My cross was a success!!
 

Last year I made my first crosses using what I had growing in the greenhouse. I grew out most of the F-1 seed during the winter and I'm just getting around to starting some of them.

One cross was Campari X Brad's Black Heart, today I checked the plant and was surprised to see the shape. This is an F-1 and I didn't expect it to change shape as much as it did. The first pic is the first cluster and then the second.

How awesome!

Those look sweet Rajun!! :D8-)

Exciting times :) what is your goal for your cross.
KarenO

How fun to see the bi products of crosses!

Congratulations!

Thanks Everyone!

KarenO, my first goal was to make successful crosses. Next would be to get a heart shaped black cherry/saladette tomato. I don't know enough about crossing to know what I should do but I'll be bugging everyone for info.

It should be a good learning experience to see how the F-2's grow and all the possibilities.

Congrats, Rajun! I know what a joy it is to finally see the fruit and know your cross took! Grow out a bundle of F2's and find the black hearts.

Nan

Excited for you rajun, have fun with the search.

How fun! Congrats. :yes:

Congrats on your success! It sounds like a lot of fun. I hope that you find those little black cherries.

Some of the crosses are starting to blush and I should be able to start some seeds for a fall crop.

Does it matter which fruit I select for F-2 seeds? Some tomatoes have more of a point than others and I want to grow hearts.

No, those tomatoes ought to be all the same genetically. But there could be a tiny bit of difference, so select if you like. I'd save more seeds than you think you need, though, because the F2 generation is the one you need the most seeds of, and if something goes wrong, you can always go back to the F2's.

Nan

Thanks Nan, that's what I thought but wanted to be sure and I'll save plenty of seeds for future growouts too.

Alright, time for some dumb questions. I'm sure it won't be the last and hopefully someone else will learn from this too.


I picked these tomatoes because they split from being watered. They've been blushing for about a week and I didn't want to chance them rotting. All three had green shoulders but the bottom looked ripe. Since these are the first to ripen I wanted to see the inside so I cut 2 open and was confused as to whether these are ripe or not from the color.

Would you call these ripe? They were a little soft, not really firm but not very soft either.

[img]https://image.ibb.co/d775Y8/Compari_x_BBH_1.jpg[/img]

[img]https://image.ibb.co/k8UV0o/Compari_x_BBH_3.jpg[/img]

Here's the big round one that I still have sitting to see if it all turns red.
[img]https://image.ibb.co/nnQg6T/Compari_X_BBH_mostly_round_2.jpg[/img]
[img]https://image.ibb.co/i97TmT/Compari_X_BBH_mostly_round_3.jpg[/img]
[img]https://image.ibb.co/iSsHfo/Compari_X_BBH_mostly_round_4.jpg[/img]
[img]https://image.ibb.co/cMCTmT/Compari_X_BBH_mostly_round_5.jpg[/img]



I scraped the flesh off the skin to see the color. I'd call this yellow, what about you? This pic is with a flash.
[img]https://image.ibb.co/hYkERT/100_2245.jpg[/img]
This is without the flash.
[img]https://image.ibb.co/eWRcfo/100_2246.jpg[/img]

1. Yes, it's yellow, so you have a red not a pink mater.
2. Some ripe maters have green shoulders. The green shoulder trait is linked to tastiness.

3. The softening makes me think they're ripe, but let some ripen further to be certain.

4. Most importantly, how do they taste?


Nan

I didn't taste them. It was late and I just rushed through the process to save a few seeds. I'll give a report later.

Sometimes green shoulders are from sunscald too. You might avoid seeds from the green part, they are less likely to be 100% viable if unripeness or sunscald is cause of the green. Seeds from the red part should be ripe and ready. :)

You definitely have a yellow epidermis and a red fruit, which is exactly what you would expect. Campari is a red parent and that's the dominant color trait, both gf (black fruit) and clear epidermis (pink or purple fruit) are recessive traits, you will expect them showing up roughly one in four of your F2.

BTW is Campari an OP? If it's not a 100% stable OP, then you would have variation in the F1 for the less than fixed traits like shape. So if you're seeing different shapes on different F1 plants, best to save seeds from the one you like best, for sure. 8-)

Thanks Bower! That makes sense of the shape on some of these. I think Campari is a hybrid and something I didn't think about. The Campari's would be F-2 when I made the cross. I guess I'll label fruit shape and keep seeds separate to use later.

I've been saving seeds and labeling them by shape, some have more of a point than others. I found one that's shaped like the original Campari. These taste like the Campari, not sweet with a good acid flavor and lots of juice. Growing these out should be fun.

One unexpected bonus, this plant is still producing in the heat while most others have shut down. I'm guessing it's like most other cherry tomatoes. What makes cherry tomatoes continue to produce in high heat?

Looking good!

I really don't know why cherries tend to tolerate heat better than others. I think heat tolerance like cold tolerance is a complex trait and additive ( so you end up with the sum of whatever different genetic parts are contributing to the effect). It seems like maybe cherry fruit could be linked to a positive heat tolerance trait. So in spite of the other contributing genetic parts, they tend to score high in temperature tolerance. :) Just guessing...

I grew 25 different varieties of the best tasting tomatoes mentioned on Tville. Yesterday we did a taste test of some and my cross ended up in the top 3. The tasters were 4 adults and it seems we all like the same strong acid flavors. We didn't rank them in order but just listed them as a good tomato and worth growing again.

These were the top 3:
Campari X Brad's Black Heart
Aunt Ginny's Purple
Cherokee Carbon F-2

Brandywine OTV was close

These were considered the worse, I wouldn't exactly say worse but just a weaker flavor profile.
Red Barn
Limbaugh's Legacy
Porter's Pride
Mayo's Delight
Big Red
Orange Slice F-3


I had a friend over tasting who's also growing most of these and he said his Orange Slice was better from his garden. I'm guessing the soil makes a difference in taste, he has raised beds and I'm growing in ground.

I'm glad everyone like the flavor of the cross, now I need to try to keep it going forward.

A friend of mine grew some of the F-2 seeds for me. He only had a few plants and had to pick them since they were splitting from all the rain and now next week he has some cold weather coming so that's it for his season.

I didn't expect a plum shape but I guess it works since one is a productive determinate plant. I'm waiting on his report on flavor.

I have 15 plants growing now in the GH so hopefully I'll get a black.

Thought's on his pics.

They don't look like good eating tomatoes, but they look like excellent saucers. I'd pick seeds from the most unblemished (for marketing, assuming the taste was the same) and continue from there. They are pretty gnarly looking for the most part.

Looks like you've got lots of fun ahead of you.

I snapped a few pics of the F-2's I have growing in the greenhouse. These look promising as far as shape goes now the waiting game on the color.
[img]https://i.ibb.co/SXMZ2HD/100-4199.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.ibb.co/GtdMHGx/100-4200.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.ibb.co/H4BkYjd/100-4201.jpg[/img]


These pics look the same but I was trying to get the shape of the tomato. I don't remember what cross this is and I hope I can find the note from planting the seeds. It's either one of the following
Siberiam X Rebel Yell
Compari x Brad's Black Heart F-2
Compari X George Detsikas
Compari x Rebell Yell F-1




It's hard to see but the shoulders have a dimple and are almost square.
[img]https://i.ibb.co/RDdBDMF/100-4190.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.ibb.co/G5LHsJx/100-4191.jpg[/img]

Nice to see you getting a jump on the season. Good times. :)

[B][SIZE=4][FONT=Garamond]Nice![/FONT][/SIZE][/B]