Messages

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My Varieties -- Descriptions & Grow Reports / Big Hill

« on: 2019-September-22 01:43:06 PM »

Finally grew Big Hill for the first time this year. Since I planted tomatoes late I got my fist ripe tomato this year. Taste was great  . I will be adding this variety to my must grow list from now on. This one is a keeper. Did well for me this year. Very productive.

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My Varieties -- Descriptions & Grow Reports / F3 [Fern x S. habrochaites]

« on: 2018-March-03 01:13:19 PM »

Think Joseph sent me 4 seeds of F3 generation [Fern x S. habrochaites] cross. Only one seed germinated and made it to an adult plant. That plant had industrial / domestic small closed flowers. It did not produce any fruit until late in the season, but i did get some seed.

I do not know if this as because of Self-Incompatibility or what. If so, it is possible all the seeds produced late in the season are crosses with other wild and interspecies hybrids grown in my garden nearby.

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My Varieties -- Descriptions & Grow Reports / Re: Varieties Joseph is looking for

« on: 2017-January-24 08:24:29 PM »

As an aside the Purple Smudge tomato inherited purple shoulders/green jelly from S. peruvianum.

Cool. Perhaps a tomato worth getting for it's S. peruvianum heritage. Perhaps even for trying to backcross to S. peruvianum. hmm... not a bad idea...


also if the OSU derived blue tomatoes have so many wild genes still in them i wonder if they could be used as a bridge species for other hard to cross species such as S. peruvianum or S. pennellii...

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Landrace Gardening Blog / Landrace Gardening: Promiscuously Pollinated Tomatoes

« on: 2017-January-24 06:47:34 PM »

Sorry:
Keen101 had asked a question about my goals, and I overwrote his text with my reply. I'll post my reply in a following post.
~Josepy

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Farmer's Market / Re: Honey

« on: 2016-September-22 09:39:33 PM »

mmm. sounds good. If i remember correctly the clover honey is generally the lightest color honey you find (other than super processed honey). They've done some studies and often the light clear "honey" that comes from china often is not even honey at all but pure adulterated high fructose corn syrup. Generally the local Colorado honey that we've bought before is the really dark stuff. That stuff is good.

I'd love to see more posts and photos of your family's Bee Keeping adventures. I find that trade fascinating. Would love to know more and hear a farmers narration and perspective and down to earth vibe.

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My Varieties -- Descriptions & Grow Reports / Re: Red Podded Peas - Grow Report

« on: 2016-June-21 10:45:08 AM »

2016 review: Got a few nice red-podded peas this year. Some nice segregating yellows as well (including a large-to-me curved yellow snap pea). The best way to view these peas is early in the morning when the sun shines through them. When the sun shines through them they really "pop". The downside is that when the sun is not shining through they rather look just like another purple podded pea which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just slightly less "red" than one would like. This is not a failing of joseph's breeding efforts, but rather the genes being used. I am looking for ways to improve this. One failing in that regard is that the yellow-podded gene (gp) seems to often wash out or turn light green as the pods mature. A way to improve this might be to combine the yellow-podded gene with the Orange-podded gene (orp) to create a long lasting true golden-podded base. If that were to work then these may stay more red for longer. Another idea is to use the "b gene" to change the anthocyanin expression from dark purple to more of a pink color. This is most known for affecting flower color, but it will also affect pod color as well. This could result in a lighter purple color on top and more of the yellow to shine through also creating a better red.

As far as downsides i noticed from Joseph's red-podded cross specifically was somewhat taste and early yellowing / heat tolerance. I was able to taste a few this year and some seemed to taste pretty decent. A few did not taste all that great at all, so there probably is some segregation for taste going on here and that is one thing to pay attention to in the future. The second is that these plants compared to some of my other peas seemed to really start to turn yellow once the early June heat hit this year. I'm not sure if that is because they are programmed genetically to die once their first pods are nearing maturity or if they just lack any heat tolerance at all or both. But that was a little disappointing. I know not a lot of peas are known to have heat tolerance, but i really would like my pea plants to stay green at least through june and/or until the pods have already matured and mostly dried down. Some of the ones in my collection that could have these traits are the mummy-type peas, biskopens, dwarf gray sugar, and virescens mutante. Perhaps even Sugar Magnolia. The ones that clearly did not have this and yellowed too are Sugaree, green beauty, spring rose?, Joseph's red-podded, and Joseph's yellow podded. (mostly the ones derived from Oregon and growing for the first time).

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Farmer's Market / Re: 2016 Farmer's Market

« on: 2016-April-22 09:50:32 PM »

You've mentioned the mixed tomato plants are a top seller at your farmers market. Curious to know what other things are highly sought after by the people in your area and what things your hoping to produce if you dont currently do or better if you already do. I guess tomatoes would fall under that category.

A quick google search for top sellers in general seem to be Potted plants, eggs, homemade soap, jams, honey, herbs, etc. Perhaps homemade zucini bread would be a hit for your customers. (and i have a soap recipie from a 1950's banned chemistry book if your interested. Lavender or other herbally soaps would probably go down well).

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My Varieties -- Descriptions & Grow Reports / Re: Red Podded Peas - Grow Report

« on: 2016-March-30 10:58:15 PM »

For some reason the forum gives me an accessed denied and 403 error or something if i try to post this as one long post. So i will settle for two instead.

As two possible offshoot varieties i was also excited for the yellows that segregated out. This one looked like a large snow pea that seemed to have very low fibre in it's pod. It had the "pulverize to dust" trait.



And this one looked like a snap pea, but it had a nice yellow coat with pink speckles. It was particularly charming even though the speckling was hard to notice.



All in all i was particularly pleased with the seed i got. Some of them didn't seem as robust growers as i would have liked, but not majorly mal-adapted, so i don't forsee any problems with any in the future. I think i would like to eliminate any with leather pods as the coloring just doesn't look as striking to me. I'm not sure whether red pods are suited for shelling peas, but i don't know.

I attempted at least one cross of one of your red pods with Opal Creek i think. In theory if the cross took i should still get a red pod in the F1. But i'm not necessarily confident the cross took. I did collect a pod of seeds that was labeled from an attempted cross and i planted it, so we will see.

I also noticed that you said you had a seed failure for 2015. I assume that was because of the tree roots. Would you like any seed back if i get a good crop this year or the next? Would you like any seed from the speckled snap? Also curious to know if any hyper-tendril or "semi-leafless" plants have shown up in your progeny since you said Sugar Magnolia was an original parent.

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My Varieties -- Descriptions & Grow Reports / Red Podded Peas - Grow Report

« on: 2016-March-30 10:56:00 PM »

A bit late for a grow report , but i'm excitedly awaiting this years grow out. I got at least one good looking red pod in 2015, so i expect at least a few good looking ones this season. Too bad the pods were too precious to taste, but once seed can be bulked up that can be fixed. This one was the star of the show:



this pod had some neat looking partially red pods, but the pods looked rather leathery to me:



So did these ones, but they show nice contrast with the light:

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Plant Breeding Projects / Re: Promiscuously Pollinating Tomatoes

« on: 2016-March-09 05:12:03 PM »

A few days ago I planted seeds from S. habrochaites and S. pennellii. They are both sprouting today. My intention is to use them as pollen donors to domestic tomatoes. I'd like to use DXX-M (Dx51-12 X Jagodka) as the mother of the crosses. I hope to incorporate self-incompatibility into my tomatoes. They may also introduce more open flower structures.

I'm also currently experimenting with a growth-chamber so that I can create short-day conditions to induce them to flower early.

Thanks for the seeds Joseph! I'm looking forward to trying a few of your tomatoes this year. I will do my best to watch for 1.plants highly attractive to pollinators 2.Those with large flowers, open, and/or exerted stigmas.

Since plants mostly absorb blue and red wavelengths many of the premium grow lights use red/blue bulbs and/or LEDs. So i was curious to know how each spectrum affected plant growth. Apparently blue b itself can be used to keep plants short and stout, while more red light can simulate the ending of the season and therefore you can trick some plants into flowering early if you use a higher red light ratio. Perhaps you should consider adding red light to your growth-chamber and/or greenhouse.

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Plant Breeding Projects / Re: Promiscuously Pollinating Tomatoes

« on: 2016-February-27 10:38:04 AM »

Had a chat with Alan Kapuler and his daughter Dylana. They said the centiflors and "geranium kiss" have external stigmas, can be out breeders, attract many pollinators, make thousands of flowers.

I grew out red and yellow centiflor tomatoes a few years back, but i honestly didn't pay much attention. It's possible bees visited them. they have small fruit and they do have hundreds of flowers. Too many flowers probably. haha.

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Plant Breeding Projects / Re: General Tomato Breeding

« on: 2016-February-23 02:47:33 PM »

DX52-12 was developed for the next valley over from mine, which is a lower elevation and averages a 4 week longer frost free growing season. So DX52-12 is a bit long season for my garden.

The F2 hybrids fared well. They retained the trait of holding their fruits up off the ground when grown sprawling without cages. Fruit size was smaller than DX52-12, but larger than Jagodka. Days to maturity was much quicker. So overall, I am very pleased with the cross.

I haven't yet made any (successful) crosses using DXX-M as a parent. If I find any with open flowers this growing season, I expect to attempt cross pollinations with HX-9.

Sounds great. Those 2 (and hopefully 3) lines are the ones i'm the most interested in. So i will be watching them excitedly. I'm going to attempt tomato trials this year. Heres hoping it goes well. Im hoping i'll find something to contribute to your project as i'm interested in tomatoes that are promiscuous, attractive to pollinators, and adapted to my area as well.

I will do my best to watch for differences in flower structure and those more visited by pollinators. Hoping to find any that have uv colors as well.

I think its really cool that your tomatoes have the upright growth without cages. How common is that trait?

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Plant Breeding Projects / Re: General Tomato Breeding

« on: 2016-February-22 02:58:38 PM »

Curious to know how much better DXX-M fared than the Utah cambell's tomato it decended from. Have you tried crossing this line with HX-9 hillbilly-Jagodka line?

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Plant Breeding Projects / Re: Promiscuously Pollinating Tomatoes

« on: 2016-February-17 12:41:16 AM »

I have a lot of blemishes (bacterial speck/spot) on tomato fruits and leaves in my garden right now... I walked my garden yesterday looking for any plants that were resistant. Most of this  clade, and a bi-color indeterminate beefsteak that looks like the father of the cross showed minimal spotting. Hmm... I'll have to watch that in coming years.

One accession of galapagos island tomato i requested listed resistance to blackmold disease. Not sure if all galapagos island wild tomatoes have resistance to that and other diseases, but it sounded like a good trait. Not sure if i will get any, but will try to share seed if i do.

http://tgrc.ucdavis.edu/Data/Acc/AccDetail.aspx?AccessionNum=LA0422

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Plant Breeding Projects / Re: Promiscuously Pollinating Tomatoes

« on: 2016-February-17 12:06:33 AM »

Just found this. It's a study from 1939. Only skimming right now. It lists several varieties that were observed to have extended stigmas, but what i gather from the study the lengths varied depending on environmental factors. Despite that a few varieties consistently had exserted stigmas regardless of environmental factors. One factor for example would be daylight early in the season vs late in the season. Another factor is soil quality. This is pertinent because tomatoes that might have exserted stigmas for Joseph might not have them at all for someone in England. Or Vice Versa.

And while this paper is from 1939 and many if not most varieties listed may no longer be available it might still be worth looking into to see if any are.

Ponderosa (4)
Greater Baltimore (3) Bonny Best (3)
Beauty (2) Early Stone (2) Earliana (2) Early Jewel (2)

The varieties whose flowers usually have pistils longer than stamens are Chalk's Early Jewel, Oxheart, and Ponderosa. The varieties whose flowers vary from exserted pistils to inserted pistils are Beauty, Blair Forcing, Bonny Best, Earliana, Globe, Greater Baltimore, Ideal, John Baer, Lorillard, Majestic, Marhio, Marvel, Riverside Favorite, and Veals.

http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/IND43969294/PDF