@WilliamGrowsTomatoes I made a little slide show with notes of the tomatoes you sent me. Let me know if you want any more info or tasting notes on any of these. I’ve enjoyed watching them and found 2 winners for this climate.
These are really interesting notes!
It would make sense to send you some F2 seed of the current tomato hybrids:
MMM x PH5 LB
MMM x LA1375 Brown Rugose Virus tolerance
These would segregate for resistance while also segregating for the desirable traits in the parents of MMM which are Mission Mountain Sunrise x Big Hill HX-9. So the possibility of recovering a resistant strain with fun bicolor fruits would be high.
I took updated photos last week and added them to the slides.
Tomato drama! Some are dead, some are hanging on, and a couple are just fine.
@Mark Reed I have added a slide of your tomatoes at the end.
Patterns?
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Intriguing:
I made some crosses in 2022 I didn’t have seed to share yet- which is currently in the mail to Julia.
2022 Crosses
Mission Mountain Morning (MMM) x LB PH5 Pimp
MMM x Purple Zebra F1
MMM x LA1375- originally intended for a different disease or diseases but seems relevant here too.
Dwarf Gloria’s Treat x current mix- included LA1375, PH5, and sweet cherriette
(Note, I also sent a couple F2 additional packets that shouldn’t have any known resistances)
MMM x Brad’s Atomic Grape
Dwarf Mocha’s Choice x Mission Mountain Sunrise
MMM x (Galapagense x unknown)
I made many more potentially relevant crosses in 2023:
2023 Crosses
MMM x (MMM x LB Pimp) which may make recovering potato leaf blue exserted bicolor easier.
(MMM F2 x Purple Zebra F1) x (MMM F2 x PH5 pimpinillifolium)
(MMM x Purple Zebra F1) x (MMM x LA1375)
(MMM x PH5 LB pimp) x (MMM x LA1375)
Sunviva x MMMF3
(MMM X Purple Zebra) X (MMM x Brad’s Atomic Grape)
MMR Dwarf No Blue x (MMM X PH5 LB Pimp)
Amethyst Cream x (MMM X Purple Zebra F1)
Galahad F1 x (MMM X Purple Zebra F1)
Utah Heart x (MMM x Sweet Cherriette)
Utah Heart x (MMR Dwarf)
(MMM x Purple zebra) x (mmm x galapagense x)
MMM x Purple zebra) x (mmm x galapagense x)
Mr. Stripey x (MMM x PZ)
Hoosier Rose x (MMM x LA1375)
Generally, my process with F1 crosses is to grow them out myself and then share the F2 which will be in 2025. Though the four 2023 crosses with Reed’s material I sent Reed some F1 seed.
For crosses to make in 2024 it seems like crosses including:
Exserted Orange
Lizzano F3 which is probably not Lizzano but a misidentified stable microdwarf
Lizzano F2 which is of true Lizzano descent.
Would be helpful to adapting tomatoes to Julia’s garden and by extension to others with similar challenges?
Am I missing something for the above list?
Would you like me to attempt to make those crosses? Or would you prefer to take it from here in regard to new crosses? Should we both attempt them, so we have a better chance of getting them made? Did you make any crosses in 2023? Where any of the EO or ET plants close to others, exhibiting good exsertion, and may have naturally crossed?
Thoughts about other crosses we should prioritize making based on these trials?
Thoughts about other tomatoes it would be nice to cross in? The One for flavor? Maybe Black Cherry for flavor since it seems to have good flavor when grown cold?
Note on future crossing directions: If we can get some strongly exserted individuals into the “healthy” population some subsequent crossing may take care of itself. This is something to search for in next year’s F2 populations. MMM an ancestor of most is MMS x Big Hill HX-9. Though it might be rare- I have other crosses like EO x ET where it should be common but those don’t get us to resistances!
Any idea which of Mark Reed’s tomatoes did best? Wondering if we should make a cross with some specific individual’s offspring.
So Exserted orange segregated for resistance? Would it be best to make EO crosses with the offspring of specific individuals?
I made a lot of EO crosses in 2023 but none of them were with the materials from which I was looking for resistances. So those would trend away from being helpful.
I only managed one cross with Mr. Stripey! Mr Stripey X (Mission Mountain Morning X Purple Zebra F1). It should be a bit variable in the F1 with the Purple Zebra 1/4 having been an F1 itself in 2022. Though the F2 in 2025 will still be where the real segregation magic happens. Also made one cross with Hoosier Rose and two with Utah Heart. One logical next step aside from just allowing segregation to play out, might be crosses with the crosses and other late blight resistant crosses.
Just from the nature of segregation: the plants that do best for Mark and Julia over generations from these crosses will have much more potential to be useful to folks with disease issues in the wider world than those that complete segregation in my garden which is in a seed potato growing valley- chosen for seed potato production largely because of lack of disease.