40% uplift based on your experiences, or a commonly held view of serious producers?

[tam91]

Forgot to say, I do Florida weave. 3' plant spacing, 5' or so row spacing.

I have some fungal disease going on now, that I am treating - the couple hybrids that I have are hit by it as bad or even worse than the majority of the heirlooms.

[joseph]

Originally Posted by RJGlew

Hi Joseph,

Is this 40% uplift based on your experiences, or a commonly held view of serious producers?

40% is my ball park estimate of how I interpret the literature, and what I observe in my garden. For example the scientific literature reports studies like these:

ESTIMATE OF HETEROSIS IN TOMATO (Solanum lycopersicum L.)
It is reported that heterosis in tomato resulted in increased yield of 20 to 50% (Chowdhury et al., 1965). Tesi et al. (1970) reported that apart from high total yield the F1 hybrid has specific advantage of higher early yield, number of fruits, fruit size, improved quality, uniformity, and adaptation to adverse conditions.

Hybrid vigor in tomatoes
A mutation in one copy of the gene SFT in tomato increases fruit yield by up to 60%, according to a report published this week in Nature Genetics. The study suggests that improved vigor in plants can result from single heterozygous mutations.

[RayR]

Originally Posted by tam91

Forgot to say, I do Florida weave. 3' plant spacing, 5' or so row spacing.

I have some fungal disease going on now, that I am treating - the couple hybrids that I have are hit by it as bad or even worse than the majority of the heirlooms.

Agree with that. the few hybrids I grew were the first to get hit hard by Septoria.

[b54red]

I think that most of the disease resistance touted for hybrids involves soil borne diseases and not leaf diseases; but there are some varieties that have some resistance to TSWV which is an insect vectored disease. The problem with many of the modern hybrids is a definite sameness and lack of real tomato flavor. I'm not saying that many heirlooms don't have that same lack of flavor but with a little trial and error you can find heirlooms that meet your taste preferences whereas with the disease resistant hybrids that is a very difficult task. By grafting I have found that I can grow a wonderful variety of tasty heirlooms and still get that great strong soil borne disease resistance of a modern hybrid.

Bill

[FILMNET]

Brads Black Heart is a beautiful tomato, i growled this in Ma years ago. Here in S.C this will not grow, to hot.

[RJGlew]

Originally Posted by joseph

40% is my ball park estimate of how I interpret the literature, and what I observe in my garden. For example the scientific literature reports studies like these:

Excellent information - thank you. I had an interesting situation here which anecdotally supports this - my wife and I were checking out our beefsteaks earlier this week (1 plant each of 29 varieties - 17 hybrids & 12 OPs) and she asked "why are some of them bigger with more fruit?" pointing out the Early Girl & Moreton. I told her they were hybrids which led to a quick conversation of heirloom vs hybrid. I then asked her to guess which of the 29 were hybrids or OP based simply on vigour and fruit production. Well, she went 27 for 29, and only missed Moskvich and Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye. I know this is non-controlled etc, but it was certainly interesting for me to observe.

[zipcode]

The main thing about hybrids is the ability to produce constantly over a longer period. I've seen many OP tomatoes do really well in first two clusters, and after that it's downhill.

[Gardeneer]

So what you guys saying about hybrids , it should also apply to any accidental cross ? In other words we should welcome such crosses.
I think probably Joseph is all for it .

Another conclusion it that most hybrids sold by the seed companies will perform better no matter who the parents were.

Interesting !!!


OTOH: I have a hybrid that is one of the poorest performers in my garden.

Gardeneer

[zipcode]

I think it's more about the genes in the hybrids than the hybrid state itself, although it seems that contributes some as well.
Many amateur breeders use modern hybrids as a parent, there's a lot of good genes in there from wild tomatoes that was lost during time in the heirlooms. Also hybrids themselves nowadays can compete with heirlooms at taste and they will continue getting better since the customers are getting tired of poor quality vegetables (some of them at least, some don't seem to see any difference).

[joseph]

Originally Posted by Gardeneer

So what you guys saying about hybrids , it should also apply to any accidental cross ?

The vigor and productivity of accidental crosses might be better or worse than the parents, depending on their combining ability. Commercial hybrids have already been screened to eliminate pairings that combine poorly.

And yes. I love accidental crosses in my garden.

Hybrids still have to deal with local growing conditions not being suitable for the genetics of the plant. For example, I don't grow any beefsteak tomatoes, whether they are OP or hybrid, because they mature so late in the season, that they're not worth the risk.