Quote:
Originally Posted by Worth1
On a currant tomato the stigma is what sticks out.
The stamen produces the pollen.
This is the part that collects pollen so yes you are correct to a point.
The currant tomato has a greater opportunity of being crossed from another tomato.
But it wont have any more of a chance to pollinate any other tomato than one with a regular flower.
Worth
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Great pic there Worth! Great for helping to teach new gardeners for sure.
Ah, so I had part of it right, but just in reverse. That is good to know. I been really worried about my seeds since I heard that. Maybe I misuderstood them when they was telling me. I had packaged up the little orange ones to send to a friend. I'll put a note in with those seeds that they may have been crossed by my other tomatoes.
They were yummy for sure and produced like crazy. Was like eating fresh candy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by carolyn137
I grew what I thought was going to be Lemon Boy and what I ended up with was a lot of orange currant plants instead. They were not grouped together and was intermingled with all my other plants.
I was told that currant tomatoes are one that will cross with anything and you don't have to do anything to make it happen. That currants are like peppers, they cross in a heartbeat.
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First question is how did you ID them as Currant plants since not all wee fruited varieties have the typical currant plant habit and leaf color and form?
It used to be thought that currant varieties had exerted stigmas, ones that are held high up aboveove thepollen bearing anthers so they were more attractive to insect pollinators.
But later research has shown that only about half of them do and actually Keith Mueller has said that's he more worried about his regular tomatoes crossing with currants that he grows.
I've grown several currant varieties years ago but then switched to Sara's Galapagos which I love, I've given the history here before, some at Tania's page is not correct, wee fruited, typical currant foliage but is NOT a currant, for I found out that it is a stable interspecies cross, and that from Dr. Chatelet at the TGRC since I knew which island it came from.
Some places still say to use huge islation distances when currents are being grown, one of them is Dr. Jeff McCormack who used to own SESE but he was doing seed production for what was listed in his catalog and online so was extra careful. Now that I think of it back then he probably didn't know about the stigma positions with pimps.
Now finally back to what you said above:
(I grew what I thought was going to be Lemon Boy and what I ended up with was a lot of orange currant plants instead. They were not grouped together and was intermingled with all my other plants.)
You had seeds for Lemon Boy, but got no plants that gave you Lemon Boy. Fresh Lemon Boy seeds or seeds you saved from Lemon Boy?
So you are suggesting that your Lemon Boy had crossed with something else that ended up giving you plants with wee orange fruits? What could Lemon Boy have crossed with in your garden? And how did they get "intermingled" with your other plants for that I don't understand.
Help me understand. 
Carolyn
Carolyn |
Ok, Carolyn... First I got the name wrong. Sorry about that. Guess I got Lemon on the brain today as I was in the seed of it. Here is the tomato I am talking about and I found the thread.
http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=37069
For the intermingled part... Usually I try and group all the same named plants together in a row or same square area. They started out that way, but when I moved plants under the shade screen from the heat and humidty here and to help keep them from getting diseased, I started stringing them all up.
Since it was sweat city I just started grabbing the tallest and fruiting plants first and they all got out of order , so instead of all the same named plants being together, they just all got intermingled with other ones.
Good info. Laughing my head over your " stigma positions with pimps" Haven't heard that description before.
Maybe I am wrong. I thought what you see in the link was currants. Seemed it fit the description of them. Them tiny , pea sized fruits never did get any bigger and they turned a final orange color. I saved a bunch of seed and gobbled all the rest.
I will grow it next year as I sure enjoyed the heck out of it.