Update on my potato leafed tomato volunteer

[catjac1975]

I grew a tomato that was very odd looking called 'Reisetomate'. It had clustered flowers and produced a tomato that looked like a cluster of cherry tomatoes all stuck together. It was very cool looking and tasting. You may have genetic drift for more cold tolerance. Won't it be fantastic if it actually sets fruit in the cooler weather? So nice to see something growing in February! Thanks.

 

[897tgigvib]

So I'm thinking Hoodat's tomato here is either a purebred brandywine, or else a cross of brandywine with early girl...which i doubt. Ya see, I think early girl IS heterozygous, that is carries regular leaf and potato leaf, and as an f1 D/r, shows regular leaf.

if early girl is D/r and Brandywine is r/r
mathematically it's:

D/r X r/r

and you get:

D/r, D/r, r/r, and r/r

which means, 2 of 4 plants would be regular leaf that carry the potato leaf trait, and the other 2 would be pure for potato leaf.

Though I think it'd be a really cool cross, odds are for a self pollination since that's what tomatoes tend to do. Another thing is, those magnificent flowers sure look brandywine to me. So does the shade of the leaves and the way it looks in general. Looks like a brandywine to me.

sorry about all the terms of mendel stuff hoodat. Gotta admit, Mendel's work was kind of cool!

 

[hoodat]

It couldn't be crossed with early girl. I quit growing that one quite a while ago. The only other possibility would be Purple Cherokee. I also grew that last year.

 

[digitS']

Ack!

"Mendellian manners" & "no complexity?" Does that come with a raspberry chocolate mint milkshake???

Gosh! And, I can't figure out how self-pollinated seed isn't the same as cloning! Now I'm skeered of trying to hybridize tomatoes this year!

Steve
who is still glad Marshall's back and now . . . returning to the 2013 SooperBowl event.

 

[Jared77]

Ohh geez....the pics help. I thought it was a regular leafed variety that was in question. Sorry for my confusion.

 

[hoodat]

Ack!

"Mendellian manners" & "no complexity?" Does that come with a raspberry chocolate mint milkshake???

Gosh! And, I can't figure out how self-pollinated seed isn't the same as cloning! Now I'm skeered of trying to hybridize tomatoes this year!

Steve
who is still glad Marshall's back and now . . . returning to the 2013 SooperBowl event.

Self pollination is different than cloning although cloning is also easily done on tomatos. A cutting produces a clone and we all know how easily tomato cuttings root. No matter how stable an heirloom is however there are slight differences in the DNA in each blossom; that's why you have to choose the plant you save seeds from carefully to keep the plants as true to the ideal as possible. Almost all heirlooms have different strains which do best in a particular location and climate.
Quite often a new open pollinated variety different from the parent plant will come from seed saved from an heirloom. Usually those are culled out but occasionally they will have properties worth preserving.

 

[897tgigvib]

Absolutely correct Hoodat about the natural variations of open pollinated varieties.

Brandywine Tomatoes seem to make a good example of that. Some of the several strains saved by different families are pure, and do not appear to have been crossed, yet are somewhat different.

They slowly DIVERGE. One family may have selected for the prettiest tomatoes most years while suffering more than average tomato plant diseases, and so selected healthiest plants strongly, maybe even the survivor plant selection. Another family may have been at a place with very few tomato disease problems and selected for the biggest and sweetest tomatoes not at all worried about cracks. After the course of a hundred years doing this, sure enough they are somewhat different.

Another way varieties diverge also shows up in Brandywine tomatoes. At some point there was a cross. There are strains of Brandywine with regular leaf. The family with them like that decides, hey, these are just as good or even better, and keeps them. "Well they're supposedly Brandywines". Selected for nice big beautiful Brandywine tomatoes, eventually they become brandywines. (This is actually not true divergence, but to us gardeners it seems enough like divergence to be called divergence).

What CatJac said about genetic drift is I think true. If you do indeed have a particular Brandywine plant that is more tolerant because of natural genetics, tolerant to wintry conditions, and, if that particular set of genetics passes on to succeeding generations, then you may have a SPECIAL SELECTION of Brandywine starting! True genetic drift is more complicated than this and involves population genetics, but the basic concept is intact here.

 

[digitS']

. . . Self pollination is different than cloning although cloning is also easily done on tomatos. A cutting produces a clone and we all know how easily tomato cuttings root. No matter how stable an heirloom is however there are slight differences in the DNA in each blossom; that's why you have to choose the plant you save seeds from carefully to keep the plants as true to the ideal as possible. . .

See it was the genetics I have a hard time comprehending - as well as an organism that is both male & female.

Okay, if the chromosomes carry both dominate and recessive genes (for all sorts of characteristics), then one can't really know which is going to show up in the pollen or ovum. Marshall used "D/r" letters. So, the parent plant may "look" like what you want but could have D/r genes. Both the male and female flower parts would carry that combination. Therefore, pollen and ovum could be "D" or "r" . . . Heck's fire that means this "perfect" male/female organism could be as untrustworthy as any mongrel !

Selective breeding is still critical to develop a variety that (at least) tends to breed true. Shoot! I thought tomatoes would be easier than that and just throw duplicates of the parents unless hybridizing is involved!

I'm beginning to dislike tomatoes . . .

Steve

 

[ninnymary]

Can you guys talk english ?

Mary

 

[hoodat]

. . . Self pollination is different than cloning although cloning is also easily done on tomatos. A cutting produces a clone and we all know how easily tomato cuttings root. No matter how stable an heirloom is however there are slight differences in the DNA in each blossom; that's why you have to choose the plant you save seeds from carefully to keep the plants as true to the ideal as possible. . .

See it was the genetics I have a hard time comprehending - as well as an organism that is both male & female.

Okay, if the chromosomes carry both dominate and recessive genes (for all sorts of characteristics), then one can't really know which is going to show up in the pollen or ovum. Marshall used "D/r" letters. So, the parent plant may "look" like what you want but could have D/r genes. Both the male and female flower parts would carry that combination. Therefore, pollen and ovum could be "D" or "r" . . . Heck's fire that means this "perfect" male/female organism could be as untrustworthy as any mongrel !

Selective breeding is still critical to develop a variety that (at least) tends to breed true. Shoot! I thought tomatoes would be easier than that and just throw duplicates of the parents unless hybridizing is involved!

I'm beginning to dislike tomatoes . . .

Steve

That (besides the shipping difficulties) is why commercial growers don't favor heirlooms. Commercial growers run factory farms so they want every tomato plant in their field to perform identically with every other plant. You don't get that in open pollinated species.