Crossing an F1 with an open pollinated
 

Generally speaking, what is the outcome/difference when you cross a F1 plant with an open pollinated one vs. crossing two open pollinated ones?

Example: Crossing Big Beef F1 with Brandywine vs crossing Chapman with Brandywine?

When you use an F1 as a parent, your new "F1" will not all be uniform. Because the original F1 parent will be segregating.

The main effect is that you need to grow out a number of "F1" in the next generation, and save seed from multiple plants, to best capture the traits in the original hybrid.

Yes, treat this first generation as if it were F2's. Do the biggest growout you can. There will be a lot of variation in the plants, so give yourself a big selection to choose from.
(I pruned to one stem and grew things close together, in order to grow out more.)
Nan

Chapman X Brandywine, all F1s are identical so you only need one plant and a fruit or two to get seeds for your F2 growout.


BigBeef F1 X Brandywine: If you know anyone who has grown out BigBeef to try and make an OP version, they could tell you what kind of variation showed up and give you the range of fruit traits you might expect to see.

Assuming both parents of BigBeef are red beefs (which is likely IMO) then all your F1s are going to be red beefs. The traits that are more subtle, like disease resistance, production, and taste, are likely to be your selection points.

Thanks everyone.

I actually crossed Orange Jazz with Yellow Brandywine (Platfoot) just to try crossing for the first time.

In posting my question, I kept thinking OJ was a hybrid, and it just dawned on me that it is OP.

If I am understanding what I've read, the fruit of the F1's should be yellow, as both parents were yellow. But, foliage will be RL, b/c OJ is RL.

I've sowed seeds from 3 tomatoes that took. I should be able to get fruit sometime in October. They will be in my high tunnel, so I can extend them as long as needed.

1st curiosity: How do they look? Solid yellow/orange or do they get some striping like mom OJ?
If some striping occurs, is it really an F1, or did I just grow out OJ plants from self pollination?
2: Assuming an F1, how do they taste?
3. How big will they get. Mom and dad are Large/Huge.
4. How much production?
5. Do I go through the F stages to segregate and stabilize? Maybe select for PL?

My casual, amateur thought when picking these parents was to get the earliness and productivity from OJ, with the better flavor of the YB. That's basically as far as I took the though process.
I love the flavor of YB Platfoot, but they have been stingey sometimes and take awhile. But of course, this year they were one of my first tomatoes to ripen (100 days from seed). The OJ has been pretty early for me and they load up. They just don't seem to hit the flavor level that I want though.
So, I was thinking I could get some hybrid vigor and maybe increased flavor in the F1.

Stay tuned...

In our experience, Orange Jazz is a very below average parent (particularly as a female). By below average, I mean hard to cross.

Yellow/Orange genetics are complex. I have gotten gotten pinks and reds from Orange X Yellow crosses, and even in Yellow X Yellow crosses.

If the "defects" in Lycopene production in 2 yellows are in different parts of the biochemical pathway, the two yellows can together, at times, have a functional lycopene pathway (both correct for the defect in the other) and they can be pink or red.

Striping is usually "recessive" although some hybrids with one striped parent can be faintly striped.

Bummer.
At least I learned how to remove anthers and ferment seeds.

What is a bummer? The best thing about crossing is that the unexpected is sometimes even better than what you had deduced should happen.

It didn't sound like I'd get a yellow or orange from your post.
I wasn't thinking a red or pink would be possible. Hoping for a yellow/orange.
Just hoping my seeds were not from self-pollination. I think I removed anthers early enough, but we'll see. One thing I did not do that I read was to pull anthers and then wait a day before pollinating. I pulled anthers and then brought pollen over immediately over from the YB.
Do you really have to wait a day?

Oh. Yellow and orange from your cross are very possible! But you can't count on it.

Also, if you are planning on selecting a true-breeding line that is yellow or orange, even if the F1 is not yellow or orange, you will find yellows and oranges in subsequent generations.

Sometimes we wait a day, and sometimes we do not. Cross pollination seems to work either way. I think the most important thing is to make sure you are emasculating the oldest flowers that are not at risk for having already shed pollen. As long as the petals are still pale, pollen shed is very unlikely, even if the petals have opened a bit.

I don't know what it is with Orange Jazz, but it just doesn't seem to be very receptive to pollen, when crossed in the same way as we cross other lines.

Last week we used Orange Jazz as a female and all crosses failed. This week we used the other line as the female and all of the crosses worked.

If you got it to work as a female, I am impressed!

One other takeaway from your cross...
If you had used YB as the female, you would know if the cross is
successful as soon as your first true leaves appear in the growout.
This was a major benefit with the dwarf project as you can tell real early
on if you made a successful cross as dwarf char. is also recessive and easy to spot in seedlings.

Good luck with your experiment!

Lee

Just because you don't get what you want in the F1 generation doesn't mean you won't find it in F2 and beyond. Plant as many F2's as you can, to get the best chance of finding a tasty yellow one. (Save lots of F2 seed from your F1 plant.)
Nan

Thanks everyone.

I knew F2's and beyond could produce yellow and/or PL, just wasn't sure I wanted to go that far because of the time and space that would have to be dedicated to it. Was hoping for a nice find in the F1 and then decide what to do from there.
According to kdcomm, I would need to grow 16 plants to just find ONE yellow potato leaf...

Fred, 4 out of 5 flowers made fruit. Beginner's luck I guess...or they self pollinated.
I'm thinking (hoping) the cross did the pollinating, because when I pulled the anthers, none of the flowers were open, and they seemed pale to my eye. A couple even still had some green tint

Lee, I am not following. Wouldn't all the leaves be RL regardless of which was the mother since the OJ is RL and is dominant?

[QUOTE=PureHarvest;709381]Thanks everyone.

Lee, I am not following. Wouldn't all the leaves be RL regardless of which was the mother since the OJ is RL and is dominant?[/QUOTE]

Yes, that is true. But if you saved seed from a plant that is PL, and you get RL seedlings, you know the cross took at the seedling stage.

If you save seed from a plant that is already RL, you don't know if the cross took until much later after fruit has set or even ripened....

Lee