Currants as pollen donors?

Boutique Tomatoes · August 22, 2012

I think after butchering a lot of tomato flowers this year I've got the basics down, but one of my intended crosses continues to elude me.

I wanted to cross Helsing ★★★★★★★★ Blues, a very dark blue cherry tomato from Tom Wagner with Hawaiian Red Currant, a very small sweet currant type. The currant flowers are too small for me to work with as female parents at my skill level, so I've been trying with HJB as the female.

Strangely enough, I can never seem to get any pollen off of the Hawaiian Red Currants! I've tried at various temperatures, different times of the day, different stages of flower maturity, nothing. I just got in from trying again and finally resorted to putting anther cones from the currant flowers over the pistels of the emasculated HJB. I figure I'll replace the cones every day for the next few days and see if these take.

I'm curious if anyone has seen anything like this before. It seemed like a neat idea, trying to come up with a small sweet berry sized blue tomato, but this is starting to frustrate the hell out of me and I'm running out of growing season. Is the anther cone trick likely to work?

August 22, 2012	#1
Boutique Tomatoes Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Northeast Wisconsin, Zone 5a Posts: 1,109	Currants as pollen donors? I think after butchering a lot of tomato flowers this year I've got the basics down, but one of my intended crosses continues to elude me. I wanted to cross Helsing ★★★★★★★★ Blues, a very dark blue cherry tomato from Tom Wagner with Hawaiian Red Currant, a very small sweet currant type. The currant flowers are too small for me to work with as female parents at my skill level, so I've been trying with HJB as the female. Strangely enough, I can never seem to get any pollen off of the Hawaiian Red Currants! I've tried at various temperatures, different times of the day, different stages of flower maturity, nothing. I just got in from trying again and finally resorted to putting anther cones from the currant flowers over the pistels of the emasculated HJB. I figure I'll replace the cones every day for the next few days and see if these take. I'm curious if anyone has seen anything like this before. It seemed like a neat idea, trying to come up with a small sweet berry sized blue tomato, but this is starting to frustrate the hell out of me and I'm running out of growing season. Is the anther cone trick likely to work?