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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 20, 2016 20:23:18 GMT -5
I added a new variety of wild tomato to my seed catalog this fall. I'm calling it Neandermato. It was created by allowing 3 accessions of Solanum habrochaites to promiscuously cross pollinate. Solanum habrochaites originated in South America. The varieties that I planted were collected from there decades ago. Neandermato can be used as a pollen donor to domestic tomatoes. Neandermato has a lot of genetic diversity within it due to being self-incompatible. Several plants should be grown together for proper cross pollination. The fruits of Neandermato vary in flavor. When fully ripe, (a few weeks after the fruits fall off the plant), they can be super sweet, and highly savory and aromatic. Green fruits are not pleasant, and some fully ripe fruits are bleck. The fruits are hairy to a greater or lesser degree. Fruit size is around 1/2 to 3/4 inch in diameter. Fruits are green/white when fully ripe. Leaf shape if striking. Floral display is dramatic. Pollinators love the flowers. Neandermato did very well in my frost/cold tolerant trials this spring AND fall. The fruits of F1 offspring between domestic tomatoes and Neandermato are pleasant to eat by the time they fall off the plants. There's a few more photos on my facebook Album about wild tomatoes. Neandermato: Young plant  Neandermato: Flowers  Neandermato: Fruit  |
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Post by zeedman on Dec 20, 2016 20:37:24 GMT -5
Neandermato can be used as a pollen donor to domestic tomatoes. So you are saying it will cross freely with tomatoes? |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 20, 2016 21:15:20 GMT -5
Pollen flow has to be from Solanum habrochaites to domestic tomato. The cross doesn't work with domestic tomatoes as the pollen donor. I made some crosses last summer. I am currently growing the F1 hybrids in my bedroom window, and harvesting ripe fruits. I planted seeds a few days ago, that haven't germinated yet. The fruits are sweet, tasty. Yellow colored. About 1/2 to 3/4 inches in diameter. And they lost the hairs...  |
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Post by blueadzuki on Dec 20, 2016 21:48:29 GMT -5
Hmm, I guess that means that (providing I understand the decent rules correctly) the "peach fuzz" trait in some domestic tomatoes is less a mutation than an atavism.
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Post by steev on Dec 20, 2016 22:05:35 GMT -5
So these are something like tomatillos, in dropping when ripe, but they need time to mellow? Interesting; so if grown on ridges, with plastic in the furrows, harvestable with a leaf-blower while still firm and un-bruised? How would you characterize the flavor: sweet; acid; what?
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Dec 20, 2016 22:05:42 GMT -5
Cool. Is this the parent of your wildX5 (now renamed to Wild Zebra)? I noticed with Wildx5 that they varied in flavor from plant to plant and also took a long time to ripen after they fell off. It seemed they liked to fall off as opposed to most modern tomatoes. It was the second favorite tomato variety to the mice after Anasazi this summer.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Dec 20, 2016 22:10:11 GMT -5
Neandermato: Flowers p.s. WOW! are those tomato flowers really as large as they seem? If you could breed only this trait by itself to commercial tomatoes i think you's have something interesting. Are they more attractive to pollinators? (maybe hard to say if they are in the greenhouse all the time.) |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 21, 2016 1:04:39 GMT -5
So these are something like tomatillos, in dropping when ripe, but they need time to mellow? Interesting; so if grown on ridges, with plastic in the furrows, harvestable with a leaf-blower while still firm and un-bruised? How would you characterize the flavor: sweet; acid; what? I've been contemplating a "Tomato Shaker" for harvesting some of the wild tomato crosses. Yup, just like tomatillos. One of the farmer's at my market harvests green tomatillos. I only harvest them after they have fallen off. People complain to me a lot about his tomatillos. Back to these tomatoes. Grow them over something (ridges and plastic sounds great). Shake the plants so that the ripe fruits fall off (onto a tarp), and then scoop them into baskets. No more picking individual fruits. The hybrids with domestic tomatoes are falling off easily, but they are sweet when they fall off. Flavor is sweet. Not acidic. Lots of fruity essence. Reminds me of ground cherries, or cape gooseberry without the acid. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 21, 2016 1:23:45 GMT -5
keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.): I don't know the provenance of Wild Zebra, other than it had a wild ancestor about 5 generations ago. The wild tomato flowers are as huge as they seem, and then some. And they open in a cluster. Bold floral display. Highly attractive to pollinators. Neandermato with bumblebee.  Neandermato with honeybee.  This is a different species, S. peruvianum. It shows the bee that was most common in the wild tomato patches.  Neandermato as a decorative flowering plant. 
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Post by steev on Dec 21, 2016 1:31:19 GMT -5
Those are big damn flowers; cool!
That black/white-abdomen bee is also pretty cool; never seen such in Cali.
I tend to pick my tomatillos, but only when the husks are well split and dry-ish; I mostly like them thin-sliced into a mixed salad; don't cook them much.
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Post by imgrimmer on Dec 21, 2016 4:46:53 GMT -5
and where can I find your seed catalogue?  edit: found it. |
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Post by imgrimmer on Dec 21, 2016 10:14:34 GMT -5
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 21, 2016 14:08:38 GMT -5
imgrimmer: Thanks for the link. I haven't yet successfully crossed S. peruvianum with domestic tomatoes. I did however grow thousands of S. peruvianum seeds. I don't have to worry about skimping on seeds. The parents were closely inter-planted with S. habrochaites, so I'll watch for natural hybrids between them. I have some seeds which might be hybrids between S. corneliomullerii and S. peruvianum. There is a bridge species, S. chilense, which can be used to combine S. peruvianum and domestic tomatoes, but I don't currently have seeds for it, so I'm just going to watch for the occasional natural hybrid, and plant things to encourage more of those to be generated. The S. peruvianum fruits are edible when fully ripe. Not before. So far, I have eaten fruits from two hybrids between domestic tomatoes and S. habrochaites. They were very decent fruits.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Dec 21, 2016 14:21:22 GMT -5
That black/white-abdomen bee is also pretty cool; never seen such in Cali. I hadn't seen it until I started growing wild tomatoes. |
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Post by blueadzuki on Dec 21, 2016 16:43:12 GMT -5
There is a bridge species, S. chilense, which can be used to combine S. peruvianum and domestic tomatoes, but I don't currently have seeds for it, so I'm just going to watch for the occasional natural hybrid, and plant things to encourage more of those to be generated. Sacred Succulents carries S. chilense ( it is under Lycopersicon chilense) |
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