It looks like I have actually managed to perform a tomato cross. There are two little tomatoes like this, with pink variegated Valdani quilting thread around their stems. I tried probably a dozen crosses - all with Tiger Tom pollen, a red stripey heritage tomato. The attempts with Golden Sunrise all just dried up and dropped off. I tried with my Bulgarian tomato too - that's still hanging in there but hasn't started to swell at all. I don't think much will come of it. I suspect I'd been a bit brutal with the tweezers! I also find it very difficult, even with a magnifying glass, to see any tomato pollen. Peas are relatively easy (peasy!)
The two apparently successful cross pollinations are with Sungold - a tomato which is already a cross. This means I have a 3 way cross. I've tried the internet for information about this - if you do it with 2 Hybrids you get a 4 way cross. Makes sense. No-one, though, has explained about subsequent generations. The first lot of seeds I plant will be my F1 generation. However, as they are a mix of an open pollinated and a hybrid, I'm not sure if I expect the usual hybrid uniformity out of this first generation. The next generation, my F2s, I expect to be a complete mish-mash of genes so I should really get some variation from which to make my selections. We are looking at 2010 here, though. Maybe this will teach me patience?
I wonder if I should remove the other toms from the truss? Seems a bit brutal. I'll probably go with 'Nature's Way'. After all, I'm not looking for tomatoes that need molly-coddling.
Just off to pot on my Piccolo seedlings to individual 3" pots. After Anonymous (David's) posts here, I checked further on the internet. It seems that people in America are selling and growing a tomato they call Piccolo that seems to be open pollinated. Seedsmen here are selling Piccolo F1 seeds. This makes me even more interested in what I get from my seedlings! Suspicious? Moi? It's possible that they ARE all out to get us!
Edit - I've just seen Piccolo F1 tomato seeds for sale at £4 for 5 seeds. I shall watch my babies with increased interest!
2 comments:
I can tell you've definitely got the plant breeding bug!!!
Good luck with your generations of tomatoes.
Celia
Thanks! The bug bites. I find myself sussing out tomatoes in the shops and looking up the varieties so I can see if there are any I can un-hybridise! This is my first cross though. And I've found it's impossible to hold your breath for 2 years - must think about something else!
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