5 posts were merged into an existing topic: Reed’s Tomatoes
Julia, I suspected the F3’s to be an already stable micro dwarf and so I bought new Lizzano F1 seed to find out. If the F3’s really came from Lizzano, the F2’s should be segregating for dwarfism. If not they aren’t Lizzano at all. I sent you both because another line of figuring is if any of the dwarf ones are resistant to late blight they might be from Lizzano.
I have covid again. Am quarantining from my family. My wife just video called me and picked about half a dozen things.
Mostly new F1’s but also some of what will be F3 MMR dwarf.
Two crosses with Reed’s Utah Heart.
Another cross with Amethyst Cream.
Galahad F1 X (MMM x Purple Zebra F1)
New crosses are now fermenting:
Amethyst Cream x (MMM X PZ)
Galahad F1 x (MMM X Purple Zebra F1)
Utah Heart x (MMM x Sweet Cherriette)
Utah Heart x (MMR Dwarf)
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3 posts were split to a new topic: Blight Trials for William’s Tomatoes
Late Blight Breeding
MMM x LB PH5 Pimp - F2 seed grown
MMM x Purple Zebra F1- F2 seed grown
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)
Brown Rugose Tolerance Breeding:
MMM x Brown Rugose LA1375- F2 seed grown
(MMM x Purple Zebra F1) x (MMM x LA1375)
(MMM x PH5 LB pimp) x (MMM x LA1375)
Fisher’s Earliest Paste x (MMM x LA1375)
Ida Gold x (MMM x LA1375)
(MMM x Sweet Cherriette) x (MMM x LA1375)
Dwarf Eagle Smiley x (MMM x Brown Rugose LA1375)
Wilford x (MMM x Brown Rugose LA1375)
Bison x (MMM x Brown Rugose LA1375)
MMS x (MMM x LA1375)
MMM x (MMM x LA1375)
(MMM x LA1375) x (MMM x galapagense X)
Most of these crosses are precious F1 seed but the first one or two are the 2022 crosses now in the F2.
Breeding more short season blue tomatoes is one of my goals:
Bluest Crosses of 2022 and 2023- blue from both sides and often one side very stable:
F2 Seed Saved
Dwarf Mocha’s Treat x MMS
I think this cross has the potential to make a potato leaf dwarf blue bicolor in 2024.
MMM x Brad’s Atomic Grape
I think this cross has tremendous color potential for 2024. Green, Red, Bicolor, tricolor, stripes!
New F1’s made
ET x MMM
Has the potential for stripes and potato leaf. Maybe better exsertion of the stigma.
Amethyst Cream x MMM
New color- pale yellow, almost white and it has blue from both parents.
(MMM X Purple Zebra) X (MMM x Brad’s Atomic Grape)
High potential for stripes, should segregate almost like an F2.
Yellow Tiger x (MMM X Brad’s Atomic Grape)
High potential for stripes.
Muddy Waters x (MMM x Aztek non dwarf)
High potential for stripes, green when ripe, amazing flavor from Muddy Waters.
Exserted Tiger x (MMM x Brad’s Atomic Grape)
High potential for stripes and maybe better exsertion.
(Dwarf Mocha’s Cherry x MMM) X (non-dwarf F2 MMM x Aztek)
May segregate for dwarf in F1
Dwarf MMR x (MMM X BAG)
Will have some fun potential colors and may end up with dwarfs.
Amethyst Cream x (MMM X PZ)
Fun new color plus low potential for stripes.
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2023 Montana Tomato Project Breeding Summary
I made 74 new crosses in 2023 and my total tally of crosses stands at 96 for the seven years I have been breeding tomatoes.
It would be a very long list indeed if I simply went through all of the crosses. So I will talk about the traits I am selecting for instead.
Local Adaptation: In 2023 I crossed in a fairly large number of tomatoes originally bred in Montana and neighboring states and provinces. Some of which I had been previously unaware of. My own Montana bred tomatoes are themselves all pretty well adapted to conditions here, but connecting more to this deeper history of tomato breeding in Montana and regionally was important to me.
Shortness of Season- In 2022 I crossed with the shortest season tomato I know, Sweet Cherriette at 35 DTM from transplant and in 2023 I grew out that cross and made some crosses with it. Conceptually this is closely linked to local adaptation. I think for shortness of season it is a good idea to direct seed tomatoes and have been doing this with a portion of my tomatoes every year since 2017.
Anthocyanin: I started my projects with anthocyanin skinned tomatoes. So it is a fairly common set of traits in my garden. In 2022 and 2023 I made some Anthocyanin to Anthocyanin crosses creating new lines that we won’t have to wait for the anthocyanin traits to segregate in. In 2022 Dwarf Mocha’s Cherry x MMS, MMM x Brad’s Atomic Grape, and a cross or two with Amethyst Cream in 2023. That is a lot of fun. I also created many lines where the traits may be very diluted but may occasionally still segregate out.
Exserted Stigmas: With many of my 2023 crosses I may have over-diluted this trait. However, I robustly crossed back in Exserted Tiger and Exserted Orange which should result in a sub-set of crosses that are much more likely to have this trait in the F1 and F2.
Late Blight Resistance: In 2022 I crossed in a Solanum pimpinillifolium strain that was identified as the likely source of PH5 late blight. I also crossed in Purple Zebra F1 in 2022. Then in 2023 I made a cross with Galahad F1 and a cross with Sunviva. I also made many crosses with the two 2022 crosses. While these crosses are in early generations I think it is a good idea to send them out to folks who need these traits in their gardens for selection.
Brown Rugose Fruit Virus Tolerance: In 2022 I made a cross with a strain of Solanum pimpinillifolium LA1375 that is supposed to have some tolerance to the brown rugose fruit virus. I made subsequent crosses with those crosses in 2023.
General disease resistance: Purple Zebra F1 and Galahad F1 also have resistances to other diseases. Mark Reed’s tomatoes grow in an environment where they need some disease resistances. So I made some crosses with three of the tomatoes Mark has found to do well in his garden in 2023.
Fruitiness and good flavor: 2022 I spent quite a bit of effort exploring tomato flavor. I also managed to make ~2 crosses with dwarf Gloria’s Treat which had amazing flavor- in 2024 those should segregate!. Further I made a cross in 2023 to Tom Wagner’s Muddy Waters. I also managed to make some 2023 crosses with Tim Peter’s “Fruity Mix” from Tien Chiu. Sunviva is also supposed to be fruity. Then of course I grew out my fruity find from Joseph’s promiscuous project. A decent subset of it seems to have some light anthocyanin now and it seems to have segregated into about half a dozen different tomatoes. My favorites from the 2023 descendants of my fruity selection of the promiscuous project are a blue-orange cherry tomato and a blue-orange tomato though they also come in yellow which might be interesting. I also have an even better blue-orange cherry from the promiscuous mix I grew in 2023- which included the fruity lines. I also made one deliberate cross between The One x Mission Mountain. Though the blue ones are also likely this cross but a generation ahead. Also another mention is that my cross with the micro dwarf Aztek has led to some nice bright yellow lines which seem tasty and diversify from my usual bicolors. So some significant developments on the flavor front.
Arthropod Resistance: I continued crossing with LA2329. I grew out 2022 crosses but with a notably partial success. I started with many seeds of MMM x (Promiscuous x LA2329) only five germinated, and of those five only one produced seed. Though two contributed pollen to subsequent crosses. This means that in the ¼ dilution it is simply unlikely that the arthropod resistance would have carried over. I grew out F1 and F2 crosses of Promiscuous x LA2329. I also grew out F1 crosses of Big Hill x LA2329 and MMM x LA2329 but made the mistake of isolating these latter ones and they produced no fruit. Likely they would have grown with the promiscuous x LA2329 as that probably resulted from self incompatibility. I did make at least one cross with those as the pollen parent though. I made new crosses of Exserted Tiger x LA2329 and Exserted Orange x LA2329. I also made some 1/8th dilution crosses. I failed to save any LA2329 seed grown in 2023. The greenhouse plants produced none and it is possible that any produced by the field grown plants got mixed with Promiscuous x LA2329 seed though it is also possible that any such seed could be contaminated with back crosses as could all my LA2329 seed at this point.
Sending Seed Out into the World: Mission Mountain Sunrise, collaborative Exserted Orange, and Exserted Tiger have previously been shared through Snake River Seeds and with EO also Experimental Farm Network. In 2023 I sent out my grow-out of Joseph Lofthouse’s Promiscuous Tomato Project to the Going to Seed organization. This does seem to include some anthocyanin skin so possibly some crosses did occur in my garden- which is somewhat to be expected with promiscuous tomatoes. Then I have sent out a 2023 Mission Mountain Grex to Experimental Farm Network in the hope that it will appear in their 2024 catalogs. EFN seems to have some ability to ship internationally. I shall likely also continue to send out seed packages to select close collaborators within the US.
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Had to find my password so have been gone awhile.
EFN released my tomato seed I shared with them.
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I’m super excited to work with your grex this season. Other than testing a couple varieties from the dwarf tomato project for my guys, and maybe experimenting with crossing something fun into my Matt’s Wild Cherry volunteers, it’s the only tomatoes I’ll be growing.
I think you have a head start on the 2024 grex Reed! You’d be getting tomatoes you’ve already got straight from the source! Though I just bought Joseph’s Hummingbird tomato and um- uh, same story.
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I’m going to grow it and the 60 or so new crosses and a bunch of new genetics to cross in. Also, there is the Going to Seed Lofthouse Promiscuous Tomato population that I grew quite a little seed for that will be coming out sometime soon.
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https://www.nature.com/articles/s41438-020-0291-7
Two articles recently caught my attention. The first shows that South American red tomato diversity particularly in Ecuador and Peru is of remarkable importance. The second is an experimental course of action creating a very interesting research population of tomatoes to better understand that diversity.
The course of action this suggests to me is to make some more crosses with tomatoes from South America. I was able to order a few more recently from Seed Saver’s Exchange- the actual exchange not the catalog. I think, once those arrive safely, I will have a total of nine red groups (pimp, gal, che, lyc) South American tomatoes both wild and domestic with which to make crosses.
I think that based on these articles that South American red group tomatoes, particularly the domestic heirlooms, are an underutilized and straightforwardly easy way to improve the resiliency of tomatoes. Though this diversity is across accessions and not just within accessions as may be the case with some of the obligate outcrossing but difficult to work with species. So the more accessions used the better. In the second article they make crosses with 163 accessions. If I can make crosses with nine that might be enough for my effort and for my portion of the Montana Tomato Project to incorporate. However, a larger effort, perhaps OSSI wide in a new dwarf tomato project level effort could think about a larger goal such as making distinct crosses with 100 accessions or 163 or 200. If indigenous farmers and gardeners in the heart of tomato diversity and with disease pressures have been sustainably growing tomatoes for deep time in Ecuador and Peru this just makes sense to incorporate the same levels of genetic diversity as found there. OSSI wide that could mean something simple like pairing each existing OSSI variety with a different accession and making a cross, then developing a new variety from each cross focusing on morphological variation. This would double the number of OSSI varieties but more than double their genetic level distinctiveness.
For my own work I have something like 92 extant crosses, most of them of OSSI descent, but a much smaller subset are distinctive crosses either morphologically or genetically. There is some interesting morphological variation in the South American material and that can add something. However, I think for a variety to successfully add something to the tomato world, to be conserved by multiple seed savers, it has to have distinction. So most of my crosses likely represent either dead ends or intermediate steps requiring an additional cross to be useful for the development of a new variety.
I was explaining my basic philosophy of tomato breeding to someone the other day. I said basically there are three things I need to combine. A short season tomato already well adapted to Montana, a tomato that is amazing for its fanciness like say Brad Gate’s Atomic Grape or Tom Wagner’s Muddy Waters, and a tomato that contributes some important diversity at the genetic level like Galahad F1 or Purple Zebra F1. These South American tomatoes come in as an alternative and perhaps more resilient approach for the latter. Potentially more resilient because this approach, instead of broadly incorporating the same genetics to make tomatoes more modern, incorporates more genetic diversity across new varieties which means the same pathogen can’t adapt if there are multiple different resistances represented by that deeper diversity. It is a novel approach- save heirloom tomato genetics by incorporating the heirloom diversity from Ecuador and Peru instead of by incorporating the modernization introgressions already widely used commercially. Though I will also mix methods and let segregation happen.
So one of the highest priorities in 2024 for my high value growing spaces in the greenhouse and backyard where I can most easily make crosses, will be growing out South American red tomato group accessions for crosses.
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I’m interested in your take on the Two Survivors tomato from Wild Mountain seeds. If the photos and description are to be taken at face value then it looks like it’s just a bicolor heirloom type tomato with a strong enough immune system to survive late blight just fine.
I would assume it has none of the modern breeding style late blight genes. If the tomatoes from Wild Mountain seeds work as advertised for frost resistance and disease resistance, and cold tolerance, then they are the shining example of the “horizontal resistance” that is discussed at times on this forum. Incremental improvements in a low genetic diversity crop like domestic tomatoes adding up over time to create a large difference in the resiliency of the plant.
I could only guess what those incremental improvements are, but for something like frost tolerance I would have to guess things like increased fuzz on the stems, increased stem thickness, maybe something to do with better geometry of the water transportation system, etc. I don’t know much about plant biology so I’m just spitballing. Let’s say you made a 50 percent improvement in each category over a decade, the genetic difference between the starting point and the end point might not even be notable to a researcher but the practical difference in performance could be huge.
It is mildly interesting. With a trial like this, having a survivor, or perhaps just getting seed back from the longest surviving tomato is essential. Only 75 plants to start with, that is a relatively small population. Uncertain what genetic diversity they incorporated.
The article I referenced Genomic variation in tomato, from wild ancestors to contemporary breeding accessions | BMC Genomics | Full Text has an interesting statistical measure of tomato diversity. I don’t completely understand it but I am reading it as the larger numbers are much better.
(He = 0.21) for current tomatoes from South America, (He = 0.17) for South American heirlooms, (He = 0.12) for modern tomatoes and (He = 0.09) for heirlooms. South American heirlooms are the work of indigenous people who have been growing tomatoes sustainably in Ecuador and Peru for deep time or since time immemorial. That suggests that that (He = 0.17) level of tomato diversity is sustainable and resilient. If the tomato resulting from the Wild Mountain Seeds trial incorporates only diversity from heirloom tomatoes that would put it as a small part of the (He = 0.09) diversity, if it turns out that modern tomato genetics played a role (which is fine) it would be a small part of the (He = 0.12) diversity. We still need to add in a lot of genetic diversity to make domestic tomatoes outside of South America as sustainable and resilient as those in South America.
So going back to this basic philosophy of mine. Take one locally adapted tomato then cross to something with amazing flavor, colors, patterns, then cross with something with deep genetic diversity. This survivor tomato- that is perfect local adaptation for Wild Mountain Seeds! Yay! One corner of the triangle is built! Though for someone else that same tomato might actually be on a different corner of the triangle- it might be an importation not locally adapted but useful for resistance! Still more work to do though, one or two more crosses depending on what else is still missing. Then repeat that process about 100 times so that you have about 100 regionally adapted tomatoes that have all three characteristics. genetic diversity + morphological diversity + local adaptation. Though don’t think you have to build that entire house of 100 varieties! I started with lots of amazing regional varieties including the work of universities in Idaho, North Dakota, and Alberta. They sit somewhere in that (He = 0.12) measure of diversity; we only need to build on that with an eye on a goal of (He = 0.17) or maybe (He = 0.21) or maybe even higher from the really deep diversity in the obligate outcrossing species- which is what Joseph has been working on and I am trying to contribute to with my LA2329 Solanum habrochaites project. Though that is a much harder path to take then crossing with red tomatoes from South America! A middle road is to cross with the existing palatable high percentage crosses with S. habrochaites such as Joseph Lofthouse’s promiscuous tomato project!
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My order from Seed Savers Exchange has arrived.
Tomato 1147 South American Large Round Accession 122549
Tomato 1962 PI 129129 (Panama) Accession 123363
Tomato 2067 PI 118686 (Brazil) Accession 123468
Tomato 1148 South American Oval Accession 122550
Tomato 2065 PI 79532 (Peru) Accession 123466
Tomato 5658 PI 158171 (Venezuela) Accession 127037
Tomato 5659 PI 158164 (Venezuela) Accession 127038
Tomato 4852 Peruvian Bush Accession 126231
Tomato 4848 Oaxacan Pink Accession 126227
Tomato 2070 PI 128445 (Argentina) Accession 123471
I also accidentally ordered the variety Perun a yellow pear type from the Czech Republic. Oops, it came up when I searched for Peru.
I suspect that there are more tomatoes of interest from South America, and I think I passed up a few, at the Seed Saver’s Exchange but it may be the case that they are just hiding and need just the right search term to find. The seed savers exchange is also a place where many accessions from the USDA-ARS-GRIN of domestic heirloom tomatoes have been made available again after otherwise dying out- thus the PI numbers on many of these.
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I’ve planted most of what I am going to plant for this project this year! Just a few more seeds to plant. I think I need another flat of potential cross mothers.
I planted a lot of Dwarf Gloria’s Treat x Current tomatoes F2 to look for potato leaf dwarfs to use as cross mothers. If I have 400 seedlings 100 will be potato leaf, of those 25 dwarfs, and I think of those about 6 should be bicolor. But will any of those six taste as good as Dwarf Gloria’s Treat?
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Here is a fun little potato leaf tomato with 1/8 habrochaites, 1/8 galapagense and 1/8 promiscuous project amongst its ancestry.
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Wow, that looks completely like a potato.
I have some tomatoes this year from what I grew out for you last year that I believe were a galapagos x something f2 and are now a f3. The f3 population has a lot of diversity, some with exerted stigmas too. I will try to find out exactly what they are. Unfortunately, my labels didn’t work out like I planned last year and things got confusing. I saved seed from what produced, but I am somewhat unsure what is what. This population is flowering now and should have fruits soon.
Question about the purely promiscuous mix and generally the Lofthouse promiscuous, which I am growing from saved seed last year: Should I only save seed from plants with an exserted stigma? The first mega flower tends to appear exserted, but many of the smaller flowers have the stigma flush with the anthers or hidden up in the flower.