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Post by khoomeizhi on Mar 23, 2014 15:26:42 GMT -5
I'm growing Adaptive Seeds Tomatillo 'Purple Keepers Modern Landrace' for the first time this year. Haven't grown any tomatillos in about three years, since a population of raisin-looking insects decimated all of them. Turns out they were the larvae of some kind of beetle that were covered in a fecal shield, in other words storing their own fecal matter all over their body. It's taken me this long to get up the nerve to grow them again! i've had those little rascals on potatoes and litchi tomatoes in the past. they seem to be pretty generalist within solanaceae, but if the eggs are laid on one kind of plant, they may not be able to switch to another. in response to templeton's question, with some crosses i've done in this genus, they've made a husk/lantern and a fruit, but the fruit's smaller than normal and seedless...so it's possible to get lantern but not seed.
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Post by flowerweaver on Mar 23, 2014 17:46:45 GMT -5
khoomeizhi I grow a lot of other solanaceae,too, and had never seen them before, or since. Maybe they were there in smaller numbers and I didn't notice, but not in the hundreds like on the tomatillos. I've wondered if it being the worst drought on record that year had anything to do with the beetle's proliferation. Although, I would think where you grow there is plenty of moisture.
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Post by khoomeizhi on Mar 24, 2014 4:36:57 GMT -5
after a bit of poking around, i think the ones i had were the larvae of three-lined potato beetles...and yes, there's usually plenty of moisture here, but come to think of it, the last time i had them was during a drought as well.
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Post by cesarz on Apr 1, 2014 2:39:56 GMT -5
Hope it is OK to revive this older, interesting thread on purple tomatillos. I had been told by some friends to grow to more than one plant to get fruit, so castanea's and galina's references to self-incompatiblity explain that. Does anyone know how complex the SI genetic trait is in P philadelphica? I have limited space so am interested in how many individuals one should grow to maintain a healthy line for seed saving if selecting for purple fruit. (In Brassicas, where there are multiple SI alleles, the consensus seems to be relatively large, say 50+ individuals?). I only grew one plant of tomatillo (Plaza Latina) last year and it had lots of fruit. Never experienced Self Incompatibility with all of my varieties of tomatillos that I am growing this year each separated by at least 10 meters each in different parts of the garden. The only ones I planted together are the Purple Tomatillo 'Purple Keepers Modern Landrace' where only two plants out of 20 exhibited purple fruit and one plant had purple husk but green fruit.
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Post by philagardener on Apr 1, 2014 19:57:32 GMT -5
Interesting. Thanks for sharing your experiences! Sounds like some varieties are self-compatible while others are obligate out-crossers. And many folks report purple fruit seem difficult to find and maintain. Wonder if those traits are linked?
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