Its really up to you, if you keep selecting for it you might be able to pull out a more stable strain of stigma exsertion. If you find some plants with really nicely exserted flowers amongst Joseph’s promiscuous project, it might be good to experiment a little. One way to do that is to buy Organza bags and bag some of the flowers. You can do this to self flowers and find out if they will self. If they will self and have really nice exserted flowers, that is probably the best way to stabilize that exserted trait! Well if they won’t self- they have the self-incompatibility trait(s) or a portion thereof that Joseph is looking for and you might save some seed for Joseph. I crossed Joseph’s promiscuous to LA2329 Solanum habrochaites and I have some organza bags for the first time this year so I intend to do some more serious checking. Another thing to check is pollen production. Some plants seem to hardly produce any pollen, others produce fine pollen. I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if we found with a little experimentation that there is some partial self incompatibility and a bit of a mix of SI and SC within the larger population. With a bit of careful experimentation we might be able to pull out some SI or partially SI sub-populations for Joseph. Though Joseph likely has a clearer idea at this point of how to proceed with these genetics. Though this question and answer should really go over in the promiscuous tomato thread.
Direct seeded some tomatoes Saturday from the The One project and the LA2329 Arthropod resistance project. Probably more to direct seed soon in one more garden. I need to grow large F2 populations of some potentially fancy crosses and find the best of them- then cross something wild with those best ones.
Direct seeded seedlings are up and growing in two gardens / projects. One additional F2 cross direct seeded in a third garden just a week ago isn’t up yet. Caught some frost last week, got some damage to the transplants, but nothing super important eliminated at least not in entirety.
Got some weeding done this weekend. Good progress but more to do next weekend.
Complex cross #303 (MMM x PH5) x (MMM x LA1375) so the F1 acts like an F2 and these three fruits represent the best segregate I found last night.
Definitions:
- MMM is Mission Mountain Morning or Mission Mountain Sunrise crossed with HX-9 Big Hill
- BAG is Brad’s Atomic Grape
- Arthropods a term that encompasses both six legged insects and eight legged mites.
- LA2329 is an arthropod resistant accession of Solanum habrochaites
- LA1410 is an accession of Solanum galapagense which is a species known for salt tolerance and arthropod resistance as well as naturally orange fruit.
- University of Kentucky material is descended from LA2329 and is bred to have the arthropod resistance spread across about 20 breeding lines.
- Brown Rugose Fruit Virus is a rapidly spreading global pandemic amongst tomatoes that hasn’t quite reached us here yet
- LA1375 is an accession of current tomato that has tolerance to the Brown Rugose Fruit Virus but I have more accessions with both resistance and tolerance to cross in.
- Smashflower: My beloved’s Etsy seed shop.
- Local: either my previous varieties or varieties from Montana, Alberta, North Dakota, and Idaho.
- Fancy: to me tomatoes with features like anthocyanin skin, stripes, and a wide range of colors and flavors such as green when ripe, bicolor, orange, yellow, black, and white.
- Wild: generally tomatoes from South America including all wild species but also South American accessions of the cerasiforme subspecies. Though some Accessions from further North may add something useful.
- The One a particular tasty individual of my mentor Joseph Lofthouse’s wild tomato breeding project that showed up approximately 2020 with approximately 1/8th habrochaites and 1/8th pennellii, though likely now has crossed with my Mission Mountain tomatoes and is down to 1/16th each.
- PZ is Purple Zebra F1 a remarkable heirloom style modern which along with Galahad F1 also a modern heirloom style hybrid I am using as a source of modern resistances to try to make my tomatoes more broadly useful.
New Crosses!
- Made 22 new crosses!
- Made one new cross with a new brown rugose fruit virus resistant current tomato from South America.
- Made an exciting new cross between my Galahad cross and an exciting line of the LA2329 material.
- Began crossing the crosses with Payette with LA2329 and the crosses with LA2329
- Of the new crosses 9 were fathered by a plant which should have been 303 MMM x LA1375 x MMM x PH5 current but either segregated to orange from that cross or had a different parentage than expected and I have decided to designate as 293?
Reviving Regional Tomato Breeding by Crossing with the old Varieties
- I now have crosses with Bison, Farthest North, Payette, Sandpoint, Nodak Early, Golden Bison, Fisher’s Prairie Fire, Fisher’s Mountain Boy, McClintock, and likely some others.
- Most of these are now in the F2 with at least one new cross.
Crossing with Regional Favorites - I finally made a cross with Glacier
New Discoveries! - The F1 of Dwarf Eagle Smiley and MMM x LA1375 proved quite delicious. This could mean that Dwarf Eagle Smiley is an excellent choice for crossing with.
- The F2 of MMM x BAG segregated out some delicious green when ripes- better than Brad’s Atomic Grape in my estimation, with wonderful stripes. This will be great material to cross with wild material.
- The one descendants segregated out a potato leaf rugose dwarf with high anthocyanin expression that must be a cross with Mission Mountain tomato material. Though the rugose dwarfing is of uncertain origin and could come from either parent. This new tomato will both show any subsequent crosses readily in its offspring and be an excellent mother for future crosses
- Several lines of current crosses segregated back to high anthocyanin or even high anthocyanin bicolors.
- Got a little bit of segregation back to larger sized material especially with ¼ current crosses in the F1’s.
- Got some segregation back to potato leaf and back to dwarf in multiple F2 lines including notably the The One descendants and the Payette descendants. This is very useful for subsequent crossing.
Wild x Local x Fancy
- There are now ~47 crosses of mine that may meet my self-imposed standard of Wild x Local x Fancy that is a double cross that adds both new South American genetics and Fancy genetics to the locally adapted tomatoes available in Montana.
- Progress on Fancy includes Yellow, Orange, Anthocyanin, Bicolor, and Stripes in the Wild x Local x Fancy. White and Green When Ripe crosses are still in Local x Fancy stages only. Local x Fancy crosses are important because they may bring in more of the morphological variation available in tomatoes but a little vexing because of limited resources.
Seed Saved
- Saved small amounts of seed from many tomatoes both mine and breeding material from others.
- Saved a large amount of seed from three accessions from University of Kentucky hopefully for a future trial.
- Saved a large amount of seed from The One mixed descendants to share via Smashflower on Etsy.
- Saved a large amount of seed from mixed breeding lines of current tomato crosses I have made to share via Smashflower on Etsy. These included notably large amounts of 1. MMM x PZ x MMM x LA1375 2. MMM x LA1375 x MMM x PH5, and 3. Dwarf Gloria’s Treat x currents though many additional subsequent crosses with the currents may be included in smaller quantities.
Next Year Plans.
This is frustrating but I am going to try to limit the scope of the project in 2025 greatly. I want to be more available to help my parents in 2025. This may mean prioritizing just what will fit in the greenhouse (28 plants in 2024) for starting indoors and perhaps doing as few as one direct seeded area. This makes prioritization very important for 2025. Likely will grow University of Kentucky plants for crossing. I may continue to direct seed favorite selections from The One descendants. Crosses from Payette especially those from both Payette and LA2329 will be prioritized. So, 2025 will likely be a crossing year for a few select lines. Though if I grow 28 different lines and make a cross with each- that could mean 28 new crosses made in 2025 which would exceed this year’s crossing goals.
High Priority Lines for Growout and subsequent crossing in 2025 - MMM x BAG with good stripes and green when ripe
- (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)
- MMM x LA1375
- MMM x PH5 pimp
- Dwarf Eagle Smiley x (MMM x Brown Rugose LA1375)
- Galahad F1 x (MMM X Purple Zebra F1)
- (MMM x Galapagense X) (MMM x (Promiscuous x LA2329)
- Payette x (MMM x Galapagense X)
- Payette x (MMM x LA1375)
- 4-150 LA5343
- 5-136 LA5341
- SG87 LA5338
- SH13 LA5339
- PI 379006 LA1385 Solanum lycopersicum L. var. cerasiforme
- Black Bumblebee x 319 ((MMM X GalapagenseX) X (MMM x LA2329))
- 348 x 319 where 348 is a Galahad cross and 319 is a LA2329 cross
- 358 (Payette x (MMM X Sweet Cherriette)) x LA2329
- 358 (Payette x (MMM x Sweet Cherriette)) x 356A (MMM x Galapagense X) (MMM x (Promiscuous x LA2329)
- (Dwarf Mocha’s x MMS) x brown rugose true resistant pimp
- The One Descended Rugose Dwarf best Anthocyanin Potato Leaf with best flavor
Future Challenges
- There are always new additional crosses that it would be nice to make! For instance many of my crosses don’t yet meet my double cross wild x local x fancy standard yet.
- Several 2023 crosses could not be confirmed in the F1 or appeared to be failures or not the expected cross. This included most notably the Exserted Orange crosses with the LA2329 material- one of which might be a cross with the LA1410 material and thus extremely valuable and the F2 may tell if so.
- None of the ¼ LA2329 material was palatable in 2024 but some were elite in that they looked like promiscuous project tomatoes- getting good flavor back from LA2329 crosses is important.
- Need to make crosses with the University of Kentucky material
- Need to make more new crosses with the new brown rugose fruit virus resistant and tolerant material.
- The One descendants continued to segregate wildly and getting a stable result is a goal.
- I need to grow the MMM x PZ x MMM x PH5 cross I made in 2023.
Very nice William!
Maybe you can use the downsizing next season as an opportunity instead of a set back? If you have enough seed you can take on a project or a few applying intense selection pressure to screen your tomatoes for useful behavior.
For instance hard frost trials. If you sow 10,000 seeds and have 5 survivors then the descendants could be incredibly useful.
Same with something like vigor. If you sowed 10,000 seeds and found the 10 most vigorous, cold soil tolerant growers, you could push the bar on vigor.
Or set one up for drought.
If you’re brave mix tons of seed together. Maybe entire lines will die out from the selection pressure you choose.
Etc, these are just ideas. It doesn’t have to be those huge amounts of seed, just whatever seed you have. But you can use this train of thought to set up a fun project in a small space that doesn’t take up much time.
Rylan, one of the things I can do effectively in a small year is make lots of crosses.
This year I did two large direct seedings of excess LA2329 cross material. The 50% LA2329 material grew wonderfully but wasn’t able to set seed in time. With just a little longer season it would have set a small amount. The 25% LA2329 set a small amount of seed but probably did not replace what I planted. I imagine though that the few that did set seed are much better adapted now.
Frost trials are pretty fickle. Last year R18 did really well with frost. This fall, nothing survived the frosts once they finally came out on the land. Though it hasn’t frozen yet at the house.
I have done direct seeding without watering in the past also. It was surprisingly successful but I did a good job of weeding that year.
I have bravely mixed tons of seed together in the past for sure. I direct seeded it and the results were quite good though I imagine many individual lines were killed off. One of these days I may clean out my collection of random germplasm and try planting it on my hill.
https://citsci.org/projects/montana-tomato-project/
Created a page for the project on citsci.org was sent an email about it by Experimental Farm Network.