Quote:
Originally Posted by nicollas
What are your breeding goals ? You want to cross the wild with cultivated tomatoes ?
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My first goal will be to learn how to cross. After that, I would like to concentrate on crossing some of the wilds with domesticated varieties that are considered heat and cold tolerant. Here in Tucson, our tomato plants stop producing about mid-May until about mid-September due to the extreme heat. The goal at that point is to keep the plants alive.
I grew a couple of "S. Cheesmaniae" plants from seed I obtained from Trade Winds Fruits that were very productive. Sharing my photos and results with a staff member of TGRC UC Davis, it was determined that this was not the true S. Cheesmaniae, but rather a cross. Still, these plants continued to produce new tomatoes even in the triple digit heat, although the fruits had very few (if any) seeds in the heat.
I mention cold tolerant varieties of domesticated tomatoes because I have found that many of the so-called cold tolerant tomato varieties do quite well here in Tucson, and seem to survive our extreme heat (even though production stops in the heat).
Even though the Galapagos Islands don't appear to get as hot as Tucson (according to what I read), the two species of wild tomato (S. Cheesmaniae and S. Galapagense) are more drought tolerant and salt tolerant. Those would be benefits for tomato varieties here in Tucson.