For the 2024 GTS promoscius seeds, when seed is returned at the end of the season, is the expectation that they have only been grown with other promiscuous tomatoes? Or would it be ok if they were grown with other tomatoes?
There are two mixes of tomatoes on offer this year. If you read the description of the second mix:
This mix contains the offspring of last year’s promiscuous mix, fruits of mixed parentage, and various odds and ends. Not guaranteed to display promiscuous flowers, but sure to be full of surprises.
Non promiscuous only seeds collected this year should fall under the second mix of redistributed seeds next year.
This is a good question! I would be ok with it if folks grow with other tomatoes as long as the Lofthouse promiscuous tomatoes are the mother of the seed.
One caveat. Some tomatoes have various legal protections such as patents and material transfer agreements (MTA’s). The only such legal protection I am ok with is the Open-Source Seed Pledge. The scariest of these are the type of patents that GMO’s have, and a GMO tomato is in the process of being released. Please don’t grow those GMO purple interior snapdragon gene tomatoes and then share seed of promiscuous tomatoes grown next to them! To be clear- I don’t think the transgene is harmful, I think the durable long-term patent is harmful to what we are trying to do here.
There are different kinds of patents though. Valentine - Organic (F1) Tomato Seed | Johnny's Selected Seeds
Valentine F1 has what I would guess is a plant patent, when I looked it up it is only good for five more years. So don’t grow Valentine F1 next to promiscuous tomatoes whose seeds you plan to share with the group- for five more years! In fact if I got a packet of Valentine F1 in a seed trade, given that tomato seeds can live about 14 years, I would probably write “do not open until 2029 on the packet” and file it away until then.
So I would be fine with it, as long as people are careful not to grow a tomato with legal protections other than the OSSI pledge near the promiscuous tomatoes. That just seems like common sense to me- I don’t want any legal hassles. Ultimately though it has to be a Going to Seed group standard.
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How does the community feel about this? Do we really want to continue with mixed domestic tomatoes with their relatively low genetic diversity? I would suggest that Lofthouse promiscuous 1/4 wild tomatoes or their descendants even if diluted a little should maybe be a minimum standard going forward for this group. Could we come up with a second mix for 2025 or 2026 that is even more exciting than the Lofthouse Beautifully Promiscuous and Tasty tomato project? What could we cross with the Lofthouse promiscuous tomatoes to jazz things up even more?
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There are a lot of things that we could cross with them, which makes this hard to answer. But I’ll answer for myself:
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my reliably self-seeding, disease and pest tolerant, consistently producing Matt’s Wild Cherry (which I’ve had feral for well over a decade) is getting crossed with the Hummingbird F2 mix, and I’m also hoping to get a cross in with something anthocyanin-producing if possible. Since I can’t work on a super large scale (but have friends to help with some growing out) this will take a number of years, but I want to hit the goal of a “wild, weedy, colorful cherry tomato.” I love my Matt’s, but I want something other than tiny basic red tomatoes and would like at least a bit of promiscuity/reliable outcrossing in there to improve diversity.
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I have a few OSSI pledged Dwarf Project tomatoes that I want to cross into the promiscuous and sorta slutty tomatoes mixes. I live in an HOA neighborhood, and sometimes my wildly indeterminate plants get messy enough I get some side-eye, if not outright nasty-grams from the HOA management team. SO… I am aiming for some promiscuous dwarfs, maybe even some micro-dwarfs (<18") if possible. Lots of color, lots of diversity, but consistently smaller plants.
As for the rest of your questions… I think mixed domestics without any promiscuous/wild parentage at all have their place, BUT I’m not sure a mixed domestic/no-to-low diversity mix aligns with the long-term goals of GTS. On the other hand, people new to the concept of adaptive agriculture/landracing may find a wide mix like the promiscuous mix somewhat intimidating, or not meeting their needs. If they just want to grow good tasting large tomatoes only, or fancy cherry tomatoes only, or whatever, something like the promiscuous mix with its diversity and variety of forms might not be very attractive, you know? So how do we meet those needs? Do we even need/want to? Things to consider…
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Agreed.
Agreed.
I think offering the dwarf project or cherry tomatoes separately for the folks looking for that could be a good compromise.
I think we could make the descriptions easier for a beginner gardener to understand what they’re getting - rather than just listing the colors, list also the size or types (beefsteak, slicers, sauce, etc) included in that mix. Then indicate something like, “Save the seeds from your favorites and grow that next year!” This is more marketing side, but that came to mind.
Is there a resource to check which seeds have patents? I have records of which seeds are in my mixes, but not sure if there’s an easy way to search their restrictions.
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I was recently explaining to a relative that for my tomatoes I am developing I want to make three crosses. A source of deep genetic diversity + a source of fanciness + a source of local adaptation.
I would define fanciness as good flavor and diverse colors and patterns.
Another question is: what is your favorite tomato variety or varieties plural since you don’t have to have just one?
What are the old standby varieties in your community?
Is there anything special a tomato variety needs to survive where you live?
Here is an example from my garden. I crossed a domestic tomato I bred with Brad’s Atomic Grape in 2022. The result should segregate out some tasty striped fruits in the F2 now in 2024. It should be fancy and locally adapted. The result of three generations of crosses in my garden. I will not be at all satisfied! I left out something important! If I take it and cross it with a wild tomato or a high percentage wild cross or even a south american heirloom- then I will be satisfied! Joseph’s Beautifully promiscuous tomato project would be one possible source for that final cross.
For this one I would suggest not crossing with the (Edit: Somewhat Outcrossing (name changed)), I consider it a domestic mix without deep genetic diversity and double down on crossing with the promiscuous mix. If you find something great in the “Sorta Slutty” mix I would suggest also crossing it with the promiscuous mix. This is a great idea because all the OSSI pledged dwarfs are amazingly diverse in terms of flavor and colors, but it was essentially an Heirloom x Heirloom project so they really are modern heirlooms genetically and may lack the resilience of deep genetic diversity found in the Lofthouse beautifully promiscuous and tasty tomato project.
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So in the case of my cherry tomatoes, that would look like
Hummingbird F2 or Promiscuous project + ?? + Matt’s Wild Cherry.
Currently, if I’m not buying anything new to add in, I have the options of Indigo Orange Supertress or Woolly Kate for that ??, or possibly something from the Mission Mountain grex from EFN if anything neat pops up. Or both, maybe? Matt’s is so prolific, I could do a number of crosses this year, then just do a couple years of grow out to let things mix up?
I can’t really pin down an overall favorite. I do love a good Kellogg’s Breakfast, though, and Cherokee Purple, too. Recently, I had a tomato from a random heirloom tomatoes pack that if I could get that result from my promiscuous dwarf project, I’d be pretty happy (but never fully finished, lol.) It was a small-ish slicer, dark purple-black over an orange so dark it was almost red, very meaty but not mealy, somewhat heavy feeling for its size. And almost a smoky flavor to it? I dunno… I saved the seeds, because chaos gardening is my thing. I guess if I was going to name a recent favorite, it’s that unknown “heirloom.”
The biggest issues here for tomatoes are the stretches of hot summer nights, drought, and hornworms. A little bit of blight, but not devastating.
This is a perfect cross example. This meets my three standards I go by. Your Matt’s is your local favorite an old standby + Hummingbird F2 adds genetic diversity and some different colors and flavors.
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I am not sure there is an easy way. Definitely run a web search and see what you find out about each variety you add to your mix. Heirlooms are safe, most wild species material is safe, all OSSI tomatoes are safe. Most tomatoes honestly are safe. I would avoid grocery store tomatoes, avoid GMO tomatoes, and avoid any with patents listed in catalogues like Valentine F1 (though sometimes they will keep the patent language even after it expires so googling the patent can be a worthwhile exercise).
My phone truncated your initial question so my initial response I hadn’t fully read it. Yes the cross you propose with Hummingbird F1 is excellent- I would consider Hummingbird F2 a part of Joseph’s promiscuous project. Indigo Orange Supertress, Woolly Kate, and my Mission Mountain grex are all potential sources of interesting fanciness. I would treat them all as domestics though some things from the Mission Mountain Grex have current tomato crosses but they are mixed with things like the Brad’s Atomic Grape cross that has no source of deep genetic diversity so it may never be certain which is which. Kellog’s Breakfast, Cherokee Purple, and your Unknown Heirloom are also good sources of fanciness. Kellog’s Breakfast and Cherokee Purple are true heirlooms that went to Europe and came back. Genetically they are in the lowest diversity group and this may mean that they lack resilience- so crossing them with the promiscuous project would probably be a good idea.
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Now that gets into a core problem! When I try to breed tomato varieties in my garden which sits in a seed potato producing valley. The lack of disease leads to tomatoes that don’t have any resistance. I strongly suspect that Joseph has a similar problem. I can’t really breed finished tomato varieties for MarkReed or anyone in the midwest, the late blight prone regions of the west coast, and certainly not for the humid areas in the eastern part of this country. If you want tomato varieties that do well-, they’ll need to go through segregation there. So I made some crosses with the varieties you sent me and sent them back to you, may send some F2 seed if you need it next winter, but beyond that the segregation needs to happen there or the result won’t likely be useful! Julia Dakin’s Garden might be a better analog to yours than is mine.
Also: The Lofthouse promiscuous project is A source of deep genetic diversity. It might not even be the best source of deep genetic diversity for every situation. Was just having a very interesting conversation about South American red heirloom tomatoes over on the OSSI forum, they may contain deeper genetic diversity than any other group of heirloom tomatoes. However, it turns out that Late blight comes from the highlands of central Mexico and is at its most diverse there. So where Late blight is the problem- it may not be tomatoes from the center of tomato genetic diversity that are needed but rather tomatoes from the center of late blight diversity- at least potentially. Edit: I saw a recent article claiming that late blight came from South America after all. There is definitely some late blight resistance from there as well.
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Nope, I didn’t manage to make any crosses between anything from the promiscuous project and your tomatoes. The deepest genetic diversity I added was from red current tomatoes.
Notably: it is not at all certain how much if any functioning Self incompatibility there is in the strains of the beautifully promiscuous and tasty tomato project that I included in my grow out of that project for this mix. I wouldn’t be at all spooked by it though if a little made it into that because it is the same way that tomatillos function. Tomatillos are not spooky so self-incompatible tomatoes bred by traditional means should not be spooky either!
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Thank you for the clarification about Prom Tom and his companions this year.
Interesting. I imagine that’s why the Matt’s Wild Cherry never seems to succumb to any sort of blight in my garden, since it’s from somewhere not terribly far from central Mexico. Even in the early years of my garden when I was trying heirlooms of all sorts and losing a bunch of susceptible ones to blight, it never had a problem. That makes me hopeful that the wild & weedy project I have planned will be able to self-select for blight resistance, since any offspring that don’t have it will probably wipe out the first time we hit a blight year.
Yes! That could be the case.
Though we shouldn’t rule out South American tomatoes even for Late Blight. There is late blight there- it just isn’t as diverse. Though the tomatoes are! Edit: a recent article based on new research claimed that South America is where late blight evolved!
These seeds had an excellent germination rate and have produced consistently strong seedlings. More so than any of the rest of the tomatoes I planted. Thanks William.
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That is good.