Anyone Tried Currant Tomatoes?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Garf

I have grown Florida Everglades, and they are as you describe. Some plants give red, some yellow. Next season, I will grow Sara Galapagos and Florida Everglades.

Florida Everglades should be red, not yellow, I'm not sure what the yellow ones might be.


And I highly suggest that you grow Ted's pink Currant, TEd is in FL and his daughter bought a plant thinking it was the usual red Everglades one, but it turned out to be pink:

(Ted’s Pink Currant,( only pink currant I know of. Tim Peters bred one but no longer available, TV volunteers Nancyruhl, Lurley, Jayc, Cornbread Louie; I’ll label the sources A, B C, D so they know how germination went.)

I've been offering this one in my annual seed offer here for a couple of years and still have seeds left.

Carolyn

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Wolffrunn511

I had a type named 'Spoon'. It was very good in stirfrys. I think I'll look for that one... I think it came from Tomatobob

It was Park's seeds who originally offered seeds for what they called Spoon and called it that b'c the picture they showed had many of those wee red currant fruits in a SPOON.

it's a typical well known red currant.

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Spoon

Tania does not have the history.

Carolyn

[Wolffrunn511]

Carolyn I'd be honored to grow some seed from your collection. I do not have any currant seed currently he he. How would I obtain Ted's pink seed from your annual seed offer? best -Andy

[Abigail]

Thank you everyone for the great feedback, I feel much more confident about growing these (new to me) currant tomatoes!

[Fusion_power]

S. Pimpinellifolium produces at least 100 times as many flowers as most large fruited tomatoes. This makes it significantly more likely to contribute pollen to bee made crosses. If you read up on them at TGRC, you will see that there is a range of stigma exertion from very long at the north and south extremes of their range and variable to mostly enclosed in the middle range. This is thought to be an artifact of their reproductive method where self-fertility is an advantage in areas with very high levels of genetic diversity and high rates of crossing is an advantage in areas where genetic diversity is minimal.

Some of them have exceptional flavor, sweet, fruity, and balanced. Mexico Midget is in the sweet flavorful range. LA0417 is one I got out of TGRC that is phenomenally good as a snack tomato. There are a couple of pink S. Pimpinellifolium's in TGRC, there are also a few that are hirsute. The disease tolerance genes are generally much stronger than in any domestic tomato. I am hoping to bring some very useful genes in from LA0417 with the F2 plants I am growing this year of Piennolo del Vesuvio X LA0417.

I should also point out that current nomenclature does not recognize "cerasiforme" because all plants ID'd as such turn out to be either pure S. Lycopersicum or intergrades from crosses between S. Lycopersicum and S. Pimpinellifolium.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Wolffrunn511

Carolyn I'd be honored to grow some seed from your collection. I do not have any currant seed currently he he. How would I obtain Ted's pink seed from your annual seed offer? best -Andy

I normally put up my annual seed offer in early Jan in the trade seed subforum, but this year for Medical reasons I was unable to do that. I have the seeds for it and still hope to get it up early this summer.

If you plan to grow it this year in Ohio it would be too late to wait for any offer I put up this summer. So I'm going to suggest that you PM me your home address now and hope I can find those seeds, the back room is a mess seedwise, so I can send you some seeds.

Folks, this is a one time offer for Andy only and thanks in advance for understanding.

Carolyn

[Blueaussi]

What is "TGRC"?

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Blueaussi

What is "TGRC"?

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...,d.eXY&cad=rja

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Worth1

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...,d.eXY&cad=rja

Worth, I just saved the same.

it's a huge data base that I think is useful only for those who are involved in breeding tomatoes at non amateur levels, or for looking up specific genes.

It is not a source of accessions, such as the LA ones you saw Fusion mention, unless you fill out a form and give your background and specifcally what you want to do with what you might request.

I'll use Sara's Galapagos as an example. When I received the fruits that Amy Goldman brought back from the Galapagos Islands I saved seeds from the fruits and I was expecting to see S. cheesmanii, which I had requested, but that's not what I saw,

So I called the TGRC and asked what I might have and Dr. Chatelet was able to tell me, since I knew which island it came from, that it was probably an interspecies stable cross.

And it was. Since in their accessions lists they also have what is found almost everywhere.

It's located at UC Davis in CA and is known to many as the Rick Center, named for Dr. Charles Rick who brought back from South America so many of the species which over time had led to tomatoes that we have today. When Craig LeHoullier ( nctomatoman here) and I were publishing an international newsletter in the early 90's we interviwed different folks and Craig interviewed Dr. Rick, and was so surprised to find that he knew almost nothing about, for instance, heirloom tomatoes, so Craig sent him some seeds.

There's much more with this history of tomatoes slant, but that can easily be found via Google.

Carolyn

[Fusion_power]

http://www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu...t/chetelat.htm

http://tgrc.ucdavis.edu/

As noted, it is not intended for ordinary seed requests, it is for breeding work. There are a ton of articles worth reading through for background reference.

[carolyn137]

Fusion wrote:

(I should also point out that current nomenclature does not recognize "cerasiforme" because all plants ID'd as such turn out to be either pure S. Lycopersicum or intergrades from crosses between S. Lycopersicum and S. Pimpinellifolium.)

I don't know who is doing the recognizing about cerasiforme, but some places still use it. The one I'm most familiar with is Johnny's Selected Seeds who first offered Matt's Wild and if you look at that page they did that so hopefully most folks would know it wasn't S pimpinellifoium. And that b'c for a long time most folks, and researchers, thought that all pimps ( currant ones) had exerted stigmas that were above the pollen bearing anthers and were then thought to be a major cause of X pollination b/x the exerted stigmas drew insect pollinators.

But then Keith Muller posted that only about half of them did and he said he was more worried about his regular tomatoes X pollinating his pimps.

Speaking of Keith, in addition to what Fusion said about much to read at TGRC Keith has a wonderful website with lots of information that I think everyone should be aware of. I'm sure Fusion would agree, as do many others, that Keith probably knows more about tomato genetics than many others.

He got his MS degree from Dr. Randy Gardner at NCSU, a very well known tomato breeder who isnot retired but still breeding tomatoes, and his wife's parents live not too far from Craig Lehoullier in Raleigh, NC.

At his site you'll also see the varieties that he's released and some will recognize Liz Birt and several others.

Here's Keith's link

http://www.kdcomm.net/~tomato/

I've also discussed here in a recent thread about Sara's Galapagos which was indeed a stable cross between a currant and a S. Lycopersicon. Most in Europe use cum as the ending and most I know in the US use con as the ending for it turns out that there are more than ONE committee on earth who feel theirs is the ONLY way to refer to genera and species.

Hope that helps,

Carolyn, who alsmost forgot that Fusion also has lots on info athis website, Selected Plants.

http://www.selectedplants.com/

And Fusion, I would hope you be open to discussing with me some possible changes in what you link to as seed sources. If so please PM me, if Idon't hear from you in a couple of days I'll PM you.

[Tracydr]

Why is Matt's not a currant?
Forgot about Mexico Midget. That one is better than Matt's.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by Tracydr

Why is Matt's not a currant?
Forgot about Mexico Midget. That one is better than Matt's.

Because the currant tomatoe is considered to be Solanum pimpinellifolium and Matts wild cherry is considered to be Solanum lycopersicum.
Correct me if I'm wrong
Worth

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Tracydr

Why is Matt's not a currant?
Forgot about Mexico Midget. That one is better than Matt's.

I just started answering you and lost my links, so starting over again.

If you look at Tania's link you'll see that she says the fruit is currant sized but does not say Matt's is a currant variety. I lost that link but you can gotoTania's website and read it.

I look in my 2015 SSE Yearbook and see that Matt's Wild cherry is listed in the regular section not in the other species section and there are many who list it and lots of places to buy seeds although Tania has not had time to update yet for 2015.

Then I go to Johnny's who first introduced Matt's Wild Cherry and here's the link for that:

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/search.as...isusersearch=1

Click on details at the above page and go to the lower right where you'll see it described as a cerasiforme, which is why they called it a cherry and not a currant variety, which agrees with what I just said about where the listing for it is in the SSE Yearbooks.

And we've just read about the word cerasiforme here in this thread and it might or not mean to different folks.

I've grown Mexico Midget as well as Matt's Wild cherry, and neither one is my own choice for a wee fruited variety, be they cherries or currants, and in the SSE Yearbooks there's a section just devoted to other species where you can find many other varieties listed as being wild ones and their sources.

Carolyn

[Fusion_power]

Matt's Wild Cherry is most likely an intergrade from a cross of S. Lycopersicum X S. Pimpinellifolium. What proof? It is a large fruited variety and it carries the ph2 gene for late blight tolerance. Large fruited you say? Yes, large fruited, S. Pimpinellifolium is about 1/4 inch diameter - about the size of a large pea - up to at most 1/2 inch diameter while S. Lycopersicum is from 1/2 inch up to about 8 inches diameter. The combination of 5/8 inch diameter fruit with ph2 late blight tolerance is a very strong indication of an inter-species cross made long ago.

The use of "cerasiforme" as part of the species epithet indicates a stable sub-type of an established species. There is no significant difference between S. Lycopersicum and the varieties identified by some writers as "cerasiforme" so the use of a special differentiation is not supported. See Peralta and Spooner for a brief writeup on this.

Edit: Adding this as a reference for anyone who wants to delve into systematics.

http://www.vcru.wisc.edu/spoonerlab/...omonograph.pdf