Hypertress Tomatoes

[alkapuler]

over decades we have grown hundreds of Lycopersicon cultivars mostly esculentums, some pimpinellifoliums as well as several other species

then one day in the SSE Lycopersicon humboldtii was offered and since a new, to us, species in a common taxon is always interesting we requested and received some seed, from Rosemarie LaCherez, and grew up some plants with yellow-orange cherry sized fruits in clusters like grapes. Some clusters had 30 fruits.

my daughter Kusra who had learned to hand pollinate peas was interested in doing some crosses in tomatoes and picked out the Grape Tress Tomato as a pollen parent

she crossed it with several different cultivars: Stakeless, Skorospelka, Willamette

then one day we were sitting in the greenhouse where an 8' tall vine of Lycopersicon hirsutum had been living=surviving for several years and with its bright yellow flowers held in umbel-like clusters, we considered crossing it with L. humboldtii but since hirsutum had never given us fertile fruits, we used it as a pollen parent onto the Grape Tress Tomato...
and now several years later we have hypertress lines;Red Centiflor and Yellow Centiflor Tomatoes, both cherry tomatoes

both make tresses of flowers that extend on top of the foliage, have soft, long velvety hairs on the flower buds and have so far up to 150 flowers on an inflorescence

the most fruits on a tress is 89

i'm considering spraying some with GA-3 to reach more fruitful tresses

and in further consideration of the hypertress trait, which also appear in the hypertresses of pea tendrils, in the multiplication of the rows in corn cobs, the polypetalous trait in flowers, linking it to branching patterns, number of flowers per node, and maybe the hox genes in animals with the multiplication of ribs and for all of us the multiplication of certain DNA/RNA sequences, duplications and then sometimes reduplications, as has happened with the genetic material of fungi and other eukaryotes.

[canadamike]

Many fruit tresses on th eplant, Alan, or only one or a few?

[canadamike]

I forgot to ask: what will be the concentration of the giberellic acid used in the spray?

Would the concentration already existing in a product like Sonic Bloom be sufficient?

[grungy]

Are these full stable yet? (Yes, Michel, ever on the hunt for genetic material. <smiles>)

[mybighair]

I grew 'Yellow Centiflor' last season and it had 5 or 6 huge trusses. My children really liked the fruit, which surprised me as they don't usually eat tomatoes. One plant supplied our family with enough cherry tomatoes for the whole season. They were very productive.

I crossed it with 'Purple Ukraine' just to see what comes of the cross. If I get anything worthwhile I may cross the F1 with 'Cherokee Purple' then try to stabilize the line.

Dr Kapuler, could you tell me if the "Centiflor" trait is dominant when crossed to other varieties?

[ottawagardener]

I think I have one of these types of tomatoes but they called it Multiflor. I got it from Solana - the Multiflor grape. They also sold two other cherries but the description matches. Was it available to them?

I'm excited to grow it.

[alkapuler]

nice to hear about Sonic Bloom
-20 years ago Dan Carlson paid me $1600 (which allowed me to build a seedroom inside an old shed) to do a set of germination experiments with a variety of seeds testing out his GA-3 foliar feeding spray in conjunction with the sounds of birds and crickets going on at the same time as the seeds germinated
- i was astonished how strongly the GA-3 influenced certain kinds of seeds, particularly how it stimulated the germination of old cucurbit seeds, especially squash (4 common species), watermelon, cantalope and lagenaria (white flowered gourds), and how it enhanced the early growth of lettuce seedlings but not their germination, and how well solanum seed (tomato, eggplant, capsicum pepper) responded by germinating, quickly and well
-JL Hudson, World Seed Service suggests using 1 part GA-3/1000 parts water; my sense is that this is more than necessary; i've just ordered some to find out

-the red (RCF) and yellow centiflor (YCF) tomatoes, centiflor meaning 100 flowers, are semi-determinate in that new inflorescences arise throughout and late into the season but the plants remain somewhat compact and can be 3-4' tall if supported
-this year we will try hanging baskets

-since the expression of the hypertress character is variable, some plants have 50-75 flowers on a tress, other have 100-150, there is room for continued selection and suggests that the trait is not dominant and that heterozygotes from humboldtii flower expression (30/inflorescence) and somehow one of the other parents led to a 3-5 fold amplification of number of flowers on an inflorescence, but along with this there are some other traits like the reach of the flowers beyond the leaves so that across the field one can easily distinguish the centiflor cultivars, how the new flower buds look like insects, and how the tresses branch in novel ways, these are all emergent characteristics
-sometimes there are 3-5 tresses, othertimes 8-10
-in summary, only by using these hypertress tomatoes as parents will we know more of how the HT gene is expressed, co-expressed or dominant
-at the end of last season i crossed a purple tomato with RCF and have three fruits on my desk...

[canadamike]

I have experimented with Sonic Bloom and was very satisfied. It was when I was alone doing weird stuff in my neck of the woods, and I ended up letting it go, one can become tired easily unless the sound part of the deal is somewhat automated ( timer). Waking up early to activate the sound and spray is not easy for someone working late at night like I used too...

I resumed using it this summer, and I am sure it is in part responsable for the incredible harvest ( albeit late) I had in this most terrible of summer.

I know the seaweed part of the equation has been proven to increase taste, but I can hardly prove it, having always used it. I guess reaction of people to the taste my veggies was proof enough for me... I am not sure I want to get involved in comparative trials, since I intend to use seaweed even from my grave

Doc, did you work with Sonic Bloom? Dominique fromKokopelli told me he knew that it worked well but they did not want to promote it, not wanting to make enemies in the field of oranic agriculture, I guess proponents of other products would not take it well...

It could also be used as ''Sonic Doom'' in helping efficiency of pesticides...

If you worked with it, what did you think of it?

[grungy]

Hope you will publish your summary finding here. Very interesting genetics to contemplate. Looking forward to missives on your findings.

[alkapuler]

-the preps of Sonic Bloom that Dan Carlson provided me were made without soap since it contradicted the general organic sentiment and i used them for the germinations but avoided using Sonic Bloom in the field, also, like you and Dominique, to avoid conflicts with the emerging organic movement

-taste is a difficult discriminator; we still don't recognize umami which is the flavor of mixed free amino acids like in miso or good tomato juice

-to look at the free amino acids, Dr. S. Gurusiddiah, head of the analytical lab of Washington State U. at Pullman and i did hundreds of HPLC analyses of organically grown veggie, fruit and flower juices

-results were interesting for all crops; tomatoes with low and high levels of the neurotransmitter GABA (gamma amino butyric acid), as well as glutamine and different amounts of 15 other free aminos was particularly informative in terms of nutritional selection characteristics

-we, too, use seaweed in our amendments, when we use amendments...

-in the field, i used Sonic Bloom sound system when foliar feeding

-i was much more impressed by the effects on germination, particularly by GA-3

[canadamike]

What I need to do is try the sound machine playing on a daily basis. I did eat buartnuts out of 2 years old trees ans see fruit trees apparently way too small to produce like they did... did you try it that way?


I do tend to spray often when I can, the best harvest season I had, I would do so every 2 or 3 days. Once with Spray N Grow, once with Maxicrop .

I did it way more than they suggested, but I estimated it would not be worse than plants grown close to the sea, misted all the time by probably more than just water and some salt.

Spray N Grow is just a catalyst...

I was doing as small but ''super-intensive'' garden, so I had time...

I had 12 plants of Roma tomatoes on a 2 x 6 patch, each given 1 square foot. I had to uproot one for the wheelbarrow to have room to manoeuvre There were so many tomatoes it was hard to see the leaves. I had to use countless woodsticks to prop up the plants, the cages were useless.

I harvested a full wheelbarrow and then 2 smaller partial harvests, close to 2 full loads in total.

My patch of Jenny Lind and Haogen, 3 hills, 9 plants in all, was enormous, I added a chicken wire fence to help them climb up, after having eaten loads and loads of them I gave close to a half wheelbarrow of them to people, my onions were 2-3 pounders etc...everything was out of proportion. My Tokyo Cross turnips were softball size by the time my FIL ones were golf ball, seeded the same day from the same seed packet, stuff like that.

That summer I realized time spent foliar feeding was well spent...and you can go overboard...and you always get better crops in small home gardens that get devotion;D

[raymondo]

How amazing to see Rose-Marie Lacherez' name in a thread here. She and her husband live not far from my son and his family and I often visit the Lacherezes when I visit my grandchildren. The world is indeed a small place!
And very interesting the multiflor feature of the crosses. I have Rose Quartz Multiflora and Katinka Cherry in the garden and both seem to have many flowers per tress. I hope they all set fruit.

[ottawagardener]

Ray: Let me know how the Rose Quartz Multiflora go. The pictures of them look beautiful and I'm having fantasies of clipping bunches off and giving them away like bouquets.

Hey: Hows this for a breeding project. Cross a sun drying tomato with a multiflor?

[raymondo]

You'd certainly not be lacking in toms to dry!

The Rose Quartz Multiflora was a late planting. It's only now coming into flower ... lots and lots of them! Katinka Cherry was planted at the same time but must be earlier. It already has quite a lot of fruit. When it stops raining I'll nip out and take a photo of the two plants.

[grunt]

Britain's Breakfast is another multiflora, but I usually have only about half of the blossoms set fruit. Four of my Pink Novicok crosses (PNN 10, 12, 14, and 17in the seed lists and albums) are multiflora which set fruit on 100% of the blossoms, but only about 40% fully developed. Fruit are all in the 4-6 oz range.