Need to know about seeds

[Starlight]

This year I only had one lonely little carpenter bee who did a little bit of pollinating , but not much and when it got hot here, even he disappeared, so I more or less hand pollinated all my tomatoes.

Normally I would bag, but with only one bee and me having to pollinate, I didn't. So what I harvested this year is OP's. I know there are several here who don't bag and fruits still come true, so I figured I would be ok.

Here is the question I had asked, but they were not an expert and couldn't answer my question.

I grew what I thought was going to be Lemon Boy and what I ended up with was a lot of orange currant plants instead. They were not grouped together and was intermingled with all my other plants.

I was told that currant tomatoes are one that will cross with anything and you don't have to do anything to make it happen. That currants are like peppers, they cross in a heartbeat.

I have a few other seeds and was thinking about maybe joining Tormato's MMM swap, but I don't want to include any of the seed I harvest this year if the above about currants crossing that easily is true.

Things happen and maybe you get a seed that doesn't come true. You get a good surprise instead. I just don't want to offer to anybody seed that could possibly be crossed that easily and have them think they getting Amazon Chocolate and they end up with a chocolate currant instead.

[Worth1]

On a currant tomato the stigma is what sticks out.
The stamen produces the pollen.
This is the part that collects pollen so yes you are correct to a point.
The currant tomato has a greater opportunity of being crossed from another tomato.
But it wont have any more of a chance to pollinate any other tomato than one with a regular flower.
Worth

[carolyn137]

I grew what I thought was going to be Lemon Boy and what I ended up with was a lot of orange currant plants instead. They were not grouped together and was intermingled with all my other plants.

I was told that currant tomatoes are one that will cross with anything and you don't have to do anything to make it happen. That currants are like peppers, they cross in a heartbeat.

%%%%%

First question is how did you ID them as Currant plants since not all wee fruited varieties have the typical currant plant habit and leaf color and form?

It used to be thought that currant varieties had exerted stigmas, ones that are held high up aboveove thepollen bearing anthers so they were more attractive to insect pollinators.

But later research has shown that only about half of them do and actually Keith Mueller has said that's he more worried about his regular tomatoes crossing with currants that he grows.


I've grown several currant varieties years ago but then switched to Sara's Galapagos which I love, I've given the history here before, some at Tania's page is not correct, wee fruited, typical currant foliage but is NOT a currant, for I found out that it is a stable interspecies cross, and that from Dr. Chatelet at the TGRC since I knew which island it came from.

Some places still say to use huge islation distances when currents are being grown, one of them is Dr. Jeff McCormack who used to own SESE but he was doing seed production for what was listed in his catalog and online so was extra careful. Now that I think of it back then he probably didn't know about the stigma positions with pimps.

Now finally back to what you said above:

(I grew what I thought was going to be Lemon Boy and what I ended up with was a lot of orange currant plants instead. They were not grouped together and was intermingled with all my other plants.)

You had seeds for Lemon Boy, but got no plants that gave you Lemon Boy. Fresh Lemon Boy seeds or seeds you saved from Lemon Boy?

So you are suggesting that your Lemon Boy had crossed with something else that ended up giving you plants with wee orange fruits? What could Lemon Boy have crossed with in your garden? And how did they get "intermingled" with your other plants for that I don't understand.

Help me understand.

Carolyn



Carolyn

[Starlight]

Originally Posted by Worth1

On a currant tomato the stigma is what sticks out.
The stamen produces the pollen.
This is the part that collects pollen so yes you are correct to a point.
The currant tomato has a greater opportunity of being crossed from another tomato.
But it wont have any more of a chance to pollinate any other tomato than one with a regular flower.
Worth

Great pic there Worth! Great for helping to teach new gardeners for sure. Ah, so I had part of it right, but just in reverse. That is good to know. I been really worried about my seeds since I heard that. Maybe I misuderstood them when they was telling me. I had packaged up the little orange ones to send to a friend. I'll put a note in with those seeds that they may have been crossed by my other tomatoes.

They were yummy for sure and produced like crazy. Was like eating fresh candy.

Originally Posted by carolyn137

I grew what I thought was going to be Lemon Boy and what I ended up with was a lot of orange currant plants instead. They were not grouped together and was intermingled with all my other plants.

I was told that currant tomatoes are one that will cross with anything and you don't have to do anything to make it happen. That currants are like peppers, they cross in a heartbeat.

%%%%%

First question is how did you ID them as Currant plants since not all wee fruited varieties have the typical currant plant habit and leaf color and form?

It used to be thought that currant varieties had exerted stigmas, ones that are held high up aboveove thepollen bearing anthers so they were more attractive to insect pollinators.

But later research has shown that only about half of them do and actually Keith Mueller has said that's he more worried about his regular tomatoes crossing with currants that he grows.


I've grown several currant varieties years ago but then switched to Sara's Galapagos which I love, I've given the history here before, some at Tania's page is not correct, wee fruited, typical currant foliage but is NOT a currant, for I found out that it is a stable interspecies cross, and that from Dr. Chatelet at the TGRC since I knew which island it came from.

Some places still say to use huge islation distances when currents are being grown, one of them is Dr. Jeff McCormack who used to own SESE but he was doing seed production for what was listed in his catalog and online so was extra careful. Now that I think of it back then he probably didn't know about the stigma positions with pimps.

Now finally back to what you said above:

(I grew what I thought was going to be Lemon Boy and what I ended up with was a lot of orange currant plants instead. They were not grouped together and was intermingled with all my other plants.)

You had seeds for Lemon Boy, but got no plants that gave you Lemon Boy. Fresh Lemon Boy seeds or seeds you saved from Lemon Boy?

So you are suggesting that your Lemon Boy had crossed with something else that ended up giving you plants with wee orange fruits? What could Lemon Boy have crossed with in your garden? And how did they get "intermingled" with your other plants for that I don't understand.

Help me understand.

Carolyn



Carolyn

Ok, Carolyn... First I got the name wrong. Sorry about that. Guess I got Lemon on the brain today as I was in the seed of it. Here is the tomato I am talking about and I found the thread.

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=37069

For the intermingled part... Usually I try and group all the same named plants together in a row or same square area. They started out that way, but when I moved plants under the shade screen from the heat and humidty here and to help keep them from getting diseased, I started stringing them all up.

Since it was sweat city I just started grabbing the tallest and fruiting plants first and they all got out of order , so instead of all the same named plants being together, they just all got intermingled with other ones.

Good info. Laughing my head over your " stigma positions with pimps" Haven't heard that description before.

Maybe I am wrong. I thought what you see in the link was currants. Seemed it fit the description of them. Them tiny , pea sized fruits never did get any bigger and they turned a final orange color. I saved a bunch of seed and gobbled all the rest.

I will grow it next year as I sure enjoyed the heck out of it.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Starlight

Great pic there Worth! Great for helping to teach new gardeners for sure. Ah, so I had part of it right, but just in reverse. That is good to know. I been really worried about my seeds since I heard that. Maybe I misuderstood them when they was telling me. I had packaged up the little orange ones to send to a friend. I'll put a note in with those seeds that they may have been crossed by my other tomatoes.

They were yummy for sure and produced like crazy. Was like eating fresh candy.



Ok, Carolyn... First I got the name wrong. Sorry about that. Guess I got Lemon on the brain today as I was in the seed of it. Here is the tomato I am talking about and I found the thread.

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=37069

For the intermingled part... Usually I try and group all the same named plants together in a row or same square area. They started out that way, but when I moved plants under the shade screen from the heat and humidty here and to help keep them from getting diseased, I started stringing them all up.

Since it was sweat city I just started grabbing the tallest and fruiting plants first and they all got out of order , so instead of all the same named plants being together, they just all got intermingled with other ones.

Good info. Laughing my head over your " stigma positions with pimps" Haven't heard that description before.

Maybe I am wrong. I thought what you see in the link was currants. Seemed it fit the description of them. Them tiny , pea sized fruits never did get any bigger and they turned a final orange color. I saved a bunch of seed and gobbled all the rest.

I will grow it next year as I sure enjoyed the heck out of it.

OK, I read your link and you have no idea what you have b'c you posted this:

(Carolyn... I got my seeds in a swap. The person who gave them to me had gotten them as a SASE from Wintersown.org . On the package from Wintersown it says "Pretty lemon-yellow cherry tomato, great for salads or snacking. Delicious. IND 72 DTM")

And you don't know if those were original seeds sent to Trudi or if the person who gave them to you grew out some plants and saved seed.

And since most of the seeds sent to Trudi have no info about seed purity she makes it very clear that she cannot say that everything folks get from her are correct for the variety and in this case no variety name was given.

So this doesn't leave you in a very strong position, but if you like them, then save seed and grow them evermore.

Carolyn

[seaeagle]

Well here is something I need to know about seeds Let's pretend I obtained some seeds from a questionable source (no one here of course).How many years would I have to store these seeds before I could be sure they were disease free and assuming there were some diseases on the seed coat. I think it says 2 or 3 years for something like canker to be eradicated from garden soil.Or maybe the diseases will never go away no matter how many years I wait.I am sure someone here knows the answer

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by seaeagle

Well here is something I need to know about seeds Let's pretend I obtained some seeds from a questionable source (no one here of course).How many years would I have to store these seeds before I could be sure they were disease free and assuming there were some diseases on the seed coat. I think it says 2 or 3 years for something like canker to be eradicated from garden soil.Or maybe the diseases will never go away no matter how many years I wait.I am sure someone here knows the answer

Most of the important pathogens found on the seed coat will stay there no matter how long you store the seeds but it does depend on How you store your seeds I would think.

Asking about how long some pathogens can remain in the soil is a totally different question. For the common foliage fungal pathogens it can be up to 5 years but you can get around that by turning the soil over completely with a shovel, not with a tiller, so the spores are buried deeply and less likely to be involved with what's called splashback infection if they were closer to the surface,'

I also know that Fusarium infested soil is a problem and in some cases such soils stay infested.

Bacterial Canker is found in the endosperm of the seed, not on the seed coat.

Carolyn

[seaeagle]

I guess you are talking about room temperature.But I have stored tomato seeds at below zero temperatures for over a month in a sealed mason jar.It didn't hurt the germination at all.Such extreme cold temperatures don't kill the pathogens either I don't think.

So here is what I'm thinking as a way to kill the pathogens.

Start a fermentation with just a tomato and the juice.

Remove all the seeds from this tomato, doesn't matter what kind of tomato.

Get a nice fungal coat going and then add the suspect seeds.

Of course you wait and do this right before you are going sow them in case they sprout.

Think this would work?Sounds feasible to me.You could use a frozen tomato to accomplish fermentation.

My brain is working great tonite, maybe I will go create something