I’m not sure if this attempt at local networking is working. Got two comments on permies and added a number of posts to the Facebook group I created. It may be slow. I would consider it a great success to find something originally of mine at the local seed library. Even better if it had outcrossed to some unknown. Or been deliberately crossed to something known!
So, one of my favorite ways of doing tomato breeding is to use potato leaf tomatoes with a stigma (female part) of the flower that sticks out a bit. These are more likely to naturally be outcrossed, and I made my first cross this way back in 2017 using a potato leaf mother I got from a tomato mixture that Joseph Lofthouse made. Of the potato leaf tomatoes it had the stigma sticking out a bit more than any of the others in 2017. Though potato leaf tomatoes are famous for sometimes doing this. In 2021 I used the potato leaf descendant of the 2017 cross now named Mission Mountain Sunrise to make a new cross with Big Hill or HX-9 an Open-Source Seed Initiative pledged regular leaf tomato bred by Joseph Lofthouse. I grew that cross out over the winter and got some F2 seed which I planted in the spring and from which I sorted out all the potato leaf plants. I then used those F2 plants which I began calling Mission Mountain Morning to make up the mother portion of some crossing blocks. I didn’t have quite enough, and it turned out that Mission Mountain Sunrise had worked well as mothers in 2021 so I substituted in some of them as well especially on crossing blocks where the other parent was of OSSI descent as well. Though it does turn out that Mission Mountain Sunrise is more dependent on hot weather for the stigma to stick out of the anther cone than is Big Hill. Hopefully Mission Mountain Morning will be less weather dependent.
I made a larger than normal number of deliberate hand crosses in 2022 but what I want to talk about here is the crossing block crosses! The crossing block crosses aren’t emasculated, and they may or may not have happened. Though they are likely to generate several Mission Mountain Sunrise F6 and Mission Mountain Morning F3 seedlings as well. In fact- it will be the only way to get such seedlings! The regular leaf seedlings will be F1 hybrids, and the potato leaf seedlings will be selfed.
11? MMS x Dwarf Mocha’s Cherry
This cross number 11 if it indeed happened is between Mission Mountain Sunrise and Dwarf Mocha’s Cherry an OSSI registered anthocyanin skinned dwarf. Any offspring of this cross would-be regular leaf with any selfed seedlings being potato leaved and therefore easy to pick out (and hopefully those will find a good home). This would be a great way to get dwarfism and anthocyanin better fixed into a dwarf tomato.
12? MMS x OSSI Dwarfs
A similar cross to number 11 but with any of several OSSI dwarf varieties though I think the seeds I picked were from a plant right next to Dwarf Kelley’s Green which was one of my absolute favorite flavors. No anthocyanin on the dwarf side though.
13? MMM x The One (Fruity promiscuous)
The One is a fruity promiscuous project strain. Its heritage is something like 12.5% Solanum habrochaites, 12.5% Solanum penellii, and 75% domestic. Its 2021 parent was a dwarf resulting from the wild cross with truly amazing fruity flavor. In 2022 I didn’t taste a bad one, but they varied from almost as good as the 2021 parent to normal tomato taste. Any regular leaf plant from this crossing block is a cross with it. So, it could be a truly amazing tomato- or normal. Still getting 12.5% wild genetics is probably a good deal for tomato diversity.
14? MMM x Unknown (Diversity Garden)
This is a wild card. The Mission Mountain Morning mother had some of the longest stigmas of the entire F2 population. So bound to have picked up some pollen. The mother was in a tightly woven row with lots and lots of tomato varieties. So, it’s possible that every regular leaf seedling from this tomato could have a different father. Or they could mostly be from whatever was closest!
15? MMM x LA1410 Galapagense
I really wanted to cross MMM and LA1410 Solanum galapagense in 2022. I did manage to make a deliberate cross with a hybrid that turned up. However, I think the 50:50 parentage F1 might just be in this seed lot waiting for us to recognize the regular leaf seedling! Should be interesting to find out. I can’t wait.
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