MAKE MY DAY and its crosses

[canadamike]

The car is full with tomatoes , a lot of them from Tom Wagner. I am starting to hate the man His tomatoes are so friggin' big he makes our d.... look as small as hummingbirds ;D ;D ;D ;D

Without a joke, F-3 MAKE MY DAY gives me 3 phenotypes, from pink to yellow including bicolors, BUT ALL ARE HUGE, VERY FEW UNDER A POUND, BUT THE LAST ONES OF THE SEASON, AND MOST CLOSER TO 1.5-2 POUNDS, and coming in big bunches, the plants being so prolific it is almost indecent. The MMD and OSU BLUE cross gives me the whole gamut of size and colors, including huge pure pink maters, not surprizingly.

Really something to look at for our market producers here...I have grown hundreds and hundreds of tomato cultivars in my life, but never plants with that many SOOOO BIG tomatoes.The size of RED BARN, not exactly the smallest customer around, but WAY more prolific, as in 4-5 times.

[canadamike]

I had a chef visiting me tonight, he went away with 20 pounds or so of tomatoes, Guess what he got excited about??? :

[michaeljohnson]

Mike- whatever you do, save me a few of those F3's from the biggest sort-tending to lean towards the pink and red colours if possible, I will trade you some of my Big Gildo Pietroboni for them-or whatever you might want instead

[canadamike]

Don't worry Michael, I got tons of those pinkish big ones. As for the Gildo Pietroboni, would'nt they be the GILDO made popular here by Grunt?

[michaeljohnson]

"YES"

[Darth Slater]

Where are the pics?

[canadamike]

I forgot the camera during a trip. We will get another one tomorrow...

[Darth Slater]

The name of Gildo is not even slightly familar to me, i am from and Italian family, and never heard that name. Also, David LeMasters introduced a tomato that he wasnt SURE of the guys name, so he embelished it. The story was the man came up to his table where he was selling tomatoes and ask if he wanted one of his family heirlooms, he went on to say he didnt quite catch the guys name and made one up he thought sounded like it. I do know of a Guido tomato, that name is very familiar. That story was per our conversation on the phone.

Darth

[michaeljohnson]

Actually- Canada Mike, I have been having a bit of a think about what you said earlier, regarding the variety that you said Grunt made famous on here, to which I replied -"yes", I might have assumed that meant the real Gildo Pietroboni at the time, but after thinking about it a bit I suddenly realised that perhaps you meant the variety Guido which is the main one Grunt made famous here-for several years. to which my answer would have to be-"No" rather than yes,

However- Dan also grew out the real Gildo Pietroboni last year and also mentioned it here too-(Which one did you mean???)

The problem and confusion followed mainly because Dan got the name spelt wrongly on his lists. and listed it as Guildo P, rather than Gildo P, through no fault of his own I might add, as at the time almost everybody thought it was called Guido, which it has since been proven that it is not-by the Son of the actual family that first grew it of the Italian Immigrants to the USA, who insisted that only his real family name be used of his father-which is Gildo with no "U" in the name at all.

Since that time-people have been slowly changing and adapting to the real name-some confusion still exists, and also still exists on some peoples seed lists as Guildo where they have either forgotten to change it, or just did not know it had been corrected .

Darth- the tomato mentioned is exactly the same one that was first offered by David Lemasters, who also spelt the name wrongly, simply because he did not have all the details at the time of the family history.

This tomato would never have come to light in the first place if it was not for David introducing it and setting the ball rolling- for which we shall all eventually thank him I expect,

It is a wonderful tomato-probably the best one for the last ten years or so.

[wildseed57]

Hi Mike Your make My Day Tomato sounds like a winner, did you notice any resistance to the blights and other scourges that hit tomatoes, one pest problem that hit mine this year beside the dang nematodes was spider mites which is easy to threat by just hosing the plants down, but I had a really big problem with P.M. that I held off on spraying the plants down with water, up until they got really bad, but by then the damage was done. About the only thing I didn't have problems with was BER. As I will be moving from my long time residence, to a new one which will be closer to my Main garden, I will loose my raised beds at my Duplex where I have grown and studied a good many plants and the extra room for trialing new varieties, at least I won't have those damn Nematodes any more.
George W.

[tatermater]

Make My Day should have a chance of being one of the better varieties to withstand the Late Blight. I have several versions of it here in Washington and one plant of it was planted where blight hits every year and it survived, whereas the surrounding plants collapsed within three days.

MMD is just one of many tomatoes coming out of my breeding studies. Since the Make My Day line is still segregating for a number of minor traits, I would expect some versions to be called: Make My Day Monday, Make My Day Tuesday, Make My Day Tomorrow, Make My Day Now, etc. Just joking...

Tom Wagner

[canadamike]

;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[wildseed57]

Hi Tom, MMD sounds like it will be a good one to grow, no matter if it does throw out several variants, Missouri's weather changes from year to year, some years no matter what you grow will produce and grow like mad and the next year the weather is so messed up and the pest and diseases kills everything and you end up with nothing, so its a good thing that a good variety has a few variants as some might just be the ticket for the years that nothing wants to grow as some might just be what you need to make it through the tough times.

[tatermater]

I am thinking that a huge F-2 distribution of tomato hybrids, especially those with one or more genes for Late Blight resistance would be in order for next year. If I could get more folks to establish a plant or two with the best LB resistance they ever had....hmmm.....something for a listing in a website. Naturally a large population of F-3, F-4, F-5 lines could be listed also.

I am just thinking..nothing definite yet.

[ambiorix]

I indeed want to participate and to grow some plantations