Green Giant heart cross

[rena]

I grew several hearts last year (75 or so) and some of my Green Giants were very heart shaped and had few seeds. I saved seed from 2 of them. I just planted those seed yesterday. I really have limited space so I am wondering what the leaf type should be? I do not know enough about tomato genetics that the new plants (if it indeed it a cross) should be PL or should I expect something else. So to summarize my question lol is would the new cross plants have the same leaf as the parent plant GG or would it most likely have something else? That way I can either cull the PL or assume it was not a random cross.

[PapaVic]

Rena,

A couple of questions to help sort this out:

1. Is Green Giant typically potato leaf (PL) or regular leaf (RL)?

2. Was the foliage on the heart shaped Green Giants PL or RL?

3. Was the foliage on the heart shaped Green Giants relatively whispy, lanky or limp?

4. How many Green Giant plants showed heart shaped fruit and were all the fruit on those vines heart shaped or just some of the fruit?

5. When you say "heart shaped," was that pointed heart shaped like strawberry tomatoes or blunt heart shaped like an old fashioned, cloth, coin purse?

Why am I asking these questions? Well, for example, if Green Giant is typically PL and the plants with the heart shaped fruit were indeed from saved Green Giant seeds but showed RL foliage, then you might anticipate about 25% PL seedlings in your F2 planting.

Another example: If only some of the fruit on one or two of the Green Giant plants were "heart shaped" with few seeds, and all other things being normal to Green Giant, you may have had some environmental condition that caused less than complete pollination of the ovules that made the heart shapes ... or some other environmental stress affecting just those few fruit.

There are many other possibilities ... just trying to get more details so someone who knows more than you and me might have a shot at it.

Bill

[kctomato]

Green Giant is PL

Incomplete pollination/fertilization can effect the outcome of fruit shape and could be one explanation since you didnt see as many seeds. Areas with seeds will swell more.

Hearts, specifically Oxheart types, are due to a single recessive gene.

With such a fairly large population you could have been seeing variation due to an environmental response and/or expression of a modifer gene (probably triggered by the environment). Such an event wouldn't necessarily be uniform.

Nippling variations show up for a variety of reasons including various genes and modifiers depending on the type and kind.

Some fruit shapes are influenced by the way the corolla and anther cone stick as the developing fruit grows post fertilization (which have both a genetic basis and environmental level of expression).

I have seen the variety Dinner Plate do what you described in some years. It would vary between plants and location on the plant.

[rena]

My GGs are all PL. I noticed these as heart shaped. The one I did not take pics of was more heart shaped. I will report back what I find in seedlings.