Hi, I intend to grow out some of the Obligate Outcrossing tomatoes from the 2025 seed share. These are tomatoes descended from some real winners amongst the prior releases from Joseph’s tomatoes including several interesting lines I’ve grown before. I’m interested to grow them again, save seeds, and hopefully double check that this year’s grow out is maintaining the genetics for obligate outcrossing also known as self-incompatibility. I bought some mesh baggies last year for making sure that tomatoes are selfed and didn’t hardly make a dent in them- so that will be one way to hopefully check to make sure individuals can’t be selfed. Another way might be to emasculate some flowers and attempt to self them or to attempt to pollinate them with pollen from tomatoes that really should not work as pollen parents. I’ll likely run short on time and energy with this- but hopefully I can save some good seed and report back some interesting results. I hope to start the bulk of my transplant tomatoes six weeks before my last expected frost so for me that means planting on April 3rd for out planting on May 15th. I’m doing six weeks because it works better for the indoor growing space I have at the moment. I hope that if you are a 2025 promiscuous tomato seed recipient or are growing Lofthouse promiscuous tomatoes from another source that you’ll post here as well and let me know how things go.
I have seeds from both GTS 2025 tomato offerings, planting them indoors in 3 batches so as not to put all my eggs in the same basket. So far batch #1 (March 15) has germinated, batch #2 (March 23) is running late, and batch #3 will be started on the late side.
I am hoping that Canadian growers will plant seeds from these offerings so we can add them to the Canada seed share program next year.
I also have some cosmic purple rain started donated to me by vielajoie.com (Quebec). Should be an interesting addition to my population.
I have the following seeds which will be direct sowed in my garden:
- 1000-3000 year 1 seeds from Josephs’s Q-series (mostly) and wildlings that I direct sowed last year. One plant grew really fast and I saved lots from it.
- 2g of Big Hill tomato, 2g of Mission Mountain Sunrise, 2g of Exserted Orange (Snake River seed coop)
- 100 seeds of Mission Mountain tomato grex grown by Gaia Seeds (near Ottawa)
Overall I’m expecting 1-3% success rate on direct sown seeds, but I’m a believer in planting thousands of seeds outdoors rather than the dozens I can do indoors.
Cosmic Purple Rain, Big Hill, Mission Mountain Sunrise, Exserted Orange, and Mission Mountain Tomato Grex don’t contain the Solanum habrochaites and Solanum penellii genetics. Many of them don’t contain new wild genetics. They are great for crossing with- but I wouldn’t want them contributed back to the seed share without crossing them with the Lofthouse strains that do contain those two wild parents. Though in my own garden I’ve found this can be as simple as growing them side by side. Many of my strains such as Mission Mountain Sunrise and the descended Mission Mountain Tomato grex have anthocyanin. I notice a decent amount of anthocyanin now in my home saved Lofthouse descended lines such as the line I’ve been referring to as The One is now almost certainly The One x Mission Mountain tomatoes. Though the pollen flow only seemed to work with the The One as the female parent. The obligate outcrossing plants should not be able to function as a female parent for domestic fathers but many plants in the Q series and the Wildling series just might.
I’ve mentioned this to William previously but I’ll share it here. I will be participating in the GTS tomato grow with both the Lofthouse blend and the Obligate Outcrossings. They will be grown in blocks side-by-side. I will grow Mountain Seed’s ‘Bi-Color Hybrid Swarm’ in its own block as I’ve been growing and selecting from those the past three years. I’ll share anything of interest here.
Joseph, If I were conducting that experiment I would plant the Lofthouse blend as the middle block because in theory it should be able to both send and receive pollen from the other two blocks. If the Mountain Seed Bi-Color Hybrid Swarm is able to receive pollen because of elongated styles and stigmas that stick out of the anther cone (exserted stigmas) it could also receive pollen if that trait is present.
I love this advice. AND, my tomato ‘house’ (the previous farm owner used to call it ‘Fort Tomato’ 
- though I’ve removed all the old faded meaningless corrugated poly and it now stands as a mild frost buffer knee high wall with bricks and a completely open and rotting frame) is situated such that I have a central main bed and a perimeter wrap around bed. I can typically comfortably fit 45-60 tomato plants in there.
I’m growing out the Promiscuous Returned tomatoes alongside a few of last year’s leftover Purely Promiscuous seeds, and also the Hummingbird F2 mix from EFN.
I’ll also have Mission Mountain Grex, Mission Mountain Sunrise, Indigo Orange Supertress, and a TON of dark anthocyanin tomatoes, as well as a few neat dwarf and super-dwarf varieties, in the main garden. Any pollen from those that makes it into the Promiscuous mixes will be unintentional, but seeing as I’m growing intensively and always have high pollinator presence, it’s not unlikely.
I plan on saving seeds from the promiscuous returned and obligate outcrossing mothers separately from the rest.
Not that I can send back tomato seeds to the US, but I am hoping to have those lines in the canadian seed next year.
That is an excellent plan.
That sounds like a fine plan.
I’m also tempted to try some intentional crossing of the promiscuous tomatoes with some of the micro-dwarfs and shorter dwarf varieties as mothers, if I have time and energy for it, but that’s not for the GTS seeds, just a fun “HOA-friendly promiscuous tomato” side project.
As part of the “don’t baby the seeds” process, I started a 36-cell tray about a week ago of the Promiscuous and Promiscuous Returned seed in my unheated greenhouse. We’ve had mostly warm days, but cold overnights with the thermometer on my bottom shelf getting down to a low of about 39*. And yet, I have germination in just under a week with no additional heat. We’ve got at least one more <32* span of nights coming up, so it’ll be interesting to see what tolerates the temp swings best.
Not from GTS, but I have planted some of the Lofthouse tomatoes several years running. Big Hill and Q-12 don’t do well started with only once a week watering. This spring, Q-12 did the worst of the 3, with 2 survivors. Of the three, Jogodka is the best so far this year, with 100% survival. All planted in clay soil and watered once a week as seedlings. They will be planted out in the dry garden with no additional water.
In my experience F1 seed is quite precious but F2 seed is pretty abundant! If you end up with extra F2 seed in 2027 I am sure it would be welcome if you chose to share it. You might try the cross both ways. Some tomatoes, including most of my Solanum habrochaites cross descendants I have grown, seem to be poor pollen producers. Though I need to add an anther scraping technique to my hand pollination technique repertoire for that reason.
Big Hill is a domestic tomato bred by Joseph by crossing Jagodka with Hillbilly. Jagodka and Brad are hardy domestics that Joseph found to do exceptionally well in his garden in a short season area of Utah. The Q series on the other hand is one of the wild cross tomatoes Joseph bred- and would be quite welcome as part of a GTS seed return!