creating a cherry for the ages!! please share your input.

[SteveS]

Another Multiflora I have found is Ildi Mix, which is listed in SSE. It is a mix of small grape & pear fruits, with excellent taste I ranked right behind Green Doctors Frosted. It has huge sprays of blossoms which seem to set very well despite the oppressive heat! Imagine a Multiflora cherry with genes for flavor from both GDF & Black Cherry or maybe Purple Haze!

Steve S

[dice]

So, out of 5 F2s of the Clementine x Dice's Mystery Black, I got
one multiflora plant, but it set fruit like Dice's Mystery Black (3-5
per cluster), rather than setting fruit like Clementine (dozens of fruit
per cluster). The weather was not the best, but I still think that was
genetic. Flavor was ok. Not spectacular, but not a spitter, either.
Did not show any tendency to split in the rain. A normal cherry tomato
size.

(There was a particularly spicy tasting F2 that was not multiflora
but that I thought had better flavor, so I saved F3 seeds from that
one, too, to test some other year.)

I plan to grow out 8 or more F3s from the multiflora F2 next year and
see what happens. (Just having lots of flowers is not really the point,
after all.)

[Bama mater]

I grew Purple Haze F1 this year (Plants from Darrel Jones) and was very impressed for a larger cherry and very good production along with the fantastic taste. Also grew some F2s and found some nice selections to go forward with some F3s for this year, I'm sure others have already gone past the F3 stage by now but it is a great larger cherry to grow.

[Fusion_power]

The problem with the above stated goal is that the cherry gene is dominant and very specifically sizes the resulting tomato to about 1/2 to 5/8 inch diameter. When you cross a cherry with a beefsteak, you get a ping pong ball size tomato. But when you grow the F2 and further generation seed, they segregate with one normal cherry, one normal beefsteak, and 2 ping pong ball size tomatoes. In other words, Purple Haze will always segregate into a small and a large fruited variant.

If you want to develop a large cherry tomato, you would have to start with a tomato that is a stable line and has the desired size. As an example, Pink Ping Pong crossed with Black Cherry would segregate to give a large ping pong ball size black cherry tomato.

Here is how I would go about developing it.
1. Cross Pink Ping Pong X Black Cherry
2. Grow the F1 and save at least 150 seed
3. Grow the F2 and carefully select the plants that produce ping pong ball size black fruit.
4. Grow the selected F3 plants and again back cross to Black Cherry
5. Grow the new F1 plants and save at least 150 seed.
6. Grow the F2 and select the black ping pong ball size fruits and check for flavor.
7. Grow the selected F3 and start weeding out the mediocre flavored fruits.
8. Grow the F4 and pick no more than 3 really good flavored lines to pursue going forward. These tomatoes will be stable for all visual traits but will segregate for flavor.
9. Grow the F5 and these should be very stable black ping pong ball size tomatoes with good flavor. These will be good enough to release as a new variety.

Note that there are 9 steps to the above cross and backcross

DarJones

[loeb]

BC X OPALKA - interesting idea

[dice]

The F3 seeds from the multiflora F2 of Clementine x Dice's Mystery
Black have turned out to be annoying. I planted 16 seeds with my other
seeds this spring, and so far they are 0 for 16 in sprouting on year old
seeds, while nearly everything else has been up for a week or more.

They might be genetically infertile. They look normal, but not a hint of
a root yet.

[Fusion_power]

That is one more quirk of the multiflora gene(s). It can cause poor germination.

DarJones

[dice]

So, out of the 16 multiflora F3 seeds, one sprouted. I grew it out.
The multiflora trait persisted, but the fruit is not that
impressive. The taste is fine, but it is a small, grape-sized
cherry tomato, like Clementine itself was, and it splits easily.
I have had worse for that, but still, this is not a trait to keep.

The upside was that the "only setting 3-4 fruit per truss" trait
disappeared. It started that way, on the first few trusses that
set in cold weather on the north side of the plant. The weather
warmed up in mid-July, however, and the trusses that set after
that, mostly on the south (sunny) side of the plant, had lots of
fruit per truss. It was also satisfyingly early.

I might try crossing it with Black Plum to introduce larger fruit and
a skin less prone to splitting. Then I will have to grow it out again
until I get the multiflora trait back, hopefully with larger fruit with
some split resistance (and still with good flavor).