Restoring Promiscous Pollination To Tomatoes

[imgrimmer]

Today I took pictures of some tomato flowers with an excerted stigma. There are some plants in my landrace like this. But not every flower has it. Flowers on the same cluster are different.
You can see it on this picture the left one has a clearly excerted stigma the right one doesn`t.
There is also a plant from toomanyirons that has this trait

[Joseph Lofthouse]

This project is progressing well.

I have been attempting manual pollinations between wild species, and between wild species and domestic tomatoes.

Some of the crosses that appear to have been successful are:

S. pennellii X S. corneliomullerii, ~60 seeds (planted 10 of them today). S. pennellii X S. peruvianum was unsuccessful.
S. peruvianum [LYC 2669 X LYC 2882], ~100 seeds so far, and lots more on the way. Also the reciprocal cross.
LA1777 X other accessions of S. habrochaites, and the reciprocals.

Fern, my earliest determinate slicer, X LA 1777 which is Solanum habrochaites, 5 plants and ~50 seeds
Brad, my earliest indeterminate saladette, X LA1777, 10 plants
Black Prince X LA1777, 6 plants
Landrace red X LA 1777, 7 plants

I have some natural crossing blocks planted, and I have been attempting manual inter-species pollinations without record keeping: Collecting pollen from any species, and using it to attempt pollination on any species.

S. peruvianum is vigorous!

S. pennellii has grown very poorly for me.

S. corneliomulleri has set very few fruits.

S. habrochaites is growing very well and setting lots of fruits.

There was one fruit that matured today from an attempted cross between a domestic tomato and S. corneliomullerii. When I blended the fruit up, there did not appear to be any seeds inside. So I dumped the whole blender full of liquid into a pot. I'll keep it watered and see if anything germinates.

I'm growing some of the crossed plants in pots in the greenhouse. I intend to bring them indoors when it gets too cold to be outside. Hoping to get another generation of progress made during the winter.

Takes a lot of attention to make deliberate crosses and keep records. I have been most successful with crosses made in the greenhouse, rather than in the open field. I didn't get nearly as many crosses made as I would have liked. Gotta have a pollen donor and a recipient ready and be in the garden all at the same time....

[templeton]

Yep, getting the two varieties synched is a bit of a headache. have the same problem with peas sometimes, when I'm only growing out a few plants of each variety.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

HX-9 tomato. My first cultivar with open flowers. The fruits are about 3.5" in diameter, and ripened before the fall frosts arrived.

[richardw]

...and your thoughts on taste?? Joseph Lofthouse

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Sept 4, 2016 21:46:51 GMT -5 richardw said:

...and your thoughts on taste?? Joseph Lofthouse

Hillbilly, the great-grandmother of these fruits, has been my long-term favorite tasting tomato since I first grew it decades ago. Alas, it was too long season for my current garden. The cross resulted in a much earlier tomato that retained the flavor of it's ancestor. So I really like the taste. And it's pretty with the red/yellow mottling inside.

Last season, I discovered a couple of small tomatoes from wild crosses, that I think taste better.

[ethin]

I grew a blue cherry and a blue slicer last year mixed in with all my other tomatoes, maybe there will be a bit of excitement in the 'mato patch this year.

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

Yes, it's actually kind of funny in a sad sort of way. The person (and others) who started that thread (and have kept it going) must be very anal about keeping "pure" heirloom varities from crossing and feel it is their duty to "warn" people about the dangers of blue tomato promiscuous nature. A wrong assumption and sad really. I pity them. I really do. Honestly that thread makes me angry. Honestly there shouldn't be a thread like that to begin with. *sigh*. I guess i'm myself get carried away as well.

Though honestly i do wonder if it is multiple factors being involved. 1.Is it just that the past 100+ years of saving tomato seeds led to the strange state of peoples minds in being so militarized in the way the isolate crops. 2.Is it the somewhat valid paranoia that comes with the ever increasing GMO crops and their subsequent GMO pollen contamination. 3.Is it the fact that blue tomatoes have exerted stigmas and other wild genes that allow for greater crossing? 4.Is it that tomatoes actually cross more easily that we readily would like to think, and the blue is just more noticeable? 5.Is there even as much crossing going on or is there epigenetic gene activation and influence that is happening through the soil and soil bio-ecosystem like what i saw with my purple indian corn that one year and the year or two after all the crabgrass and other grass weeds grew reddish purpleish (though obvously they were not cross polinated with corn).

Though going back to the original topic of this thread, i am VERY excited in Josephs project and how quickly it sounds like it is progressing for a number of reasons. I just really like the idea that tomatoes could and should have large flowers that attract local bees and other pollinators that commercial tomatoes seem to lack because of being inbred for so long. I also like crop diversity and i like the idea that a tomato "has free will" to mate with whomever he/or she likes. As long as i get an abundance of genetically adapting, tasty fruits that grow well for me i don't care. I like the ability of a outcrossing group that can easily adapt to biotic and abiotic stresses and ecological factors. I also like the idea that one can (and will) eventually be able to breed frost tolerant tomatoes.

[steev]

Aw, c'mon, keen101, it may look like BS, but there are many of us working on landrace veggies (fuck the corporatocracy!); the whole point of landrace veggies is the LOCAL development of breeds of veggies that serve local needs, rather than corporate needs of shipping to distant markets. In short, I think it is very optimistic that so many people are involved in landrace crops. I don't want to disparage "heritage" crops, but really: Irish Setters?

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

Thanks Steev, i needed a laugh.

But in fairness i actually hadn't clicked the link as i has assumed (incorrectly) that is was the older thread warning people about the dangers of blue tomato pollen. Nice to see several people on this new thread defending promiscuous pollination. Hmm... does anyone remember the [2017] irish [tomato] famine?


in truth, do i really care all that much? no. not really. It just rubs me the wrong way how some people treat it like it's a disease. Same with the hardy kiwi thread in the soapbox. same kind of deal. endofmyranting. Lets all get back to gardening. Whether you like to save pure varieties or not. Who really cares as long as your growing something.

[walt]

Promiscuity is good or bad depending on your goals.
When I was in Niger, 36 years ago, pepper varieties were all crossed up.  Go to the market and there would be all shapes and sizes and all degrees of heat.  You could buy what looked like bell peppers and get home and find they were hot peppers.
As I write this, I realize I should have brought back some of those.  Stuffed hot bell peppers sound good right now.  But back to what I was talking about.
Anyway, non-Nigerien cooks weren't happy about the situation.  They'd plan for one recipe with the expectation of one flavor, and be disappointed.  Again, I'm now thinking that many people would like these suprises.  Back to my point.

So as the country's only vegetable breeder, I acquired a  lot of pepper seeds and grew them out.  As they matured, I harvested one fruit from each plant that looked like it had bell peppers, each plant that looked like it jalapenos, etc.
Then I grew a row of seedlings from each fruit and taste tested each plant.  Any plant that didn't conform to a type, bell, jalapeno, etc., was pulled out immediately.  Seed from each of the types were then put together and grown out with each type in seperate areas.  Again each plant was taste tested, and those with non-conforming types, wrong flavor, wrong size, or wrong shape, wrong color were pulled out.
So since I started with an adapted mix, in only 3 generations I had rather true-breeding varieties with locally adapted, and size, color, and shape were coded for flavor.
The local growers were happy because their customers were happy and willing to pay a little more.  I was happy because I had given them what they wanted.  My first successful breeding program!

Here we already have vegetable and fruit varieties that largely meet the customer's expectations.  The heritage varieties, some of them, are excellent examples of these.  If we only had mixes as the Nigeriens had with peppers, some of the same people who are working on landraces here might be trying to get uniform varieties.

I will say that with their traditional crops, sorghum, pearl millet, and cowpeas were domesticated in that area, they knew very well how to keep varieties true to type, to the degree they wanted to.  With cowpeas, for example, some grew and were proud of the uniform cowpea harvest.  Their neighbor was just as proud of the great diversity he or she grew.  (He or She because each man and each woman had his or her own farm).  They didn't argue about it.  They just were each proud to have the best cowpeas around.

[andyb]

Some recent posts on the "Direct Seeded 100 frost free day tomato" thread, particularly this one one by imgrimmer, reminded me of a video of Tom Wagner pointing out different tomato traits that are good for inbreeding. If you take the opposite of each suggestion, you get a pretty interesting list of traits that could be good for outbreeding:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ObHwm9cYII

[steev]

Damn! In the 60's, I absolutely loved promiscuity; suited my goals, for sure!

Oh. Did I just veer off topic? My bad, but why should tomatoes have all the fun?

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

haha, Steve.

andyb and imgrimmer, very interesting. The guy in the video was a little hard to follow, but the bigger more fasciated fruit that has a higher rate of outcrossing sure is interesting. I wasn't really able to take note of any of the other traits except for exerted style and what he seemed to be describing was a more open anther cone.

[imgrimmer]

Jan 13, 2017 23:35:33 GMT -5 andyb said:

reminded me of a video of Tom Wagner
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ObHwm9cYII

yes it was a Tom Wagner video. thanks!