Hi everyone!
Would anyone be interested to join a tomato trial? Sorry for asking so late but there’s still time to plant seeds
The main projects are:
F2 grow out for Late Blight (hereafter ‘LB’), decent sized domestic tomatoes using the highest form of LB resistance from commercial tomatoes. Selection for highest LB resistance, dwarf trait, and good flavour. The flavour should be a good improvement over the commercial tomatoes.
Small tomatoes all edible but ranging from 25~50% wild genetics. Mainly from crossing with Solanum galapagense, also some with Solanum cheesmaniae, both from the Galápagos Islands. There are various populations of these. Some have no LB resistance so would be selected for fruit size primarily, in conditions without LB preferably. Some do have LB resistance so can be selected for that as well as general neglectability. There’s also great potential in these for salt tolerance and arthropod (e.g. spider mite) tolerance in some of these - I am not focusing on that since I don’t think those issues are common, but if you do have either of those issues (maybe you live by the sea where the soil is too salty for normal tomatoes?) then trialing them for that could be great also, for helping us to provide seeds for those in need of that in future.
Small tomatoes some or many of which would not be so nice to eat, since it takes time breeding nice fruit from some of the other wild tomato species. There are 2 projects for this, both evolutionary populations, one aiming to have self incompatibility (from Solanum arcanum); one unilateral incompatibility (from Solanum chmielewskii). At this stage I don’t think I have any with LB resistance that I can share, but if you don’t get overwhelming LB too early (so could still get ripe fruits), these would be primarily selected for exserted stigmas and multiflora traits.
Participants in the trials would be asked to send back seeds of the best plants, according to certain criteria. And if possible, take a few notes on the plants during the season.
Anyone interested, or have friends who might be?
If interested, please mention:
Your location
Which categories you are interested in growing
How many plants you could grow. Plants can be close planted, for example in beds 10m long with 70cm wide beds and 30cm paths, I grew about 100 plants per bed.
If you have no, weak, or strong late blight pressure, and suffer any other adverse conditions.
Initially I had no LB whatsoever, it appeared in 2016 and problems were growing until 2022. I have focused on LB then (weekly natural prevention spraying, moving potatoes away, LB resistant varieties, etc.) It helped. In 2024 I had one case o severe LB in 100 plants.
I have my tomatoes already planned for this year, but I can squeeze in 10-15 plants, maybe more in a Milpa type garden. It is STUN garden (sheer, total, utter neglect) except watering in the driest period. Plants are not going to be sprayed there or protected in any other way.
My deadline for sowing tomatoes is April 4th.
I will gladly collect seeds and send them back along with feedback on LB resistance.
If that sounds good to you, please drop me a PM, thanks.
I am also interested, and it looks like ill be another person in Poland as well. I’m in zone 7 north-western side near the border with Germany in a small town called Insko.
We definitely get LB here. Id say it is mid-range pressure between weak and strong.
My practice is minimal irrigation, minimal weeding, and zero chemicals/synthetics. I will likely be doing a bit of mulching, and might be adding a mix of animal manures.
I can easily make space for 100+ plants, but maybe it would be better to not get too carried away and start smaller for the first trials.
Happy to grow some of these for you and select. I grow in the north of Schotland on a natural selection basis. In extreme circumstances I may water and there’s some mulch going on the beds once or twice a year.
We get late blight here. For me it’s usually pretty late in the season, but other local growers tell me they lose their potato and tomato crops regularly.
Hoping to select for open flowers etc on offspring from panamorous wildling and some beefsteak lycopersicum/domestic, so if you don’t mind those being nearby then I can grow 20 to 30 plants for you.
Also very happy to grow some for you. I’m in Oxfordshire England, and we definitely get a fair amount of blight pressure here. I could grow 20 to 30 plants and don’t mind doing a mix or focussing on just one
Also in the UK, East Anglia.
I don’t have a lot of space left but could probably squeeze in 10-20 plants of your F2 LB mix. I could grow them close together at the allotment for max blight pressure when it strikes!
Hi,
I can offer half of this 3 m x 6 m patch, zone 6B, Czech Republic.
I visit this garden usually every other weekend. Usually, there is LB, but some years not, depends on weather. I will plant some LB susceptible plants nearby to see the difference.
I would use standard distances between plants to prevent need for irrigation.
I usually sow tomato seeds on 19th of March.
If you find my conditions suitable for this project, I would prefer decent sized tomatoes.
@Richard and @Shao and anyone else interested who has not yet filled in the form, you are welcome to apply. I’ve sent out seed to most applicants, a few more to send out and I’m hoping to have them all sent out by Monday.
Please see the application form and information in the PDF above.
If you will be hoping to grow more than 1 category, I have to work out what best to send you and how many of which. But specifically for category 3, we can do some selection early on (explained in the above document). So, for that category, let me know how many you’d like to grow as mature plants, but also how many you’d like to grow in total. Basically, you could for example grow 5 times as many of those, then pull out 4/5 of them once the flowers appear (if the flowers are undesirable), giving more space for the others.
Welcome to ask me if anything is unclear or if you have questions.
Great Justin! I just filled out the form. Me and Richard can get working on them. If you want you can send ours in the same package. I’m sure Tanja would also be interested if she hasn’t registered already.
Thanks Justin for initiating this project, and helping to coordinate everything!
Im feeling excited about being a part of this. Hopefully everybody involved will share their unique approaches and strategies with occasional updates including photos of the progress.
