digitS'
Garden Master
Be careful what you wish for.
In '13, I tried to cross-pollinate tomatoes here in the backyard. The tomato patch is elsewhere but here, I had 3 plants in containers. It came down to having Kimberley and Bloody Butcher as the mother plants. Buisson to provide pollen.
Since Buisson has dominant regular foliage, I decided I'd better know if pollination had taken place in fruit from recessive, potato-leaf plants - Kimberley and Buisson. Actually, these 3 have favorite, small-size fruit and I thought any crosses should be fine.
. The crossing of the plants proved to be too difficult for clumsy digitS'! The next year and for a third year, I had those same 3 varieties in those pots but made no attempt to cross them. They may have had their own ideas ...
This month, my Bloody Butcher seed produced 4 regular foliage seedlings!
It's possible that the Buisson plant, which all but touches the Bloody Butcher did not provide the pollen. I gave the neighbor several tomato plants and she planted them about 25' to 30' from mine. None were these 3 varieties; all were regular-leaf varieties.
Now, to stabilize the cross, I will have to grow several generations of these. Just to get back to potato-leaf foliage, it may take several seasons for one to show up. If I want regular foliage, on the other hand, I need many plants of a single parent to determine whether potato leaves are hidden in its genetic code! This is all for 1 characteristic, which isn't a very important one. It's absence in this generation does indicate a cross, however!
Steve
In '13, I tried to cross-pollinate tomatoes here in the backyard. The tomato patch is elsewhere but here, I had 3 plants in containers. It came down to having Kimberley and Bloody Butcher as the mother plants. Buisson to provide pollen.
Since Buisson has dominant regular foliage, I decided I'd better know if pollination had taken place in fruit from recessive, potato-leaf plants - Kimberley and Buisson. Actually, these 3 have favorite, small-size fruit and I thought any crosses should be fine.
. The crossing of the plants proved to be too difficult for clumsy digitS'! The next year and for a third year, I had those same 3 varieties in those pots but made no attempt to cross them. They may have had their own ideas ...This month, my Bloody Butcher seed produced 4 regular foliage seedlings!
It's possible that the Buisson plant, which all but touches the Bloody Butcher did not provide the pollen. I gave the neighbor several tomato plants and she planted them about 25' to 30' from mine. None were these 3 varieties; all were regular-leaf varieties.
Now, to stabilize the cross, I will have to grow several generations of these. Just to get back to potato-leaf foliage, it may take several seasons for one to show up. If I want regular foliage, on the other hand, I need many plants of a single parent to determine whether potato leaves are hidden in its genetic code! This is all for 1 characteristic, which isn't a very important one
. It's absence in this generation does indicate a cross, however!Steve
