Cold tolerant tomatoes, right down Joseph's alley.

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

nice! Now That is the kind of science i like to see! The cell in the bottom left hand corner looks particularly promising.

...now for some 80s nostalgia music: Weird Science: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm-upHSP9KU

I do wonder exactly what would be needed in terms of equipment to do such selections in a less haphazard way than depending on the weather.

hmm.. good point.. perhaps one could reliably repeat this without the need for the exact weather conditions using a snow cone machine.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Mar 29, 2016 11:43:26 GMT -5 keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) said:

The cell in the bottom left hand corner looks particularly promising.

It is a control... A variety that has been growing as a weed in my garden for about 7 years, and that germinates during cold/frosty weather, and manages to thrive in spite of the cold... It also happens to be a different species: Tomatillos. I included them in the trial, because if I can find some tomatoes that are as cold hardy as the tomatillos, then I'd think that was really clever!!! And if I manage to kill the tomatillos, then that is way too much cold!!! But if the tomatillos die, and a tomato survives, then Oh, my heck!!!!

Last year, I culled the volunteer tomatillos heavily, and only kept the earliest germinating plants, and those that grew most robustly in cold weather. I intend to continue that strategy this year... Last year, it would have been possible to dig tomatillo plants from the garden, and share them at the farmer's market. That would have saved on greenhouse space. If I ever get volunteer tomatoes, I may adopt that same strategy with them. It would be much easier to have tens of thousands of plants to choose from than trying to plant tomatoes in the greenhouse.

I don't mind haphazard experiments. They more closely mimic real growing conditions. It's nice to have duplicates though, in case I accidentally kill all the tomatoes in a trial, it's good to have a backup set of plants for next time.

There were no wilted plants from yesterday's trial. Many of them sure are purple though!!! And the leaves remain all closed up. Course the greenhouse is only around 40F. So perhaps some damage will show up when the skies clear and things get warm again.

Here's a higher resolution photo of what the flat looked like this afternoon.

Here's a closeup photo of one of the cells:

[darrenabbey]

Mar 29, 2016 11:43:26 GMT -5 keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) said:

hmm.. good point.. perhaps one could reliably repeat this without the need for the exact weather conditions using a snow cone machine.

I was thinking of temperature profile, but yes a repeatable snow treatment would be ideal. Merge together a light-box, a refrigerator/freezer, and a snow-cone machine and we may be in business.

[reed]

Here are some that came up volunteer for me this spring and survived a couple nights in mid 20s F. There were a lot more of them before the frosty nights. I just assumed they came from some of Joseph's that I grew last year and it was normal for them. At least I think these things are tomatoes, I know they are not tomatillos. 

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Last night, it started snowing about dusk. So I threw the flat of tomatoes out into a snow bank. They accumulated about an inch of snow before I moved them to the greenhouse about 6 hours later.

[reed]

Even colder last night. Down to just three or four that look like they took it OK. Wish I had covered them up and saved them all. I have enough season that I don't need to push it quite that far. The bigger ones in the picture above are history.

Are smaller sprouts more tolerant than larger plants?

[reed]

Night before last was the coldest and cold for longest time period but a few still hang on. Yesterday morning there was frost and even little sleet balls still frozen on the soil. The picture was taken after it warmed up in the afternoon. The world's cold hardiest   certainly most cold hardy tomato I'v ever seen.

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

Dec 19, 2012 13:37:36 GMT -5 Joseph Lofthouse said:

I frequently buy and plant huge tomato plants in 2 gallon pots from the nursery... Figuring that they will give me a quick early harvest. They don't produce significantly earlier or better than my homegrown plants that are transplanted into the garden as 6 week old seedlings. The nursery plants are generic generally adapted varieties that have not been selected to thrive under local conditions. If I had the ability to grow out my own tomatoes to that size, and could plant cultivars that are known to me to do well, then it might be useful.

Joseph, have you thought about approaching the local greenhouses and letting them know about your tomato varieties? Perhaps they would be interested in your improved strains and you both could benefit.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Two days ago, the tomatoes got about an inch of snow. They survived OK. Then they got a radiant freeze this morning. So tonight I counted dead vs living plants. Woo Hoo! About half of them died!!! That's the kind of results that I love in a frost/cold tolerance test. I'm too tired tonight to report on specific results, however Solanum Pennellii survived extraordinarily well. Physalis peruvianum and tomatillos survived very well. Solanum pimpinellifolium which are the descendants of last year's frost test did very poorly. Jagodka, Matina-X, Brad, Fern, the Sungold family, and my landrace tomatoes had about half that survived and half that died. Solanum galapagense fared poorly. It's looking like tomatoes from the islands don't have the frost tolerance that I am looking for. To be expected I suppose since they come from a maritime environment. DXX-M, Blue Beauty, and Ananes Noire survived well. The HX series fared poorly.

Here's an example of what some of them looked like.

Back row: Ananes Noire, LYC 4292 (species unknown), Solanum peruvianum
Front row: Tomatillos, Solanum peruvianum, Solanum Cheesmanie

[reed]

Joseph Lofthouse, My volunteers that came up in the cold and survived the freezes are gonna be transplanted out today. Too bad I have no clue what they are but I imagine they came from some of your's that I grew last year.

Some great stuff came from your seeds. I got lots of those I named 'Utah Red Bottom" and "Utah Heart" started in the cold frame. Both fine tomatoes and both open flower, likely they will be central to my tomato patch from now on. I'm gonna grow about a dozen of each, separated from each other but in phenotypically similar groups. 

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Survivors of the early cold, snow, and radiant freezes were planted outside under conditions that are way too cold for typical tomatoes. They were put out about 6 weeks earlier than is safe. I selected the healthiest looking plants for transplanting. The varieties included.

S. peruvianum (2 accessions)
S. habrochaites (2 accessions)
S. pimpinellifolium (From last year's frost trial)
Sun-4XL (Descended from Sungold)
Sun-2 (Descended from Sungold)
WX-Orange (A segregating hybrid of a cross with a wild tomato species. I suspect S. pennellii based on leaf shape.)
Early Apple
LX-10 (Descended from Jagodka X DX52-12)
HX-13 (Descended from Hillbilly X Jagodka)
HX-9 (Descended from Hillbilly X Jagodka)
Matina
Early Slicer (from my landrace)
Blue Beauty
Tomatillos (To use as a control)
A couple who's labels got lost

Matina and Jagodka had high scores for cold tolerance in my frost-trials a few years ago (But not for frost tolerance). Both of the survivors in the Sun series ended up being naturally occurring hybrids. S. pimpinellifolium had heavy initial losses from the early frosts and snow, but the few survivors sailed through later cold spells. The HX series had low survival rates during the early freezes, but since they are segregating hybrids, there was enough diversity for the survivors to continue to do well. DXX-M had very high rates of survival during the initial frosts/snows. They either croaked later on, or the labels were lost.

I have already collected seed from many of the survivors.

I planted another set into an even colder garden. 2/3 of the plants died from frost. The survivors included:

S. peruvianum
S. habrochaites
S. pimpinellifolium
Tomatillo
And a couple of domestic tomatoes.

The labels corroded away, but I may be able to identify some of the plants when fruit ripens.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Results of the frost tolerance trial are as follows. The plants were snowed on, and exposed to radiant freezes on a number of occasions.

Labels disintegrated on the plant in the coldest field. Nevertheless, I thought it was interesting that of the 26 domestic varieties that were trialed, 3 of the 4 survivors had yellow fruits. Only 6 of the 26 that were trialed were from yellow-fruited varieties.

In the warmer field, 4 of 10 survivors were descended from plants with yellow fruits. (Two of them had red fruits, and were from the promiscuous pollination project, so they seem to be natural hybrids.)

Only 23% of what was planted came from yellow fruited mothers, but 75% and 40% of the survivors came from yellow fruited plants. I don't know if that's just chance, or if yellow fruits are somewhat closely linked with better frost/cold tolerance. I suspect that 2 of the survivors in each field contain genetics from S. habrochaites. One of the survivors in the warmer field contains the blue gene, so is therefore a recent descendant of wild tomatoes.

S. peruvianum, S. habrochaites, and S. pimpinellifolium, showed good frost/cold tolerance. This is two years in a row that my population of S. pimpinellifolium has survived the frost/cold tolerance test. Too bad that the flowers are so tiny and hard to work with.

In the warmer field, 3 of the 7 survivors are descended from Jagodka, which won the grand prize in my cold tolerance trials a few years ago. Discussions about Jagodka's traits inspired the promiscuous pollination project and the self-incompatibility project. Jagodka was part of this year's trial, and failed the frost part of the test as expected. I feel content that its genetics for cold tolerance are still part of this project.

[reed]

I have a yellow tomato producing heavily right now. It was volunteer across the road where I grew your tomatoes last year. There were no yellow in that patch last year. I dug it up and brought it over, I guess sometime in August. Fruits are smallish and pear shaped. They are hard and you can tell by looking the skin is tough, everything a tomato shouldn't be. The jelly inside is green. It is kind of in my way and I wanted to kill it to make fall clean up easier but made the mistake of tasting it. It is delightful, it pops and crunches when you chew it and sweet, sweet, barely even tastes like a tomato. If someone served it to me in a salad or even a dessert I might think it was some kind of weird tropical fruit.

I'v been thinking of trying to push cold tolerance at the other end of the season, things that can take a little frost in the fall. I'll see how this one and a couple other more normal type volunteers do for that.

Have you noticed any in your trials that keep producing after a fall frost or two?

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

Interesting results this year. Thanks for sharing!

I think one of the best ones i tasted this year was the really yellow one Fantom Du Laos. They also for some reason have extra tiny seeds which seems odd. But great flavor.

I will try to watch my tomato plants as things get cool at night now with the changing seasons. I have a few orange ones, including what looks like a orange galapagos tomato. I thought all my galapagos seedlings died but i seem to have gotten one late in the season. I also have two or three blue plant clusters only one has a fruit (dark galaxy).

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Sept 28, 2016 3:52:14 GMT -5 reed said:

I'v been thinking of trying to push cold tolerance at the other end of the season, things that can take a little frost in the fall.

I grow one tomato that has thick foliage. It's a pain to pick the tomatoes, because you have to find them first. It grows about like a hedge: A wall of leaves. In the fall, when the radiant freezes begin, that wall of leaves acts like insulation. The top two inches of the plant (and any fruits in that space) will freeze, but the rest of the plant keeps on growing.

By fall, I typically have a garden full of unharvested tomatoes, so I haven't selected for fall frost hardiness.