Tom, your comments about using F1's in hybrids, in Fred's thread a few days ago, have given me a lot of food for thought.... It's wonderful that you can do that. I have no doubt you'll find something amazing down the line from the forty seeds.
I've just been learning about those tricky 'orange' genes this winter.. three of my F1's are crosses with Zolotoe Serdtse, and from what I understand, the F1 should be red if the orange gene is 'tangerine', but the F1 should be orange-red if the gene is 'Beta'. I just hope I can tell the difference.
I'm not even going to think about 'Delta' or "apricot', I'm telling myself the possibility is too remote to consider, at least until I run into a surprise down the line. Yep, the F1 fruit may be ho hum, but learning something about the genetics will make it worthwhile.
And ho hum, it'll be sauce for the winter.
So far, Zolotoe Serdtse X Black Early ("Zosbe") has set the first fruit of the lot. ( ZS hasn't set yet either). The fruit is too small to be certain of the shape, but so far looks a bit like mother.
