My favorite home made F1

[lieven]

I'd sure love to breed my own brand new OP mater, like some of you do so passionately & rightly. But then my greenhouse & my time won't allow me to dehybridize all the F1s I make. So feel free to do that job in my place: I love doing those crosses, even just for the fun of creating & growing & tasting the resulting F1s.
My favorite home made F1 so far is Sungold (already an F1) x Romeo (from www.psrseed.com/gardenseed_romeotomato.html).
This F1 is so vigorous, healthy & yields tons of sweet meaty egglike tomatoes, in trusses of 8 or so. Try this cross yourself - or ask me for F2 seeds.

[Jim]

Lieven,

Sounds like a wonderful variety. If you send seed to this side of the pond I can distribute it for you ( assuming I'm not the only one who wants a few ) to help save shipping costs.

Jim

[raymondo]

Lieven, I enjoy doing crosses likewise. It's fun to watch the crosse fruit grow, and to grow out the F1s. This is the first year I'll enough space to grow out a range of plants. I did a cross two years ago. I grew the F1 then the next year grew a number of F2s and farmed them out among friends with the proviso that I get a fruit or two for tasting and seed collection. That may be a way forward for you too. This year I have enough space of my own so I will be growing out a number of F3s. I still plan on farming out some plants though.

[canadamike]

Well, I would have to say mine is the lucky cross of pepo squash I have. Not only is it huge and having more and bigger fruits than the other pepos, it is doing so while touching lots of plant material attacked by downy mildew, and keeps being healthy. I'll savor my raspberry cross next year I guess...

[lieven]

Tomato crosses: a good gardening friend with professional contacts confirmed to me that those professional tomato breeders often cross cherries with beefsteaks as a great way to get excellent taste & yield.
Little trick I read somewhere, and which turns out quite right:
to get the average weight of an F1 tomato fruit, multiply the respective parental weights & then take the square root of this.

[kctomato]

with tomatoes, hybrid vigor occurs more often when genetically divergent parents are used

[PapaVic]

Aug 19, 2008 15:31:57 GMT -5 lieven said:

Little trick I read somewhere, and which turns out quite right: to get the average weight of an F1 tomato fruit, multiply the respective parental weights & then take the square root of this.

So, you're saying that Romeo (20 oz) x Sungold (3/4 oz) gave you a 3 - 4 ounce F1?

My Indian Stripe (8 - 10 oz.) x Sungold (3/4 oz. max.) gave F1s that were barely larger than Sungold, and hardly averaging an ounce at best.

The F1s from my Brandywine x Neves Azorean Red were consistently smaller than either of the parents which were both about the same size.

pv

[mantis]

Saw pics of your Brandywine X NAR on the other forum that tom posted. The look awsome. Hope my Brandywine X College Challenger F3's will be good as well. Time will tell, they are only a few inches high at the moment.

[canadamike]

Mantis, where in Australia do you live? Raymondo has not started his yet. Can we see pictures of the precedent generation? I would love to see them and compare with mom and dad, just for the fun of it, it is sooo interesting to see the stuff created by people. It sure adds a human dimension to it...

[mantis]

Mike, I am in a much hotter drier part of oz to Raymondo and I also have a greenhouse so can start them much earlier.
The F2 that the wife and I chose as the best tasting of the 18 F2's I grew is a PL pink beefstake type. The size of the fruit was dissapointing but many of my plants in one part of the greenhouse grew smaller than normal fruit last year.
I have about 12 of the F3's planted out in the greenhouse in self watering tubs.
I'll figure out how to post pics in here and keep you updated