A larger Jaune Flammée

[Patrina_Pepperina]

Ray, it almost looks like you have a cross segregating rather than a hybrid, doesn't it Like you say, not what you would expect for the F1. Assuming that JF was the female since they both have that pink shade in their interiors, is it possible that your flower was visited by a bee as well as receiving Paragon pollen? Or that you accidently gave that flower Orange Heirloom pollen one day? JF x OH would probably give an orange F1, yes?

I'm wondering whether you might have 2 different F1s there?

PP, who wondered whether she gave Maritza Rose some pollen from Livingston's favorite instead of Earl of Edgecombe one day when Carolyn thought her two F1 plants of the cross might be different! But they turned out to be the same later on.

[sirtanon]

I'm in the 'crossed parent' boat myself.. Definitely looks like segregation of a hybrid.. which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Could be some very interesting results. What's important is you've already got good flavor

P.S. - that small one on the right looks like a little orange apple

[Raymondo]

Well, I've sown some F2 seeds of both the F1s. I decided that the larger fruited F1 may have been a ring in as a friend grew out the F1 too and got very similar fruit to my smaller fruited F1, to all intents and purposes the same in fact.
As sirtanon says, it will be interesting either way.

[Raymondo]

Various events have conspired to thwart my attempt to grow an F2 generation. I've had very limited success. Two friends took one each and each have given me back some F3 seed. One was a smallish orange-red tomato of unknown flavour. The other was a nice medium-sized tomato with a pinky-orange appearance. The flavour was tart, but that may have been due to the stage of ripeness. My own F2s are still trying to ripen fruit, some of it very odd indeed. One plant has what for all the world looks like little green lipsticks hanging off it. It has the droopy foliage of a heart. Several of the plants have this droopy foliage. The other fruits are small either elongated or roundish. Still waiting on colours.

[Patrina_Pepperina]

Would love to see a pic of some of these F2 shapes and the foliage - sounds quite interesting indeed!

PP

[Raymondo]

Here are some images of various fruit shapes. I tried to capture the foliage but it didn't work, so just fruit I'm afraid. As you can see, they are a long way from being ripe. First day of autumn tomorrow which means frost at any time. These fruit may not ripen at all!

[cosmicgardener]

First day of autumn after the Equinox, mate. 20 days hence - keep hoping!

Cosmic

[Raymondo]

Yes, guess you're right Cosmic. I'm ever optimistic.

[Patrina_Pepperina]

Ray, one of the parents might have been an F1 and you didn't realise it possibly? Otherwise how could JF X Paragon give such interesting shapes? Hope they get to ripen, if not outside, then somewhere indoors - maybe that will give more clues!

[Raymondo]

Your observation about the fruit shapes is spot on PP. I think the Paragon parent can't have been Paragon, but a cross of Paragon with something.
Unfortunately, it's going back too far. I didn't (and still don't) keep maps of garden beds so I have no idea what was growing near Paragon when I grew it and saved seed. I do remember the fruit I used for seed very well. It was big, red and an ever so slightly elongated, as opposed to flattened, sphere. Of course, it may have already been crossed up which means that I would have been using an F2 in my cross with JF. Who knows? I didn't get any fruit off the plant I used in the cross as that was very bad FF year.
As observed, the ones in my garden aren't even close to what I'm after. A friend grew out one of my F2s and that plant produced a very nice oblate fruit with a great orange-pink colour and nice size so there is some hope.
I'll pursue any that are interesting but I think it's back to more crossing next season and this time I'll use something sensible like KB or KBX. Although, as I've said before somewhere, the results of the Green Giant cross in the dwarf project have been outstanding so perhaps I should cross JF with GG!!!

[Hairy Moose Knuckles]

I am curious. I will admit that I know next to nothing about crossing anything. What I am wondering, is.

At what point in the process F1, F2, F3, etc. does it become stable?

[Raymondo]

Because tomatoes are inbreeders, meaning they're happy to self-pollinate and usually do so, when an F1 appears it is theoretically 100% 'unstable' (the technical term is heterozygous). With each passing generation, that 'instability' or variability reduces by half. So in the F2, only 50% of traits are 'unstable' which means the remaining 50% are fixed and therefore stable. In the F3 half of the previous 50%, that is 25%, are unstable leaving 75% of traits fixed and stable etc.
F4 -> 87.5% fixed and stable
F5 -> 93.75% fixed and stable
F6 -> 96.625% fixed and stable
So, by the F6, there's only 3.375% variability left and it may well be undetectable to the eye. It would almost certainly be undetectable by the F8, when the variability would be less than 1%.

[Hairy Moose Knuckles]

Thanks for the explanation. I love to grow vegetables, but I usually don't try to cross things on purpose. I would like to try it sometime, but it's something that I would need to research beforehand.