2013 Projects

[Boutique Tomatoes]

I thought it might be educational to post what I'm planning to try with my first year of making a serious attempt at tomato breeding vs my last few years of "I watched the video on youtube, lets go see if I can get a cross to take."

If someone has any thoughts or suggestions; knows of someone else already doing the same crosses or working on the same kind of thing, please chime in!

First is some things that are just interesting to me.

Sweet antho types that would look and taste like an exotic berry/small fruit are one goal. The old pastry chef in me would love to be able to do tomato desserts with something like this, or have sweet sun dried tomatoes that look like raisens. Plus if you think about the anthocyanin content in proportion to the fruit mass, you'll get a lot more per ounce with a very small tomato.

1. Several small fruited cherry/currant types (Sweet Pea, Gold Rush, Hawaiian Red, Coyote, etc.) x Helsing ★★★★★★★★ Blues or Fahrenheit Blues.
2. J&L Gardens Sugar Drop & Ambrosia cherries x Helsing ★★★★★★★★ Blues or Fahrenheit Blues.

I'm going to try to work out a fast harvesting method for shattering currants. If I do, I may do a few crosses with Alberto Shatters to try and bring it all together down the road. Alberto Shatters is reported to have thicker skin and not split when falling off (shattering).

Planning on these crosses to bring sweetness into antho tomatoes, the majority I trialed last year seem to range from acid to mild with no real sweetness to them, other than a couple of yellows that showed up in my Searching for the Blue Zebra plants last year.

3. My two dark antho large cherry lines x LA4454 to combine jointless and sucr genes
4. Tom Wagner's Clakamas Blueberry x LA4454 to combine jointless and sucr genes with a good flavored antho line
5. Bosque Blue x Csikos botermo to bring in the earliness and sweetness along with the stripes for Csikos Botermo into a good blue line. Both are productive cluster types, there is a possibility of some good synergy...
6. Large Blue Bayou x larger fruited Sungold derived line from Mark Mccaslin to combine Sungold flavor in a dark antho line.
7. Blue Green Zebra x larger fruited Sungold derived line from Mark Mccaslin to combine Sungold flavor in a strongly striped antho line.

And just because I think they'd be interesting for gardeners.

8. Blue Green Zebra x Green Tiger Cherry looking for a striped antho GWR elongated cherry because I think it would look cool. ;-)
9. Blue Green Zebra x Blue Beauty to get two antho parents and stripe options in what should be a wild assortment of colors in the F2's.
10. Tom Wagner's Sky Reacher x larger fruited Sungold derived line from Mark Mccaslin to combine Sungold flavor with late blight resistance potential and stripes.

Then as a seperate goal I'd like to incorporate modern disease resistant lines with some of the best heirlooms from my past grow outs. One key is I want to play with a mix of colors and fruit forms in the crosses. I have every intention of retiring somewhere in the south (I originally moved here from Florida and I do not enjoy Wisconsin winters) and know disease pressures are going to be a problem that I don't currently have to deal with. I'd like to have a fun mix of types to grow that incorporate some of the work that has gone into modern disease resistant hybrids, but I don't like an all red tomato garden. Without testing equipment available or any significant disease pressures here I'll have to rely on growers in areas that have disease pressures to assist with selections for this project though.

Hybrid lines I plan to grow for various crosses with heirlooms this year are:

Mountain Merit
Big Beef
Iron Lady
Carolina Gold
BHN-871

I'm going to grow these as some of my heirloom breeding parents.

Cowlick's Brandywine
Aunt Ginny's Purple
Barlow Jap
JD's Special C-Tex
KBX
Aunt Gerties Gold
Pork Chop
Mystery Striped Yellow from my Wild Boar Solar Flare seeds in 2012
Berkley Tie-Dye Pink
Chocolate Stripes
Dark Striped Sweetheart
Kozula 128
Solar Flare

Plus I'll be growing a lot of new to me varieties that I'm still working on the list for, wrestling with myself about a partnership with a local restaurant or possibly two.
The temptation to play with the new ones will be strong but I'm going to try to control myself to a manageable number of crosses to grow out.

2013 should be an interesting year. 2014 even more so... ;-)

[ethane]

It looks like a lot of work, I wish you luck. I'm looking forward to the pictures. How many plants are you going to grow of each variety?

[sprtsguy76]

Sounds fun and very interesting. Good luck on your mission!

Damon

[Fred Hempel]

And when are you going to sleep?

[Boutique Tomatoes]

Originally Posted by Fred Hempel

And when are you going to sleep?

I'm already used to not sleeping, I just take a pill for that. ;-)

[gixxerific]

I wish you much luck Mark. Sounds like a good endevor, keep them crosses going.

[Doug9345]

Sounds very interesting. Some of it parallels my interests also. Good luck and post stuff as you get a chance and want to.

[Boutique Tomatoes]

Originally Posted by ethane

It looks like a lot of work, I wish you luck. I'm looking forward to the pictures. How many plants are you going to grow of each variety?

Probably 10-12 of each of the parents as I believe I've got a market for them anyway.

The restaurant some friends own is very much into local foods and heritage/heirloom foods. They had the farmer that they buy their pastured heritage hogs from offer land for a cooperative growing project next year and I'm going to jump into it for the chance to really expand my growout options. They're very interested in the fun types like I am so if we have a good growing year it may work out well.

[doublehelix]

When you breed with hybrids you will have segregation in your F1. Your F2 population has to be huge to see everything. Just chasing each unique F1 line in a grow out resulting from breeding hybrids is going to be a pretty big task.

Keep in mind that even though TW's tomatoes have names, they are still segregating hybrids.

If you only grow 12 plants of each you are unlikely to see anything even with just 2 recessives.

With just one cross looking for 6 recessive traits you would have to grow over 4,000 plants for any hope of finding that tomato. A dozen or two crosses with 3 or 4 traits can run you into the 10,000 to 25,000 plant grow out range quickly.
You will have much better luck if you focus on just two or three crosses within just one project line.

LA4454 is a bugger to work with and there are better jointless cv's that might get you closer and quicker to your goal. Ask around here and you might could find a good OP jointless. I think I still have an interesting orange one I could send you.

I also have a couple of very small fruited tomatoes and can send you some seeds if you want. Just go to my website and look at Quirigua and/or Sugar.

Make sure you have put all sharp objects out of reach before you start emasculating tiny blooms. I just don't have the patience for it.
If I can help, let me know. ...and best of luck!

[Boutique Tomatoes]

Most of Tom's lines I'll be using are ones I grew out last year and did some initial selecting from. Although he is hard to pin down, I believe what I'll be using are F4 and F5's now.

This year I'm just thinking of 12 each of the parents so that I am sure I get a good representative plant for breeding and get something in a decent quantity for the restaurant. I know next year I'll have to grow out a larger number of the offspring to find what I'm looking for, especially with the hybrids. For that I'm still comptemplating, one option would be to do a mass planting on a field at the family farm about an hour and a half away, let them sprawl, feed the wildlife and see what I can find that way. The other option would be crowdsourcing, which I'd need to do to test for disease resistance possibilities in the hybrid crosses anyway.

I have not grown LA4454 before, it drew my attention because of the combination of jointless and sucr in a processing tomato which presumably might give thicker flesh and longer hang time/shelf life. What about it makes it difficult to work with? I'm certainly open to better options, that's why I posted what I was planning.

I got very frustrated trying with Hawiaan Red currant last year; I said to someone that I have a butchers hands, not a surgeons. One of my friends is an ear, nose and throat surgeon and I joked that next year when he's going to have to start emasculating tiny tomato flowers for me next year if I can't get it.

Thanks for offering up some words of experience!

[doublehelix]

I think your goal of getting a very small anthocyanin tomato that looks like a berry is a good one. If you focus on just that goal, you will get there. The quickest way if you can't do thousands of grow outs is to pick one really good anthocyanin line and cross it with 6-8 small fruited tomatoes.

Did you look at this tomato? http://doublehelixfarms.com/quirigua

It is a cerasiforme. It wouldn't hurt to toss it in somewhere. It gives up a ton of pollen and is a heavy bloomer.

If you want to use it just PM me your address and I will send you some seeds.

I had a plant year before last that I literally butchered. It was a multiflora tomato and I could not emasculate a bloom to save my life. The ground looked like yellow snow by the time I was finished. The plastic dental picks I use are about the only way I can get a small bloom emasculated and I never get it on the first go.

"I believe what I'll be using are F4 and F5's"

Even at F4 you are still dealing with 12.5% of your plants being hybrids.

"What about it makes it difficult to work with?"

When you try to emasculate it the entire blossom comes off. I have seen several newer hybrids that have this problem too. Well, it is only a problem if you are wanting to breed with it. If you try to use it for pollen, it is not open enough to get pollen at the right stage, but if you wait for it to open more the pollen is no longer viable and tends to be clumpy.

I don't think I have any anthocyanin lines that are jointless or I would send them to you.

[Heritage]

Sounds like fun Mark... good luck!

Did I send you my dark selection from Fahrenheit Blues? If not, let me know if you want it.

What size was your yellow(s) from 'Searching for Blue Zebra'? I selected a 4oz with complete antho (almost black when ripe) from the line. I would like to have a larger one, so I plan on working in that direction. But nothing on the scale you are doing!

Steve

[Boutique Tomatoes]

Originally Posted by doublehelix

I think your goal of getting a very small anthocyanin tomato that looks like a berry is a good one. If you focus on just that goal, you will get there. The quickest way if you can't do thousands of grow outs is to pick one really good anthocyanin line and cross it with 6-8 small fruited tomatoes.

That has been an idea for a while now, I was trying with Hawaiian Red and Helsing ★★★★★★★★ Blues late last season, now the idea has grown in scope and intensity a bit. Definately #1 on my goals.

Originally Posted by doublehelix

I had a plant year before last that I literally butchered. It was a multiflora tomato and I could not emasculate a bloom to save my life. The ground looked like yellow snow by the time I was finished. The plastic dental picks I use are about the only way I can get a small bloom emasculated and I never get it on the first go.

Yes, I'd watched your video's too. My wife noticed a bunch of the plastic flosser picks (what we had in the house) on the fence rail and was looking displeased that I was outside in the garden flossing my teeth. Fortunately when explained what I was really using them for she went back to rolling her eyes.

Originally Posted by doublehelix

"What about it makes it difficult to work with?"

When you try to emasculate it the entire blossom comes off. I have seen several newer hybrids that have this problem too. Well, it is only a problem if you are wanting to breed with it. If you try to use it for pollen, it is not open enough to get pollen at the right stage, but if you wait for it to open more the pollen is no longer viable and tends to be clumpy.

Well that's lovely to look forward to...

[Boutique Tomatoes]

Originally Posted by Heritage

Sounds like fun Mark... good luck!

Did I send you my dark selection from Fahrenheit Blues? If not, let me know if you want it.

What size was your yellow(s) from 'Searching for Blue Zebra'? I selected a 4oz with complete antho (almost black when ripe) from the line. I would like to have a larger one, so I plan on working in that direction. But nothing on the scale you are doing!

Steve

I can't remember if it was you and the seeds aren't right here now, but I know I got a selection from someone that was almost completely black like Helsing ★★★★★★★★ Blues, last year the best of my FB just had an antho cap. For me Fahrenheit Blues had more 'tomatoey' flavor, where HJB had something unusual/slightly fruity to it that I couldn't place. Depending on what I get from the dark FB seeds will determine which I use for the antho parent in the tiny tomato project.

I got two yellow types that were about 2oz each on average, one with a antho cap and the other with just antho speckles.



A complete antho yellow sounds interesting. I got a complete antho GWR large cherry out of one of my early attempts at crossing which is rather unusual looking.



The scope of my ambition may be scaled down once I can actually get outside again, right now I'm sick of looking at the snow and subzero temps so I'm escaping into the idea of playing with tomatoes.

[Fusion_power]

Get seed of Clackamas Blueberry from Tom. It has high levels of anthocyanin and is decent for flavor. Side by side with Helsing last year, Clackamas Blueberry was the hands down flavor winner.

DarJones