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Old July 8, 2013   #1
Tom Wagner
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Default Blue Tomato Precursors

Blue tomatoes are a mixed lot..... containing snippets of several wild species... Chessmanii, Lycopersicoides, and Chilense added to Lycopersicum.


[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/F6bHskj.png?1[/IMG]

along with such commercial tomatoes of questionable flavor...VF36 and a couple of unknown varieties...Vigoroz? and/or unknown. There has got to be some genetic drag leading to less flavor than we would like.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/sqmYobo.png?1[/IMG]

How did it get started?

Quote:
Tomato seed lines LA1996 (Aft), LA0791{atv), LA331 l{ogc), LA3532(>),
LA2374CB), LA3183(0, and LA2996a(JDe/) were acquired from the C.M.Rick
Tomato Resource Center, University of California, Davis, CA. LA 1996 was
crossed to LA0797. F3 seed were produced from this line in the greenhouse in the
winter of 2002-2003, as well as increased seed lots of the other lines.
I am growing the ancestor lines to Indigo Rose..LA1996, and LA0791 and the Abg line to better understand the breeding work done earlier. Breeding the old lines together and also with the advanced progenies will give me some idea what went on and what to improve by using better flavored lines of quite complicated backgrounds.
There is more to the story but the following will give you some idea of the genesis for a blue tomato....
http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...ient=firefox-a
Breeding Tomatoes for Improved Antioxidant Activity
by
Peter J. Mes
2004

Quote:
While purple tomatoes are not likely to hit the market in the immediate
future, the continued marketing of 'high antioxidant' fruits and vegetables will
very likely prepare a niche market for such a novelty crop. The anthocyanidins
responsible for the purple color have been reported to have antioxidant activity in
previous reports. Testing of the various genetic combinations of tomato fruit
anthocyanin-expression genes revealed a trend of increased antioxidant capacity
with increasing purple color intensity. The increase in anthocyanins was found to
correlate to an increase in total phenolic content. Phenolics, known for their
antioxidant activity, may be beneficial for human consumption, and also have
antioxidant activity. The trend of increased phenolics and anthocyanins may be
exploited by breeders by using the anthocyanin-expression-enhancing genes and
other genes influencing the flavonoid pathway to produce tomatoes with elevated
phenolic content, resulting in increased water soluble antioxidant content in tomato
fruit skin. The combination of the flavonoid altering genes Aft, atv, and hp-1
together with the high lycopene gene ogc will further increase the antioxidant
content of the tomato, elevating ascorbic acid, a-tocopherol, carotenoid, and
phenolic content. Such a tomato with be a truly 'high antioxidant' fruit, boasting
high levels of both water and lipid soluble antioxidants.
The immediate future is here. Breeder/Vendor folks like myself have made great inroads to get even higher antocyanin content in blue tomatoes. I have hybrids with the Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge which has peruvianum genes to go along with the chessmanii, lycopersicoides and chilense species.


Quote:
We believe that the high-flavonoid purple portion of the
tomato skin inhibited microbial growth.
This is part of the fun work with blue tomatoes....testing the hypothesis that blue tomatoes are valuable in several ways including sun scald resistance. Adding the rin gene to blue tomatoes to get extended shelf life may be a way to retest the ability of blue tomatoes to resist rot. That I am going to the field today to cross my rin lines to many kinds of blues shows that I am taking this kind of research seriously.

Since I am a breeder of blue potatoes and blue corn....I am fascinated by observations such as blue potatoes having a microbial resistance in the tubers.

Sorry about my disjointed writing style ....I am biting at the bit to get out to the field to add to my already 250 crosses made. String tags everywhere!
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Old July 9, 2013   #2
Tom Wagner
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I took a picture of the tomatoes that have the atv and the Aft genes...and these were involved in the breeding work that led up to the Indigo Rose.

On the left side is the atv plant....some anthocyanin in the stems but not as much as I thought there would be...it is very tall and has long internodes...and I see this trait coming through in various progeneies...especially Helsing ★★★★★★★★ Blue. On the right side of the picture is the accession with the Aft gene....this vine is very determinate and has fruits with horns on them much like Indigo Rose will have. I wonder if the original chessmanii wild accession had horns? The fruits of the Aft line are so shaded...no blue is showing up. No wonder the open habit of the atv vine was adopted in the final work...



After this photo was taken I used pollen from the atv to cross to the Aft vine.
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Old July 9, 2013   #3
NarnianGarden
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Do you sample and eat these fruits of 'work-still-in-progress'? How do they taste?
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Old July 10, 2013   #4
Tom Wagner
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Quote:
Do you sample and eat these fruits of 'work-still-in-progress'? How do they taste?
I have these precursors of the Indigo Rose planted in different areas and the plants pictured were grown for a few weeks under the low plastic tunnels with slitted sides.
Once the plastic was off...it was warm enough to grow the plants normally. The fruits won't be ready until August/September and most of the other plants might produce by October.

What I want to determine is if any of the three types of plants used in the breeding of Indigo Rose have a flavor disadvantage due to genetic drag coming from the species of cheesmaii, chilense, and lycopersicoides or if it is just the original cultivars such as VF36 that are responsible. I have the VF36 in Hawaii to get a flavor test.

Using each of the ancestral lines in crosses with other types of tomatoes will help me recognize dominant or recessive flavor combining ability. Likely, I will send the initial hybrid work to Hawaii to be grown out of season (for me anyway) in order to get F-2 seed for my 2014 trials.

I don't know how many of my 320 different combination crosses have taken during the last two weeks...but I know the following are among the many blue crosses:

LA1996 (Aft) x LA0791{atv)
LA1996 (Aft) x Indigo Rose
Abg x Indigo Rose
LA0791{atv)
x Indigo Rose
Yamali Blue x LA0791(atv)
LA0791 (atv) x Dancing with Smurfs
LA1996 (Aft) x Dancing with Smurfs

Because the "take" of hand pollinations are iffy...I will make more crosses as needed.
I just happened to think of more crosses to make...especially to high flavored green and gold lines such as Green Grape Beyond and Flaming Burst.


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Old May 29, 2017   #5
Keen101
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I'm growing LA1996 this season. Didn't know it had Solanum chilense ancestry until now. So that's cool. How did it do for you? I'm excited for it. Seems to be quite hardy so far.
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Old May 29, 2017   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Keen101 View Post
I'm growing LA1996 this season. Didn't know it had Solanum chilense ancestry until now. So that's cool. How did it do for you? I'm excited for it. Seems to be quite hardy so far.
Keen, I just checked and Tom hasn't been here since early March,in case he doesn't see this revival of his thread perhaps it might be better to PM him?

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Old May 29, 2017   #7
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Genetic drag.
Had a GF once that was alright, but met her family and was scared off, father was abusive, mother was strange, brother was an idiot savant.
I ran. Never knew what to call what I feared. Thanks Tom, it was genetic drag.
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Old January 15, 2018   #8
Keen101
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nematode View Post
Genetic drag.
Had a GF once that was alright, but met her family and was scared off, father was abusive, mother was strange, brother was an idiot savant.
I ran. Never knew what to call what I feared. Thanks Tom, it was genetic drag.
haha! hilarious! Good one!

I guess Genetic Drag is what all those terribly inbred domestic tomatoes that fail to grow for me also have. Genetic Drag.
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Old January 15, 2018   #9
Keen101
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I grew LA1996 this summer. It did fantastic! I actually found a tomato that does well for me and is very productive and has large fruit! A line i am going to keep growing for sure. It was not very blue though, a little, but not as much as i expected.





How are the LA4425, LA3668 Aubergine(Abg) fruit lines from S.lycopersicoides? I'm wondering if i should grow them too.

What is this Atv gene?
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Old January 17, 2018   #10
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I will try the Blueberry this year. Bought seed last year but didnt get it in for 2017.

In the meantime, only blue/black grapes get my money. Adding purple carrots to the garden. Added purple potatoes last year.

With much reading the blue tomatoes are not as appetizing as other varieties making me reluctant to jump in despite the possible nutritional benefits. I grew Green Envy f1 last summer and most were spitters---I now have the term for when son and I literally spat out the foul tasting flesh (when not ripe or too ripe) Only fruit we "spat". I will extend that experience to the Blueberry and give it a try this year and risk a few spitters.


WIll try the fruits in salsas, and other recipes that use tomatillos.

Looking forward to better tasting blues!
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