Mule tomato plant.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by ContainerTed

Yes, Carolyn, when I was teaching, I did similar things to "get my students' attention. Because they won't learn if you don't make it interesting.

I also had the one below that was a "Four eared mule" in the starter tray. It had what I thought was "Quad-Cotyldons" at first. I kept it going to see where it would go. This one was probably spontaneous. Two established potato leafed varieties were crossed. This was a single event as the other seeds in the same tray produced plants which bore fruit as expected. What was remarkable to me on this one was how the "Blooms" were distorted. This plant did not set any fruit.

Ted, I call those blind seedlings.

You see a little knob of green in the center, you think it might get larger, it doesn't 99% of the time. And oh the angst I've had several times when seeing that happen when I had only a few seeds of a very rare variety.

Back at you on teaching tricks to gain student attention.

Especially when I was teaching courses such as biochemical genetics, bacterial metabolism and the like, I'd see heads drooping and pens stop writing for several of the students.

At which point I would announce, in my NOT wimpy voice that I would tap dance nude on the tabletop if they didn't pay attention.

Sure, there was a lot of laughter, but the droopy head ones certainly did wake up and pay attention.

Carolyn

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by nancyruhl

I have a plant that grew very well for me and has had many many blooms and has not set one fruit. The variety is Uralskiy Ranniy. It is at the cottage where there is no shortage of wind and all of its neighbors have born fruit. The netting is just one of my protective efforts against the omnipresent deer.

I dont think I would ever grow it again.
I have had several varieties do that to me or set maybe one or two fruit and they never got a second chance.

I know one thing, to watch a beautiful tomato plant grow to untold heights and never put on one bloom is very disappointing.

Worth

[carolyn137]

I just noticed that I made an error when I posted what's below, which I cut and pasted below.


(Zenbaas, male steriles is a different issue IMO, some are naturally occurring but most of them are induced mutations used when constructing hybrids since there's no effective pollen, so self pollenization cannot occur and that removes the very laborious manual process of removal of the male stamens.)

It should read that self pollenization CAN occur, which is the whole point in using male steriles. And prevents any X pollination.

Carolyn

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by nancyruhl

I have a plant that grew very well for me and has had many many blooms and has not set one fruit. The variety is Uralskiy Ranniy. It is at the cottage where there is no shortage of wind and all of its neighbors have born fruit. The netting is just one of my protective efforts against the omnipresent deer.

Nancy, I had a similar event happen whenI was growing a variety called Botanique Originale which I got when we did that huge trade back in 1992 with Norbert in France.

I knew nothing about the origin of that variety, but what I do remember is that the blossoms were quite different from what I had known. They were a pale yellow, fragile looking, with swept back petals and looked like mini butterflies.

I think I asked Dr, Chatelet at the TGRC about it and he said something about incompatibility, but I cannot remember what he said, to be honest. At the time I thinkit meant to me that it was one of the wild species of Lycopersicon, now Solanum, and I do know such incompatibilities do exist but haven't Googled the subject in many years,

Carolyn

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Ted, I call those blind seedlings.

You see a little knob of green in the center, you think it might get larger, it doesn't 99% of the time. And oh the angst I've had several times when seeing that happen when I had only a few seeds of a very rare variety.

Back at you on teaching tricks to gain student attention.

Especially when I was teaching courses such as biochemical genetics, bacterial metabolism and the like, I'd see heads drooping and pens stop writing for several of the students.

At which point I would announce, in my NOT wimpy voice that I would tap dance nude on the tabletop if they didn't pay attention.

Sure, there was a lot of laughter, but the droopy head ones certainly did wake up and pay attention.

Carolyn

Carolyn if you got caught sleeping or nodding off in communications class in the Marines you got yelled at.
You were not allowed to laugh or you would end up in the same boat.
The second offense got you shipped off to truck driving school.
I never will forget the look on the guys face after a nap when he got told to pack his trash and go to motor transport.
We lost almost 50% of the guys that first started in our class.
Then when I got to What we called the FMF (Fleet Marine Force I was scolded for graduating 19 out of 20 in my class.
What do you have to say for your self, I was asked.
I told the guy, I had a 95% average what was yours?

It wasn't long after this I was moved to another unit and things were great.
A small group of us had a wee garden and took care of the shrubbery plants and grass on our own.

Worth

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

I just noticed that I made an error when I posted what's below, which I cut and pasted below.


(Zenbaas, male steriles is a different issue IMO, some are naturally occurring but most of them are induced mutations used when constructing hybrids since there's no effective pollen, so self pollenization cannot occur and that removes the very laborious manual process of removal of the male stamens.)

It should read that self pollenization CAN occur, which is the whole point in using male steriles. And prevents any X pollination.

Carolyn

OK. I need to fix the above b'c I still didn't get it right/
Rough AM here. In too much of a hurry but I'll be back.

Carolyn

[Zenbaas]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

OK. I need to fix the above b'c I still didn't get it right/
Rough AM here. In too much of a hurry but I'll be back.

Carolyn

No worries I would forward to the final revised edition!

[ContainerTed]

Zenbaas, I really posted those two series of pictures for you. You said you had little familiarity with the concept of plants that would not set fruit, and I tried to show you two examples of extreme distortion of a plant coming from seed saved from Hybrids.

Actually, most of the time, you'll get some kind of plant that will put on a load of fruit. But you'll also get fruit that does not look like the original, or is not the same flavor, or both, or maybe it will look like one of the parents of the F1 plant you loved. And, once in a while, not too often, but once in a while, it will breed true. Commercial houses and plant developers are not obligated to tell us that their product is stable. That protects their product and their profit.

But those "Mules" we find occasionally are mind blowing. It's good to grow them out every now and then just to remind ourselves that we are only the caretakers of plants, and Mother Nature is the real ultimate ruler of our gardens.

[Zenbaas]

Originally Posted by ContainerTed

Zenbaas, I really posted those two series of pictures for you. You said you had little familiarity with the concept of plants that would not set fruit, and I tried to show you two examples of extreme distortion of a plant coming from seed saved from Hybrids.

Actually, most of the time, you'll get some kind of plant that will put on a load of fruit. But you'll also get fruit that does not look like the original, or is not the same flavor, or both, or maybe it will look like one of the parents of the F1 plant you loved. And, once in a while, not too often, but once in a while, it will breed true. Commercial houses and plant developers are not obligated to tell us that their product is stable. That protects their product and their profit.

But those "Mules" we find occasionally are mind blowing. It's good to grow them out every now and then just to remind ourselves that we are only the caretakers of plants, and Mother Nature is the real ultimate ruler of our gardens.

Thanks. I was merely referring to Carolyn in particular with my comment and not all the information gained from the rest of the posts. Interesting topic.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Zenbaas

No worries I would forward to the final revised edition!

My error was thinking of all the different varieties that most home growers use in their home gardens that can be close to each other and forgtting that that's not the way that F1 hybrids are produced.

Many times here i've gone through the bit about how F1's are produced and there being two breeding lines starting with OP's in each breeding line, introducing genes in those two lines in cosecutive steps for this and that and then, the last OP in each line is crossed with the last OP in the other line.

BUT, thousands of plants to get the F1 are grown and the issue is NOT X pollination at all.

Having a male sterile as the recipient plant means that no self pollenization can occur and that the desired pollen can simply be placed on the stigmas of the blossoms of that plant. Which indeed is less laborious than having to manually emasculate the blossoms on the recipient plant which is trickyfor some, but not usually tricky for those who do it all the time.

If that doesn't make sense to you here's some backup links that might help.

First, the development of male steriles by Charles Rick,now deceased but former directorof the TGRC (tomato genetics resource center),

https://ucanr.edu/repositoryfiles/ca404p7-71494.pdf

And now a Google search to follow the above:

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q...male+sterility

Hope that helps,

Carolyn