When can you name a F1 hybrid?

[bower]

Being involved in the amateur breeding 'craze' has given me new respect for just how challenging it is to find an F1 with the beneficial 'heterosis' of some kind that would make it worth the effort to produce F1 seed for use or sale.

Commercially there's always a strong focus on the disease resistance traits which can only be 'stacked' in the heterozygous condition.
Heterosis for higher yield is another desirable, but parent plants with that 'combining ability' may not be that common.. perhaps some more experienced breeder could give a statistic on the frequency of finding such beneficial effects in the F1. There are specific traits to look for in one of the parents to accomplish that goal, afaik from what's been published (although there are also likely multiple roads to the same goal).
Yield heterosis would be a great target, if the heirloom parent(s) you have in mind are delicious but scanty producers. Finding an F1 that boosts production and yet really similar fruit to those scant producers would be really worthwhile.

I was disappointed last year growing out 9 F1 crosses and only found any earliness heterosis in one of them. The others were consistent in earliness of flowering matching the later parent.

On the other hand, some of the F1's that were reasonably early productive and tasty were not as much fun in the F2, making me think about those F1 seeds as perhaps more worth growing than other generations in those lines.

Anyway, you might try 'combining ability F1' or similar search terms to find helpful research that's been done... good luck and please keep us posted so we can learn from your project, if you will!

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Worth1

From what I have heard SunGold came out of Japan.
These people are known to go to the extremes with things, who knows what they did to develop it.
Worth

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/SunGold_F1

Carolyn, who sees the two largest breeding companies in Japan,Tokita and Sakita I think it is, as excelling in the many wonderful varieties they have developed be it tomatoes,melons,you name it, using conventional breeding, nothing extreme at all,

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/SunGold_F1

Carolyn, who sees the two largest breeding companies in Japan,Tokita and Sakita I think it is, as excelling in the many wonderful varieties they have developed be it tomatoes,melons,you name it, using conventional breeding, nothing extreme at all,

I bet they massage feed green tea and play music to the mother plants.
Worth

[nicollas]

If your main goal is fame, you can also find a very good combination, name it, and then give the parents, so that your hybrid can be perpetuated without the burden of making the pollination. One problem is that your cross may be named after the two parents rather than the name you've chosen, but also people can credit you when talking about the hybrid. I'm not sure hybrid is a good path to try to be famous.

[bower]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/SunGold_F1

Carolyn, who sees the two largest breeding companies in Japan,Tokita and Sakita I think it is, as excelling in the many wonderful varieties they have developed be it tomatoes,melons,you name it, using conventional breeding, nothing extreme at all,

That tells me that they understand very well how to choose or develop the parent lines that will make a superior F1 hybrid.
I don't find it surprising that market F1's mostly come from in house breeding lines. I suspect a lot of work is needed to get the right parents that will combine in just the right way. Not that it couldn't happen with two random or select OP parents, but...

[PureHarvest]

Originally Posted by nicollas

If your main goal is fame, you can also find a very good combination, name it, and then give the parents, so that your hybrid can be perpetuated without the burden of making the pollination. One problem is that your cross may be named after the two parents rather than the name you've chosen, but also people can credit you when talking about the hybrid. I'm not sure hybrid is a good path to try to be famous.

Nicollas, I just want to be famous in my own mind. Something to hand down to the kids to create a memory that they can hand down to their kids.
F1 seemed an easy place to start because I don't have to take it to F8 or higher.

I wouldn't mind trying the multi-generational grow out either...then the grandkids wouldn't have to remember the parents and do the crossing.
Or maybe they should as a sort of prerequisite...sort of like the movie national treasure but with tomatoes!

[PureHarvest]

Of course then u have Fred's H's son, Alex, and his philosophy which is encoraging to an amateur breeder and confirms what my hunches were on a macro level:

"What was Alex's breeding secret? (Fred's 8 yr old son)
He crossed his favorite tomatoes.

He didn't try to "fix" cool looking, but poor tasting, varieties. He picked his 4 favorite tomatoes and suggested 3 crosses. The striking results from that year spawned "Alex's Rule" of tomato breeding: Cross tomatoes that taste great with other tomatoes that taste great -- because it is hard to get a mediocre-tasting tomato from two parents who taste great."

The rest is on artisans blog.

[KarenO]

I am one of those hobby tomato breeders and have enjoyed myself tremendously. If it is for yourself and your family you can do whatever you want. call it whatever you want, grow it wherever you want.
Have fun and don't be worried if at first you don't succeed, just try again. It's the most fun I've had in 30 years of gardening. Enjoy
KarenO

[PureHarvest]

Super cool karenO. Good to hear.

[Fred Hempel]

Here is a link to the blog post mentioned.

In an update to the story:

As with most things in life, Alex's interest in tomatoes has been cyclical. After Blush was finished, for many years he was only mildly interested in our tomato breeding.

Last year, however, he jumped back in. We now spend most every Saturday morning in the winter making crosses and discussing the kinds of new varieties we should make. He has also again been walking through our breeding populations in Sunol, Cabo and Dixon, CA) adding an extra pair of eyes, and an extra palate. In Dixon last summer, he found a few very interesting selections that I would have missed, had he not been there.

Fred and Alex in Todos Santos. Selecting tomato lines April 2015.

Originally Posted by PureHarvest

Of course then u have Fred's H's son, Alex, and his philosophy which is encoraging to an amateur breeder and confirms what my hunches were on a macro level:

"What was Alex's breeding secret? (Fred's 8 yr old son)
He crossed his favorite tomatoes.

He didn't try to "fix" cool looking, but poor tasting, varieties. He picked his 4 favorite tomatoes and suggested 3 crosses. The striking results from that year spawned "Alex's Rule" of tomato breeding: Cross tomatoes that taste great with other tomatoes that taste great -- because it is hard to get a mediocre-tasting tomato from two parents who taste great."

The rest is on artisans blog.

[PureHarvest]

That's awesome Fred
I have 3 kids all under 9, and I'm hoping one of them catches the horticulture bug.
So far looks like my 3 year old is most interested.

Hey by the way, when I view your seed website the screen only shows half the page. This is from an iPhone 5s

[travis]

Originally Posted by travis

Are you talking about professionally developed hybrids with the intent to sell certified F1 seed on a continuing basis, or the hobby tomato breeding currently raging among home gardeners who frequent this and other tomato discussion boards?

The reason I asked this is because if you truly wish to produce and sell F1 hybrid tomato seed on a continuing basis, you will have to first develop and continually maintain standardized, true breeding parental lines.

You cannot expect to simply take pollen from a single example of one named open pollinated variety, and apply it to another single example of another open pollinated variety, year after year, and get the exact same heterozygous gene pair combinations ... UNLESS you first spend several years growing large populations of the same two parental varieties, culling out the irregulars, and selecting only the target standards to establish the two, standardized, true breeding parental lines.

The same issue exists if you were to hit upon a great hybrid combo of two named open pollinated varieties, named the F1 hybrid, revealed to a second party (or the world) the two parent varieties with the intent that others will replicate your hybrid tomato. They may be lucky enough to have on hand, or obtain, an example of each open pollinated parent to make a close enough replication; or they may not. The current sourcing of general production, open pollinated, named varieties, particularly for the so-called "heirloom" types, is not necessarily known for standardization to the extent required to attain "true breeding" parental lines.

On the other hand, if your intent is to explore the pleasurable tomato breeding hobby, as many of us have, then by all means use your best examples of the various tomato varieties you have on hand, and cross pollinate them, grow the F1 seed, discover which combinations excel in the characteristics you find valuable, and name the hybrid what you wish (after a reasonable check to see if the same name or combination has not previously been used).

[PureHarvest]

Very good info Travis.
I guess I assumed that good breeders had really stable lines that would work for crossing.
So you would ideally start with those and grow out to get parent lines?

[heirloomtomaguy]

Originally Posted by Fred Hempel

Here is a link to the blog post mentioned.

In an update to the story:

As with most things in life, Alex's interest in tomatoes has been cyclical. After Blush was finished, for many years he was only mildly interested in our tomato breeding.

Last year, however, he jumped back in. We now spend most every Saturday morning in the winter making crosses and discussing the kinds of new varieties we should make. He has also again been walking through our breeding populations in Sunol, Cabo and Dixon, CA) adding an extra pair of eyes, and an extra palate. In Dixon last summer, he found a few very interesting selections that I would have missed, had he not been there.

Fred and Alex in Todos Santos. Selecting tomato lines April 2015.

Man o man does that boy look just like you Fred.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by PureHarvest

Nicollas, I just want to be famous in my own mind. Something to hand down to the kids to create a memory that they can hand down to their kids.
F1 seemed an easy place to start because I don't have to take it to F8 or higher.

I wouldn't mind trying the multi-generational grow out either...then the grandkids wouldn't have to remember the parents and do the crossing.
Or maybe they should as a sort of prerequisite...sort of like the movie national treasure but with tomatoes!

If you want something to pass down to your kids and grandkids, as you said,why don't you make that initial cross, or two and no you don't have to always take something out to the F8, you make selections each time you set out plants and chose what you want and go from there.

It all depends on genetic segregation and the best place I know of to learn how to do crosses, how many gens it takes and so much more, is Keith Mueller's superb website.

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

Once you have your final F1, then save a lot of F1 seeds, they store very well, best to dry them down to 6-8% moisture level and then put them in your freezer in sealed vials.

You can keep some out at ambient temps and humidity if you want to grow the hybrid each year, and then practice taking slips from them as in cloning them and then teach that to your kids who will then teach it to their kids.

Carolyn