When you say “weediness,” what exactly do you mean? A self-seeding tomato you basically plant once, ignore it, and it’ll go do it’s own thing from year to year? Or something else?
Angela: Exactly what you said: A self-seeding tomato that you plant once, and then it acts like lambsquarters, bindweed, or purslane. Bonus points if it escapes cultivated fields, and establishes a life of it’s own in the wildlands.
That sounds like fun! My Matt’s Wild Cherry tomatoes basically do that now, but a larger “traditional” tomato with promiscuous traits that is just as weedy (or more so!) would be delightful!
Hmm… now I’m wondering if I need to make another EFN order for the Hummingbird F2 and move a couple Matt’s volunteers into the patch for a head-start on some locally adapted diverse genetics weedy cherries…
2 Likes
Joseph, when you make a cross with a wild tomato to a domestic type flower tomato, do you see variation in flower size in the first generation?
2 Likes
F1 traits tend towards the average of the parents.
2 Likes
I found these today from your Wildling tomatoes. The small yellow one from the plant that looks very wild (at least like the other wild peruvian tomatoes with green/purple fruit) are delicious! So sweet and zero acidity. Much more like a fruit than a tomato. The larger one is also very sweet with dark orange flesh, but the plant looks more like a mix between a domestic and wild.
I was so happy to find them producing during a 40 degrees celsius heatwave where most of the other tomatoes just cook on the vine.
4 Likes