Taking stock of my healthiest greenhouse seedlings today after last night’s frost (fortunately, the greenhouse only dipped to about 38*F) and decided I need to keep an eye on this one. I think it could be useful for the dwarf/micro-dwarf x Promiscuous side project…
@WilliamGrowsTomatoes am I right in assuming that if a seedling from your EFN Mission Mountain grex is barely an inch tall and putting on its third set of true leaves, it’s probably inherited some dwarf genetics?
Yes that seedling in your photo appears also to be a bit rugose so a fair chance it is a true dwarf. It is also potato leaf. Those crosses that were included included some with Aztek a microdwarf, Dwarf Gloria’s Treat and Dwarf Mocha’s Cherry.
Well that lil Dwarfsarelli looks like a cutey petooty!
I have to laugh…I only just first
planted my GTS - Obligate Outcross and Promiscuous Returned - and Mountain Sunrise Bi-Color Hybrid Swarm (Wild Mountain Seed) this afternoon. AND, given this,
it’s aggressive for my Valley. 
The maters can quite easily take repeated light frosts. Out my way it is the ever present lingering threat of Hard Frosts seemingly
every month but July.
Thankfully, I am talking high tunnels again for seasons down the proverbial line. For now,
I’m going to aim for a hypothetical Mid May-through-3rd week of May transplanting.
Nice!
I just looked up Aztek, it’s a lovely yellow. Hopefully this dwarf seedling is descended from that, though I wouldn’t mind any of them. I’ve just been trying to stay away from the typical basic-round-red-cherry on my micro dwarfs. Most of what I’m working with right now are orange varieties, some with anthocyanin and/or color streaking, from Bounty Hunter Seeds. The first batch started in my indoor aeroponic grow garden is ripening fruit at the moment, so I’ll have seed to start for outdoor summer grow outs and crosses. While it’s officially a side-project, I really would like to get some promiscuous genes into these micros. I think they’d work well in big planter pots as “ornamentals” for those of us with limited growing space.
I think the cutest thing I’ve grown so far is actually Orange Hat tomato… it started flowering at not even a hand high. Talk about tiny!
Lots of blooms, not many have set fruit. Leaf cutter beas on order to release…had some in previous years besides honey bees but all perished in last years heatwave. Ants are everywhere and maybe they will complete some pollination?
My first tomato seed to germinate in my rickety greenhouse was a 2024 GTS Promiscuous. That is all. Willing lil gal. It continues to be an absurdly cool La Niña (likely transitional) spring breakout this year.
I think I need to sing this lonely gal a country ballad to help her in this lonely thyme.
Tomatoes get most of their pollination in North America from Bumblebees in the genus Bombus and the wind! Promiscuous tomatoes the wind probably doesn’t help- much. I feel like bumblebee conservation is very important to tomatoes. My bumblebee plant of the day was wax current! I saw what I thought was Hunt’s bumblebee and another species visiting their flowers today. Queens this early- no workers yet.
Ive only observed bumble bees on mesquite tree blooms. Regular honeybees normally visit the garden but not so many this year.
I suppose I’m fortunate in that bumblebees are a constant companion in my summer garden! I’ll have to keep an eye on the buzzy little friends to see how they act around the tomatoes!
I’m about to put in my first round of 2025 promiscuous and promiscuous-related tomatoes.
The Hummingbird F2 mix seems to have separated out into two separate seedling groups… some are tall, normal looking (to me) cherry tomato type plants, the rest are much shorter and have a different leaf shape. I’m assuming that’s the wild genetics at play. These are going to end up pretty densely planted due to space constraints, but I’m not sure whether I want to divide them based on phenotype or just mix them all up.
The Promiscuous and Promiscuous Returned don’t have any particular standouts, visually. I’m still watching the possible dwarfs from the Mission Mountain grex… there are two at this point that made the transplant cut.
I direct seeded the tasty off shoot of Joseph’s promiscuous project again this year yesterday. I was careful last year to save seed from carefully selected plants. As usual I’ll let volunteers contribute to the population this year. All descended from a plant I called The One. Also, likely all or mostly crossed with my Mission Mountain tomato series.
First up pots for all the lil Lasses yestermorn. Nice alignment with fruiting days on the Biodynamic ‘Calendrias’.
It continues to be classically absurdly cool here in the back-and-forth mountain pull. I’ve had consecutive nights of 23/24F here. More light frosts on the horizons through at least the 15th. The gals can handle those light touches but these hard frost dips are brutal. They will stay in the gh for the foreseeable future.
Is the random tricotyledon phenotype in the obligate outcrosses of any importance? OR is this just a random ‘poc’ mutant expression? I’ve personally never seen a tricot tomater so I am a wee giddy like a schoolboy - showing it off to my seven year old like a lil forest elf!
I’ve never seen that and I havent seen it in my obligate seedlings
For what it’s worth, my mix (which includes more and less exserted stamens) throws about 2% tricots. The first one I ever saw was in an Iraqi tomato (Abu Rawan), and I followed that plant the whole season. It had 50% more leaves early on, but ultimately had similar leaf density and yield as its siblings.
I’ve had a few of those now and then. I didn’t manage to track them.
I have seen that before but haven’t tracked to see what they do.
I direct seeded a row of the obligate outcrossing tomatoes yesterday. I also seeded two adjacent rows. One row of a line I crossed the promiscuous project back to an accession of Solanum habrochaites so is about 5/16 wild genes. I also planted a third row that is a F3 domestic- but a striped cross descended from Joseph Lofthouse’s earlier domestic tomato breeding material and work that I intend to make additional wild crosses with. I’ve been doing an annual direct seeded experiment since starting with tomato breeding. It allows me to have larger numbers of plants and to make sure that those plants can complete their lifecycle in the course of my growing season with zero season extension.
I planted one other garden direct seeded last weekend. That garden is the descendants of a Lofthouse promiscuous tomato I dubbed “The One” some years ago for its tastiness. I’ve been trying to follow the tasty flavor- but also over the years it crossed with my Mission Mountain lines.
I’m trying to cut back a bit this year with gardening, so that will be it for direct seeding this year. I’m going to wait until next weekend to plant transplants as the ones that are more hardened off are too small yet. However, I do have transplants growing of the obligate outcrossing promiscuous tomatoes and a garden ready for them to go in to. My expectation is that the transplants may get more careful evaluation than the direct seeded ones- however, the high plant density of the direct seeded may allow for more rigorous selection and culling. Especially for culling those plants that do not have a stigma that sticks out- or for selecting for stigmas that stick out quite a bit. This mechanical feature of the flower- the exposed stigma, greatly helps support and facilitate outcrossing. So, selecting for it as a trait is important.
..now im a looking at evey flower stigma. I planted the GTS obligate Outcrossing with a handfull mix of every other tomato variety i had in the seed box. Now I see the stigmas..and the other flowers and differences. Thank you.
I planted out most of my promiscuous project transplants this weekend. Weather is cloudy and that helps prevent scalding. Also, the soil is moist from recent rains.
