Cold tolerant tomatoes, right down Joseph's alley.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Today isn't my day to evaluate tomatoes, but since I had to walk past the patch in order to turn off the irrigation water I took a peek. Boo Hoo. Colorado Potato Beetles are sure liking some of the plants. Woo Hoo! Two plants have set lots of tomatoes.

Earlinorth has the largest fruit in the patch, but it has bloomed a lot and only has one fruit to show for all that effort.

Joseph's Earliest Slicer and Jagodka have grown a lot of tomatoes this week. OK maybe 5 per plant. They are growing fast because I didn't notice them 5 days ago. They are about 1/2" in diameter.

This project has helped me pay more attention to how my landrace tomatoes are growing. Precocious flowering (and fruit set) in cold weather is definitely one of the (sets of) traits that works well for my garden. I noticed it today in cantaloupe, tomatoes, and maxima squash.



nathan125: No thanks on more tomato seeds. I'm intending to focus on making F1 hybrids and selecting among the best of the second generation rather than trying to import more foreign genes.

I had an extra set of tomatoes left over from this trial, so I chose the 13 best growing (indoors) plants, and planted them without ID in another garden after all danger of frost.

[steev]

Re-mesh trellis?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Jun 26, 2013 23:41:42 GMT -5 steev said:

Re-mesh trellis?

Around here we call it pig-fencing. It's 1/4" galvanized steel. Welded joints. Lasts a lifetime. It's very stiff, so comes as flat panels 16 feet long (not on a roll). Two t-posts support the panel adequately. I also use it as a gate on one of my fields. I cut it with heavy duty bolt cutters and lots of effort. We poke the growing tip of the tomato vines through the fence every so often.

[steev]

Yes; much more sturdy. Although I don't use it, it clearly beats hell out of the fencing I use (4"x2" holes); I must invest. Well, just another undeductable capital expense. I see Holly's Hassles and I really don't want to go there. No, really, I don't want any more interaction with any "governmental authority" than the minimum that I can manage. Fuck 'em; let them get a job that produces something.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I am careful when buying pig fencing to get 4 foot tall panels with 6" mesh. The first set I got had mesh way too close together on the bottom. I currently use it as a pea trellis.

[12540dumont]

Joseph, that's my favorite kind of trellis material. You can also bend it like a half hoop and use it to make arches

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Here is last week's (June 28th) scores for the tomatoes... The flowering data is for the last 4 weeks * indicates flowers present. In the fruit column there is one # for each fruit on the plant.

Tag	Name	Earlier Frost Damage	Score/Notes	Flowering	Number of Fruits
A1	Wheatley's Frost Resistant	**	***	__**	##
A2	Tastiheart		**	___*
A3	Superbec		*	____
A4	Spiridonovskie Red		***	__**	###
A5	Siberia		**	___*	##
A6	Sasha's Altai	*	*****	____
B1	Purple Russian	-	* RT	____
B2	PI 120256		****	____
B3	Peron Sprayless		****	____
B4	Nevskiy Red		*****	__**	#
B5	Moskovich		*	___*
B6	Matina		****	_***	####
C1	LA 3969	*	***	____
X2	Sungold	**	***	_***	#
C4	Jagodka	**	*****	_***	#########
C5	I-3 Red	*	**	____
C6	Earlinorth		***	****	#
D1	Boney-M Red		***	__**
D2	Hybrid Cross	***	***	____
D3	Bellstar		***	___*
D4	Barnaulskiy Konsermyi Red	-	** RT	___*
D5	Joseph's Direct Seeded	-	* RT	____
D6	Joseph's Earliest Slicer		*****	_***	###
E1-E6	Joseph's Landrace	*****	* RT	__**

[richardw]

That same pig-fencing is used by our neighbouring pig farm as well,good idea using it for peas also.

That Jagodka looks to be a clear winner so far Joseph

[DarJones]

Jagodka has some distinctive advantages in this trial, but it is not cold hardy enough. It sets a large crop of 1 to 2 inch diameter fruits on a very small plant less than 2 feet tall. I'm planning on crossing it to one of the larger more cold tolerant lines to see if the traits can be combined. Note that Jagodka does not exhibit enhanced nutrient uptake at low temps, so far, LA3969 has the highest score in this trait.

The larger fruited cold tolerant varieties need to be treated in a category of their own. Tastiheart and Bellstar would be in this group.

So far, the best breeding value seems to be in:
Earlinorth
Tastiheart
Jagodka,
Sasha's Altai
PI120256
Matina
Bellstar (has Jointless which I think has some value)

Joseph's tests will give a similar list for his climate. It is notable that his list and mine coincide on 2/3 of the varieties ranked so far.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Jagodka suffered slight damage from the first two early frosts. But it grew vigorously in the cool spring temperatures, and was not damaged by later frosts. Some of the other varieties didn't show any frost damage, but are growing incredibly slowly. Jagodka is currently tied with 3 other varieties for having the most foliage. Our weather turned from coldish to scorching hot about a week ago, so perhaps some of the hot adapted tomatoes will start to catch up. Daytime temps are running around 100 F. Nights are around 63 F. The corn is growing tremendously fast. As are the red-roots, morning glory, and annual grasses.

The translation of Jagodka (Ягодка) from Russian into English would be "Berry".

Small plants about 2 feet tall are typical of my landrace. Other than yellow pear, pretty much everything I grow maxes out at about that size.

Tastiheart and Superbec have grown so slowly in my garden that unless they show some improvement with the hot weather I'd be unlikely to plant them again. This growing season got so warm so quickly that this trial didn't get as rigorous of a frost testing as I would have liked. I'd plant them again to evaluate frost tolerance more thoroughly.

FusionPower: Did your plants get a severe frost test? If yes, how did they fare? How is nutrient uptake measured?

I'm thinking that if I do crosses that I would use:

Jagodka
Matina
Joseph's Earliest (F1 and OP)
Sungold
Earlinorth
Spiridonoskie Red
Joseph's Earliest Slicer
OSU Blue which grows as a weed in my brother's garden.
Perhaps others if tests in other gardens showed exceptional frost tolerance.

Here's what Jagodka looked like this morning:

[littleminnie]

Jun 26, 2013 23:19:44 GMT -5 Joseph Lofthouse said:

Today isn't my day to evaluate tomatoes, but since I had to walk past the patch in order to turn off the irrigation water I took a peek. Boo Hoo. Colorado Potato Beetles are sure liking some of the plants. Woo Hoo! Two plants have set lots of tomatoes.

Now I know where all the potato bugs went. We haven't had one here.
Azoychka showed great tolerance to cold here, we didn't have frost though.

[steev]

You can't be sure this wasn't the coldest Winter you'll ever see hereafter.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Here are the July 5th scores for the tomatoes... The flowering data is for the last 5 weeks. * indicates flowers present. In the fruit column there is one # for each fruit on the plant. And Jagodka pulls ahead, setting about as much fruit as the rest of the patch put together.

Tag	Name	Earlier Frost Damage	Score/Notes	Flowering	Number of Fruits
A1	Wheatley's Frost Resistant	**	****	__***	###
A2	Tastiheart		***	___**
A3	Superbec		*	____*
A4	Spiridonovskie Red		**** Semi Dwarf	__***	####
A5	Siberia		*** Dwarf	___**	##
A6	Sasha's Altai	*	**** Bushy	____*
B1	Purple Russian	-	* RT	_____
B2	PI 120256		****	_____
B3	Peron Sprayless		****	____*
B4	Nevskiy Red		*****	__***	###
B5	Moskovich		*	___**
B6	Matina		***	_****	####
C1	LA 3969	*	***	____*
X2	Sungold	**	***	_****	#
C4	Jagodka	**	*****	_****	#########################
C5	I-3 Red	*	***	_____
C6	Earlinorth		***	*****	#####
D1	Boney-M Red		****	__***	####
D2	Hybrid Cross	***	****	____*
D3	Bellstar		***	___**
D4	Barnaulskiy Konsermyi Red	-	** RT	___**
D5	Joseph's Direct Seeded	-	* RT	_____
D6	Joseph's Earliest Slicer		*****	_****	####
E1-E6	Joseph's Landrace	*****	* RT	__***

[DarJones]

Jagodka is a moderately cold tolerant line with precocious flowering. It probably does not have the low temperature fruit set gene, "ft". You could cross it with Earlinorth to combine with that trait. IMO, those two represent the best combining possibility for your conditions. Other notes about Jagodka, it is about 2 feet tall, somewhat sprawling, completely covered with fruit that are about 2 or 3 ounces, and moderately susceptible to foliage diseases. Possibilities for future would include crossing with Iron Lady to combine early and heavy fruit set with high disease tolerance.

PI120256 is very similar to Costoluto Genovese. It is moderately cold tolerant, but does not have precocious flowering. It will set a huge fruit crop on large and vigorous plants. Consider this one carefully for crosses. The fruit shape is a problem, but the cold tolerance is relatively high. A cross with Spirinidovski would bring in precocious flowering and with Tastiheart would concentrate the cold tolerance.

Matina is an early and sweet potato leaf plant. Consider crossing it with Bellstar to bring in larger fruit with the jointless gene.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I sat for a while in garden among the tomatoes of the cold/frost tolerant tomato trial. I was watching for pollinators.

Some of the flowers had small insects on them, around 1 mm in length that were crawling inside the anther cone, and on the stigma. They didn't travel from flower to flower that I could see. There were some very tiny black flying things that I couldn't see very well.

And a bumblebee... It visited most flowers on the Jagodka plant, and spent 1 to 4 seconds on each flower. Then it flew to most of the other tomato plants in the patch, but didn't stay on any of them for more than a fraction of a second. I'm wondering if part of the reason why jagodka is so prolifically fruiting is because it is more attractive to bumble bees. I intend to pay closer attention.