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Old December 20, 2013   #10
bower
Tomatovillian™
 
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Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
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Joseph,
I can't comment on the bee relationships because although my old herb garden is basically a bumblebee sanctuary and teeming with em, the tomatoes are mostly in the greenhouse.
I did some crosses late this fall, and had trouble getting pollen from several of the desired parents. The ones that produced lots of pollen were noticeable - Indian Stripe, Danko, Black Early and PI 120256 had a free flow of pollen. Al Kuffa also produced a fair bit of pollen, and when it flowered again (late) Zolotye Kupola also produced enough pollen to try crosses.
Plants that weren't good pollen donors at the time were Kimberley, Zolotoe Serdtse, Zolotoy Zapas, Eva Purple Ball, and resisted my efforts to get pollen by any method.

Success rate for cross-pollination is another question. In spite of the copious pollen, only one (of maybe ten tried) using PI 120256 pollen was successful. Indian Stripe pollen came in at better than 50% success, while Danko was 3 for 3, 100%. Al Kuffa pollen was used for one cross only, 2 of 2 flowers crossed were successful 100%. Black Early pollen was used for one cross and that was successful as well. Zolotye Kupola came in at 50% success.

I also thought some plants were not very receptive to crosses as the female parent. It could be due to the time of year or maybe sensitivity to any blossom damage or perceived damage. Zolotoe Serdtse was my best candidate for breeding desired traits, but besides giving not enough pollen it preferentially grew self-pollinated fruit instead of (or before) crossed fruit and rejected many attempted crosses although it was setting and growing fruit at the time. ZS was a heavy setter overall but consistently dropped some from nearly every cluster, so that trait factors in.
PI 120256 also didn't set well as the female parent, and dropped a lot in any case.

If you're interested in seed of any of the parents or crosses for your landrace project send me a PM, I'd be happy to share.
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