# Breeding a perennial Tomatillo
**URL:** https://goingtoseed.discourse.group/t/breeding-a-perennial-tomatillo/5065
**Category:** Adaptation Projects
**Created:** [September 16, 2026, 2:53pm UTC](https://goingtoseed.discourse.group/t/breeding-a-perennial-tomatillo/5065 "2026-09-16T14:53:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ferat](https://goingtoseed.discourse.group/u/ferat)
#### Post date: [September 16, 2026, 2:53pm UTC](https://goingtoseed.discourse.group/t/breeding-a-perennial-tomatillo/5065/1 "2026-09-16T14:53:36Z")
so a bunch of Physalis seedlings germinated a few days back in my pot form compost where i threw tomatillos and they seem to be hybrids. They have weird growth, will sometimes grow deformed leaves. Overall the leaves are fleshy and dark green like longifolia and will have hairs at their edge(only found in longifolia). The 3 plants I have are extremely different. I will backcross them to Tomatillos(because I cant grow a longifolia under a grow light; Tomatillo is easy) and I will also try to keep them alive until next summer to backcross to longifolia. I will also try making F2s but they might be sterile
Image of one of the 3 plants
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### Author:  [@ferat](https://goingtoseed.discourse.group/u/ferat)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2026, 2:37pm UTC](https://goingtoseed.discourse.group/t/breeding-a-perennial-tomatillo/5065/2 "2026-09-17T14:37:21Z")
Hybrids have weird growth:
stem is getting very hairy all of a sudden(way too hairy)
Leaves have strong pubescence at the edge(only in the third plant, the other 2 dont have this many hairs at the edge of leaves); more than either parent
weird, very long hairs at the base of the stem
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### Author:  [@VeggieSavage](https://goingtoseed.discourse.group/u/VeggieSavage)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2026, 12:28pm UTC](https://goingtoseed.discourse.group/t/breeding-a-perennial-tomatillo/5065/3 "2026-09-22T12:28:44Z")
Nice! It does look a lot like _Physalis longifolia_ genetics because the hairs also mostly point in 1 direction (like pure _P. longifolia_). The leaves also look intermediate. Would be interesting to see the flowers.
> [@ferat](#):
>
> I will also try making F2s but they might be sterile
Good, I like how you will try crossing this hybrid with both parent species. I would recommend you cross pollinate the same flower with both parent species pollens. This technique is known as mentor pollination & it helps resolve a lot of hybridization barriers/sterility issues.
Hopefully both parent species & the hybrid offspring flower at the same time (in my experience they kind of do, unless animals eat them ðŸ˜). Mix up the pollens as much as possible so that your pure _P. longifolia_ parent gets a mix of all 3 pollen sources, your pure _P. ixocarpa_ gets a mix of all 3 pollens & your hybrid gets the a mix of all 3 pollen sources as well. This technique works great for bypassing interspecies _Cucurbita_ hybridization barriers/infertility issues.
Another method to smooth out hybridization barriers (& potentially induce horizontal gene transfer) is to scion swap graft them at very young/seedling stage, then combine it with mentor pollination.
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### Author:  [@ferat](https://goingtoseed.discourse.group/u/ferat)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2026, 4:29pm UTC](https://goingtoseed.discourse.group/t/breeding-a-perennial-tomatillo/5065/4 "2026-09-22T16:29:39Z")
So the hybrids have grown a lot & I moved the 2 bigger plants into much bigger pots.
Here is an image of hybrid leaf compared to Tomatillo and longifolia(I took all images by myself)
The 2 bigger plants already started branching but there are no flowers in the nodes where branches split(normally there will be flowers in every node for Tomatillos).
This(with my longifolia plants) is in my experience also the case with longifolia plants, only new shoots from rhizomes will have flowers, the main shoot that grew from the seed may have extremely tiny or no flower buds that will fall off. So maybe this was passed on to the hybrid. Hopefully it will make flowers in the future if it is able to grow a small rhizome.
One problem is space. I have only one grow light so I probably wont have enough space for 4 mature plants(3 hybrids + 1 tomatillo). I might need to just keep one ore 2 hybrids based on if they flower.
