Cold tolerant tomatoes, right down Joseph's alley.

[richardw]

Sorry Joseph i missed seeing your last post,yes we have lots of bumblebee and lots of native bees also,i must say i'm very impressed with the production of this tomato,its already set heaps of fruit with 100's of flowers now open.
Ive read that its a cherry but the size of the fruit so far is larger than what i would call a cherry.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

RichardW: Thanks for photos. In my garden last year the Jagodka fruits were about 5 cm in diameter. It was 7 weeks from the appearance of the first flowers to ripe fruit, so I guess you can expect a great harvest the first week of March.

[richardw]

Thats about the same size though i measured at 6cm in diameter,still you wouldn't call that a cherry would you?

[DarJones]

I call that size a "salad" tomato.

[imgrimmer]

Joseph are there plans for 2014? Will you do test for coldhardiness again?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Mar 22, 2014 5:53:37 GMT -5 imgrimmer said:

Joseph are there plans for 2014? Will you do test for coldhardiness again?

Trudy's estate has still not been settled, so I am going to farm her land one more growing season. That gives me plenty of space to work on the tomatoes. Mostly I am intending to focus on promiscuously pollinating tomatoes. I am also intending to work on the cold tolerant tomato project some more... I'm intending to start seeds tomorrow for the cold tolerant trial. That will provide 6 week old plants to set out about 5 weeks earlier than I normally dare plant tomatoes... Plus I have a new garden in a lower elevation (slightly earlier and warmer) garden where I'm intending to plant some Jagodka production tomatoes.

I have some LA3969 seeds that I was doing a germination test on that were sprouting yesterday. They are claimed to be quite cold/frost hardy, but they did not grow particularly vigorously for me, and they were way long season, but worth growing again in case I feel up to doing some manual crossing.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Today I separated the LA3969 tomatoes and transplanted them into larger pots. Will give them a few days to acclimatize then start hardening some of them off outside.

Planted the other seeds for frost/cold tolerance trial. Later than I would have liked due to some issue unrelated to gardening. I planted three replicates, so that I can plant out one at a time until something survives the frosts. I would have included PI 120256 in the planting, but I misplaced the seeds. I'm also intending to plant production tomatoes in a few weeks. They will not be intentionally subjected to frost. Intending to plant tomatoes for "Promiscous Pollination" trial at that time.

Code	Name	Notes
F1	Tastiheart	A2 last year. Highly recommended by FusionPower for frost tolerance. Too long season for my garden. Perhaps I'll make a manual cross.
F2	Kosovo	C3 last year. Accidentally killed.
F3	LA 3969	Slight frost damage last year. Grew moderately in cold weather. Much of chromosome 12 of domesticated tomato replaced by a chromosome from S. Habrochaites.
F4	Barnaulskiy Konsermyi Red	D4 last year. Didn't get a proper cold tolerance test.
F5	Joseph's Direct Seeded	D5 last year. Didn't get a proper cold tolerance test. This was a volunteer a few years ago. It is too long season, but I like it so it's in the trial again.
F6	Matina	One of my favorites last year. No observed frost damage. Grew vigorously in cold weather and produced quickly though not particularly abundantly. Exposed Stigma. Anther cone split.
F7	Nevskiy Red	One of my favorites last year. No observed frost damage. Most productive tomato in my garden. Highly attractive to bumblebees. Grew vigorously in cold weather.
F8	Jagodka	My favorite tomato ever. Damaged by frost last year. Grew vigorously in cold weather. Quick abundant harvest on strongly determinate plants. Highly attractive to bumblebees.
F9	Joseph's Earliest Fruit 2013	From my general tomato population. Planted at normal time last year. About 50% of population killed by frost.
F10	Joseph's Earliest Large Fruit 2013	From my general tomato population. Planted at normal time last year. About 50% of population killed by frost.
F11	E6	F2 hybrid.
F12	A1 off-type
F13	Joseph's general tomato population.	Total of 72 plants. Dividing them into 3 populations for planting out.

[richardw]

How do you rate the taste of Jagodka?

[DarJones]

Jagodka was a relatively good flavored tomato for me, but distinctly not sweet. It would be interesting to cross Jagodka with Matina. Cold tolerance is very good in both, flavor would be complementary with rich flavor from Jagodka augmented by sweetness from Matina. I could see this being a cross worth pursuing in Joseph's climate.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I ranked the tomatoes for the cold/frost tolerance trial today. They were germinated at 85F/60F which took about 3 days, then moved to a basement window for some weeks. Grown at about 60F until yesterday when they were moved to a greenhouse. The same tomatoes that scored high for vigorous early grown in the field last year also had high scores today. Hmmm... I've noticed with other species that early vigorous growth leads to higher productivity. I'm wondering if I should be screening tomatoes in the same way? It would be really clever to screen at the seedling stage.

Code	Name	Score	Notes
F1	Tastiheart		Didn't Germinate. Replanted.
F2	Kosovo	*	Just now germinating.
F3	LA 3969	**
F4	Barnaulskiy Konsermyi Red	**
F5	Joseph's Direct Seeded	**
F6	Matina	****
F7	Nevskiy Red	*****
F8	Jagodka	*****
F9	Joseph's Earliest Fruits 2013	***	Seed collected from multiple parents. Diverse phenotype
F10	Joseph's Earliest Large Fruit 2013	*****	Seeds collected from a single fruit. Uniform phenotype.
F11	E6	*****	F2 hybrid?
F12	A1 off-type		Didn't Germinate. Replanted
F13	Joseph's general tomato population.	1 to 5	Half of the plants scored 5 stars.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

For the past 5 growing seasons I have trialed hundreds of varieties of tomatoes, and saved the seeds from the quickest growing and most productive. Today I planted my take-to-market tomatoes. I also planted some tomatoes from other gardens that I am trialing for the first time. I noticed a trait that my tomatoes have picked up that is much different from the new tomatoes that I am trialing... Ha! I should have expected it. OK, enough teasing. Here is a photo demonstrating what my tomato seeds look like compared to the grex I received to trial.



As a rough estimate, there is about 8 times more plant food in my seeds than in the new seeds. I speculate that means that my tomatoes can get going earlier with more robust growth. The earlier and larger leaves can then capture more sunlight giving my plants an advantage when temperatures finally warm up.

----

p.s. Attention USDA smuggling interdiction bureaucrats. When I use the term "foreign" in any of my writings or artwork I mean it only in the sense that they have not previously grown in my fields. I am not implying that the seeds crossed arbitrarily defined borders.

[steev]

Makes sense; hope you're right. Not sure things are that straight forward, but hoping so.

As far as "artificially defined borders" go; how is Iran working out? Last I heard, they were losing ~1000 people/month, due to "artificially defined borders".

Yet, people want to regulate borders for life-forms? We can't even regulate borders for our own religious/ethnic/cultural differences. but we are going to regulate differences between life-forms? I'm sorry; guess I'm just not anthropocentric enough.

[DarJones]

Joseph, you noticed something that was documented nearly 100 years ago. There are three cotyledon types in tomatoes. Wild species tend to have types 2 and 3 and domestic tomato tends to have type 1. This is very important because it appears that cotyledon type determines whether or not two varieties can be crossed. So while it appears that only size is involved, the effects are very broad up to and including breeding effects.

Immature seed can be smaller than normal which can make them look like the wild species. Well developed normal seed can have shapes from teardrop to tetrahedron to round.

I have several wild species seed that are smaller than grains of sand. They germinate and grow with few problems, but I always take extra care not to plant them too deep. As you may guess, these are the species - S. Chilense and S. Peruvianum - that are most difficult to cross with domestic tomato.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I planted the first batch of tomatoes for the cold/frost tolerance trial into the field today. They are 4.5 weeks old. This is about 5 weeks before I typically dare plant tomatoes into the field, and 7 weeks before our last spring frost the previous two years. They are the lower two rows of plants in the photo. The top two rows are my (landrace) tomatoes that I've been selecting for 5 growing seasons for good performance in my fields. Planted the same day, and treated the same, except don't read a lot into the difference in size because the landrace tomatoes were closer to the fluorescent light but the others had more sunlight.

Code	Name	Score	Notes
F1	Tastiheart	-	Not available.
F2	Kosovo	*	Very small plant.
F3	LA 3969	-	Not available.
F4	Barnaulskiy Konsermyi Red	*	Very small plant. Expect it to die.
F5	Joseph's Direct Seeded	*	Very small plant.
F6	Matina	-	Not available.
F7	Nevskiy Red	*****	Good early growth.
F8	Jagodka	****	Good early growth.
F9	Joseph's Earliest Fruits 2013	****	Potato leaved.
F10	Joseph's Earliest Large Fruit 2013	*****	Potato leaved. Great early growth.
F11	E6	**
F12	A1 off-type	-	Not Available.
F13	LA 3969	*****	Planted a few weeks earlier than the others. Nice large plant.
F14	Jagodka	***	Planted months ago. Large, but it's a wonder that it survived this long.
-	Landrace		Sorted by size and planted a dozen plants in the next row over from the previous set. Planted in order largest to smallest.

The top two rows are my landrace tomatoes. The bottom two rows are the plants for the cold tolerant trial.


The jagodka tomatoes that I planted as a germination test in about January, and then didn't have the heart to kill them. I sure tried though! About half of the plants grew vigorously and about half grew slowly. I'll be interested to see how that plays out later in the growing season. I planted a large one and a small one into the field today.


LA3969. An inter-species hybrid. If I remember right part of one chromosome has been replaced. I planted these today also: One larger plant and one smaller plant. (Edit: Looked it up... Most of chromosome 12 of domesticated tomato replaced by a chromosome from S. Habrochaites.)


Yesterday I planted a Jagodka and an LA3969 plant into a garden that is slightly warmer and has a two week earlier last-frost date.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Tonight I went into the greenhouse about 4 hours after dark to check temperatures. My landrace tomato population looked really weird!!! Every leaf on the plants had oriented themselves vertically. What that means from a practical standpoint in my garden, is that because the leaves are facing towards the horizon they are less likely to be frozen by radiant cooling at night. Oh my heck!!! So many subtle things contributing to localizing tomatoes to my garden. I don't currently have non-localized plants available for comparison, but I expect to be able to do a comparison in 4-5 weeks.