Non-technical tomato breeding question..

[Boutique Tomatoes]

Seeing all of the new varieties some of the tomato breeders are working on has me interested in doing some crosses of my own with the kids this year as a learning experience.

However, if I'm working out the math right, if we wanted to go for something with multiple recessive traits, the F2 grow out would need to be hundreds of plants to have a reasonable chance of getting the right combination of genes in one plant.

My question is: What do they do with all the undesirable offspring? If you're going for something unusual you are likely to get quite a few oddballs in your breeding efforts. Do you taste test them to see if they're palatable and just sell them at market as unnamed varieties or something else I haven't considered?

[travis]

Due to space constraints, I grow a few plants of each F2 or F3 line I'm working on, maybe as few as 4 of each line at home. I look for the growth characteristics, blossom truss characteristics, fruit shape, color, size, etc., and then taste test the results.

Those that don't make the grade during the plant growth or fruit production phases get yanked and tossed. Those that don't make the fruit characteristic goals get eaten or given away. Those that don't make the flavor grade by the F3 get dried or sauced. Those with the most promise have seeds extracted for F4 and beyond.

Anything that shows promise gets grown out in subsequent years at home.

Also due to space constraints, I have local friends and online friends who grow out additional test plants. When I cannot get to their gardens to examine the plants, they report with photos and taste test results. I used to use the Master Gardeners display garden as well, but no longer do that. But there is a huge opportunity for you to grow larger test plots at community gardens of one kind or another.

[Boutique Tomatoes]

I was imagining doing larger grow outs to select for multiple recessive traits. Space isn't much of an issue for me here, between farming family and friends I could never produce enough plants to fill the available unused acreage. Nobody seems to want to work the small little fields any more but I could put a lot of breeding project tomatoes on a two acre field.

I suppose merciless culling as soon as it's apparent that the plant isn't what you're hoping for or something else potentially interesting is probably the best solution.

[travis]

This discussion may head in a direction that takes it to the breeding forum

With regard to multiple recessive traits: I'm working on some lines like that, and yes it's difficult in small spaces. For example, I am trying to work out a few lines of gf "purple" (clear skin) tomatoes with gs "skin stripes," determinate habit, some with potato leaf vines, with heat tolerant abilities. There've been duds along the way that either got culled or sauced, since I would be embarassed to let someone eat them fresh when the flavor was flat.

The Dwarf Project is a prime example of using multiple locations to capture multiple recessive traits. But I'm not involved in that project.

You're lucky to have adequate space totally under your own control. I think you should resolve yourself to lots of pleasant surprises along with much heavy culling.

[Boutique Tomatoes]

Yes, because it wasn't really technical I didn't know if it was appropriate there.

Culling them does seem like the best approach to me, this season I'll have to pay close attention to how early I can identify the different things I wanted to combine. I think that is where the work will come in. The time it will take to examine hundreds of plants and then cutting the duds and dragging them all to a compost pile...

[travis]

What recessive traits are you wanting to incorporate, in particular?

[Boutique Tomatoes]

I have a few different things I'd like to do, but I'm looking forward to playing with stripes and anthocyanin and some different colors and fruit forms. I'd like to try and get some ribbed/fluted tomatoes in other flesh colors as well.

I've been too busy with the day job to work out the genetics involved, but if my basic understanding is accurate just getting gs, atv, aft, and abg together in one breeding line will likely require a rather large grow out. Throw in a few more recessive traits and it's not quite a needle in a haystack, but it's close...