Using Sungold F1 as a parent - anyone done it yet?
 

We are having a blast in R&D with the cross hemisphere dwarf project. But as I sit here ready to close down the computer and head home, it struck me that use of Sungold in crossing could be really interesting in terms of color and flavor outcomes. For example, Sungold crossed with varieties like Green Giant, Brandywine or Cherokee Purple - would the flavor be too much to stand (could one eat a large, meaty tomato with the intense burst of flavor that Sungold possesses)? What would happen if Sungold were introduced into the Dwarf project - New Big Dwarf X Sungold? Or Lime Green Salad?

Anyway, just curious as to whether any of you (like Keith!) has played around with Sungold as a crossing parent.

Yes ... Juane Flammee x Sungold and Indian Stripe x Sungold. Both in 2006 and not grown out yet.

PV

The SG cross I want is Galina X Sungold. While it should be highly similar when crossed both ways, I particularly want to try Galina as the female parent.

Other crosses I will be growing out this season include a Besser F2. The F1 was a very round very red tennis ball sized tomato with very good flavor.

Since Keith mentioned it, has anyone besides me tried to obtain seed of the true Purple tomato from Jim Myers?

Fusion

Just an idiot troll chiming in here, but SG is one of my two fav tomatoes of all time. The other being Marianna's Peace. Slice the SG in half and dehydrate cut side up at 125°F with a light dusting of Tony Chachere's Original Creole Seasoning is to die for.

A cross with Brandywine and/or Cherokee Purple (on my top 5 list) sounds really great.

Fortunately I have the exact GPS coordinates for Keith's garden and will be able to raid it at night.

anon

I received, in trade, a few seeds of...

Black Cherry x Sungold
Black Cherry x (Sungold x Juliet)
Sungold x Mom's
Sungold x Romeo
Sungold x Green Grape
(Sungold x Juliet) x Floche
Sungold x ((Sungold x Juliet) x Floche)
(Sungold x Juliet) x (Sungold x Green Grape)

Would anyone like to grow them?

Gary

Wow, now those look like some pretty cool crosses with some potentially dynamic results. The BC x SG looks especially interesting, as does the SG x GG.

I wonder how a (Black Cherry x Sungold) x Brandywine would be.. 8)

[quote=Tormato;47342]I received, in trade, a few seeds of...

Black Cherry x Sungold
Black Cherry x (Sungold x Juliet)
Sungold x Mom's
Sungold x Romeo
Sungold x Green Grape
(Sungold x Juliet) x Floche
Sungold x ((Sungold x Juliet) x Floche)
(Sungold x Juliet) x (Sungold x Green Grape)

Would anyone like to grow them?

Gary[/quote]

I'm in my fourth year of working with various Sungold progeny and I'd point out that the fruit has been highly variable. I've seen size, color, and shape variations from Sungold F2 and F3, as well as taste from very sweet, to tart, to absent entirely. I have no idea what is in the parentage, but it looks like a complex cross to me.

Thanks in part to members here, I'm doing a large growout of every semi-stable Sungold OP line I could get my hands on together with large numbers of each of my lines. Besides hoping for favorable flavor comparisons and retaining some of the unique characteristics I've selected for from various crosses, I'm hoping to see a glimmer of stability in the lines...but not expecting it yet.

That's an interesting project psa, and good luck with your growouts this season. Is that a pic of a couple of the segregates in your avatar?

PP

psa, I have quite a few saved seed from F2 and F3 Sungold growouts, with colors of red, gold and yellow, various sizes of cherries, including a red potato leaf cherry. Did I send you any of these yet - and would you be interested in them if I did not? They go back to 1993-1995 - so viability of the seed could be iffy.

PP-
Yes, those are two of the selections I made last year from the F3 of a Sungold cross with another cherry. I've probably posted more about my Sungold project here than anything else, though it's not really the focus of my tomato growing. :)

Craig-
Part of me wants to say yes, and part of me is groaning about yet another line of Sungold descendants to handle. :) Mostly I've asked here and on other boards for more stable lines for comparing and crossing.

I've mostly given up on a better Sungold OP. The variation is so wide that the numbers (and discriminatory palette) are probably beyond me to accomplish this. How representative of the F1 was the flavor of your F3s? Potato leaf sounds interesting. Anything else noteworthy among them? (Yes, I have had a lot of F2s and F3s. The value at the early stages for me is in the greater breadth-casting a bigger net to find the varieties worth stabilizing.)

I'm growing out F2s this year of a field cross and volunteer from last year. Sungold x some big red variety I expect since it was bigger and red in the F1. I was surprised how much like Sungold the F1 tasted, I had thought that taste was so unique that a cross would lose it.

Scott

Gary, I've not got a whole LOT of space because I'm already in the dwarf project, but I'd be interested in seeing what comes of the SG x Romeo.
(I'm interested in the Juliet crosses also, but I'll let someone else sort out the good from the terrible on those. IMO, the only thing Juliet - the selection I grew - has going for it is productivity and the ability to keep producing right through the anthracnose it always gets!)

I tried my first crosses today, all with Sungold F1. With SG as the male: to Cherokee Purple, All Red, Queen of the Purples. And one from CP as the male to SG.

The hard part will be the waiting. Did they pollinate? Will I get seeds? Will it be like the Sopranos finale? ;) We won't know till about 13 months from now.

-Ed