Cold tolerant tomatoes, right down Joseph's alley.

[DarJones]

Richard, my objective is to extend the season at both ends by having plants that can take cold weather as seedlings and again when they have heavy fruit load in the fall.

Joseph's experience this year has really highlighted something for me, specifically with Jagodka. Joseph has a very short season which severely limits production potential of indeterminate tomatoes. Jagodka is highly determinate reaching about 2.5 feet tall. The sp gene (determinate) causes heavy fruit set that all matures in a very short period of time. It turns out that Joseph should not grow indeterminates at all, they can't possibly show maximum production in his conditions. He should move in the direction of determinate plants for the simple reason that they are genetically capable of producing the most fruit under his conditions. By contrast, I live in a long season area where getting lots of fruit over several weeks of production is important. I can benefit more from indeterminate genetics.

I just wanted to point out that I have recommended indeterminate varieties like Stupice for short season areas. I was wrong to do so because these varieties can't possibly produce a decent crop.

Doing a plant design for Joseph's conditions would look something like this:
1. Compact Determinate
2. Small to Medium fruit size
3. High levels of cold tolerance at both ends of the season
4. Attractive to pollinators (this gives high levels of fruit set)
5. Disease tolerant (late blight, early blight, septoria, verticillium, fusarium (1,2,3), Stemphyllium, Gray mold, etc.)
6. Pest tolerant

And obviously the above should be combined into a good flavored tomato background.

Here are the varieties I can see bringing the required traits to the table:
Jagodka - compact determinate, salad size fruit
Eva Purple Ball - Weaker attachment to the plant, easier to harvest, increased flowering and fruit set
PI 120256 - Early season cold tolerance (otherwise, an undesirable plant, lots of flaws)
Bellstar - Some cold tolerance but most important, has the Jointless gene
LA3969 - Serious cold tolerance in the roots, differs from all other varieties in this trait

The genes for disease tolerance can be brought in from several sources such as Iron Lady, Mountain Merit, etc. I will try to get some seed of a variety that combines the S5 and I3 genes.

[richardw]

I can relate to what Joseph has to contend with him having a similar climate to mine,for me to successfully grow any indeterminate variety means starting off inside my tunnelhouse at least two months before plant out time,looking to more highly determinate varieties i really should consider but also the fact that they smaller plants much are easier to net against blackbird attack.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I'm intending to take good notes about the fall frost hardiness of these plants. That is not an issue with Jagodka, because it has already ripened nearly its entire load of fruit. The weather forecast is for temperatures in the low 40s in a few days, so that might create conditions for a radiant-frost. I wish that I had planned ahead better to have plants ready for a frost tolerance test in the fall. That wouldn't allow me to select individuals that are frost tolerant, but it would give me a better idea of the relative hardiness of sibling groups.

The most popular slicing tomatoes around here are determinate: Rutgers, Celebrity, Hamson's. My landrace tomatoes are about 85% determinate. About the only indeterminates that are commonly grown are cherry tomatoes: yellow pear, sweet 100, Sungold.

I typically have a fall frost between the first and third week of September that harms the tomatoes (vines and/or fruit). Then there is a week or two or three of warmer weather in which the harvest could be extended if they plants were still alive.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Sept 14, 2013 11:42:09 GMT -5 DarJones said:

4. Attractive to pollinators (this gives high levels of fruit set)

DarJones: Thank you for noticing this. I went back and reviewed previous posts. It is exciting to me that the two varieties that were most attractive to bumblebees are the same two varieties that produced the most abundant early fruit set and harvests. (Jagodka and Nevskiy Red). I think it's clever that two varieties that did great for me are also the two that are most likely to have generated a natural cross between them. I may be closer to promiscuously pollinating tomatoes than I realized.

[richardw]

I decided that last nights frost was going to be too heavy so i put the plants inside the tunnelhouse,at 9.00pm it was just on freezing and now as the suns coming up its -5Cdeg,i'm really looking for frosts of -2 or -3.
We are under high air pressure at the moment but as this moves east Tuesday the upper level air temps will warm and the frosts will lighten,so i'm picking overnight Tuesday/Wednesday will be perfect conditions for leaving them out all night.

[richardw]

Hope I havn't goofed up this morning,last evening it was cloudy till 9.30pm so i thought if it clears in the early hours the frost should be light,the cloud must have buggered off soon after 9.30 because its a -5.2C 22.6F frost now at sunrise.....oh well,see how they look later............

[richardw]

Well i know now that this line of Matts Wild Cherry cant handle a -5C frost,i'll try again.

[steev]

Hope you've not euthanized those poor guys too hastily, as they've got better roots than newly seeded will have, so you'd still be ahead of the game.

[DarJones]

Richard, I can send you at least 3 lines that can take -5C.

[richardw]

Sept 17, 2013 19:22:34 GMT -5 steev said:

Hope you've not euthanized those poor guys too hastily, as they've got better roots than newly seeded will have, so you'd still be ahead of the game.

Yes i think so,just a bit too cold that frost but i really didn't think it was going to get that low,never mind i held one plant back in the tunnelhouse and put it in a larger pot today along with more seed sown.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Tonight is the first clear night after the first storm in September. That's the traditional time that our first frost occurs. I spent the day picking like crazy. Missed my mid-day nap. The truck is filled with Maxima squash. There were more than would fit, so a couple wheelbarrows full are sitting in the field under a blanket. The butternuts are still in the field. The heavy leaf cover should protect them. The leaves on the Maximas had mostly died already. I left a crop of sweet corn in the field. Didn't have a ready market for it, and it's one of those crops that aughta be used as soon as possible. I picked 5 baskets of muskmelons, and visited friends and family after dark to give them away. I picked the popcorn, [F2: Ashworth X popcorn], and South American corn mass cross. I was very pleased with the white popcorn patch. I may take/post photos later. I didn't need to pick popcorn, but I am excited about it so what the heck. The storm two days ago was so severe that it snapped some of the sunroot stems off just above ground level. The corn is still standing upright.

I didn't pick the tomatoes... Wish that I had thought to leave a thermometer in the field.

[steev]

Wow! That's some weather. I'm just getting the slow slide to Winter; looking forward to rain, which can't come too soon for me, but who listens to me?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

To follow up on last night's post... On the way home after work today, there were trees down in the (little traveled) road that I like to take. Not just down, but wrenched apart, tossed through the air, and thrown on the ground down. I stopped to clear the road, and it seemed like such an unusual way for a (large for this area) tree to be in the road that I examined the area carefully, looking for a downed airplane or a crashed truck. Whatever. It will remain a mystery.

There was frost on a shed on the edge of the garden. No frost visible in the garden, but heavy dew. There was frost in a nearby field where I grew watermelon and sweet corn this summer.

Last night's cold slightly damaged three of the tomatoes in the frost tolerant trial: (A2, A4, B1). I ranked the damage at a 1 on a 5 point scale. Hard to judge, because I had to ask myself: "Is that frost damage, or normal behavior for this cultivar, or something else". Scoring occurred at about noon. Similar temperatures are expected tonight. A5, B6, C4, C6 and D4 were not scored for frost damage because the plants are so far gone that there was no point.

There was slight to moderate damage visible to about 30% of the (non-localized) commercial tomatoes that a lady planted who shares the garden with me. Fruits were not damaged, but some leaves were wilted. One plant was severely damaged.

Eggplants ranged from no visible damage to severe damage. A few pepper plants looked wilted.

Here is what the frost tolerant trial looked like today. I didn't pick A1 (Wheatley's) because they are cherry tomato size, and not worth picking when frost is threatening: Have to do triage and pick to get the most return on investment.



And after they were picked up and put into baskets. I'm intending to make tomato sauce from them.

[steev]

The weather has turned for sure; this morning, the truck's windshield was heavy dew for the first time this season. I don't expect frost in Oakland for another two months or so, but on the farm, even another month would be pushing it. Bye-bye, Solanums; hellooo, Brassicas!

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Snow or heavy frost is expected in a day or two, so I picked most of the tomatoes. I left a few sacrificial tomatoes on each plant. Again this week I didn't pick A1, because during frost emergencies I pick what will give the most return on investment, and there ain't much return on picking cherry tomatoes. (I did however pick them during the week to take to the farmer's market.) The wooden baskets hold about 21 pounds level with the top. This is typical for me. Tomatoes are picked green and allowed to ripen in the baskets, or they are turned into green tomato sauces.



D2 is a (segregating) hybrid cross and showed two phenotypes:



B1 (Purple Russian) had a lot of tomatoes that grew oddly, with some sort of scar on the side of the fruit running from the blossom scar to the pedicel. Many of the fruits were curled up around the scar.



I don't like the cat-facing and fluted fruits on B2 (PI 120256) it's difficult to make salsa out of them. They are OK for juicing though.