Blue Genes - Tight fit for a tomato

[Tom Wagner]

: Crosstalk: Tomatoville Research and Development™ This sub-forum is called that
for a good reason. As one of the more senior plant breeders posting here on TVille, I sometimes relate what I am doing in real time. Increasing anthocyanin content in potatoes, corn and tomatoes has been a long term obsession for me.

Blue tomatoes are fairly popular with some gardeners. The OSU release of Indigo Rose in 2012 is evidence of that. I have released many blue tomato varieties over the last three seasons and I have many more in the works.

The Indigo Rose carries two major genes Aft and atv for blue pigments. The gene Abg was used but is not present in the Indigo Rose. I thought it important to revisit the pedigree of Indigo Rose and actually grow the accessions with each of the three genes bred from wild species introgressed into cultivated lines. I have in the field each of the original accessions used by OSU from the Tomato Genetics Research Center in Davis, CA. A quick blurb from five years ago states:

Fruit with the genes Abg, Aft, and atv exhibit varying degrees of anthocyanin production in the epidermis, but not in the fruit pericarp. Fruit with these alleles in various combinations were analyzed to characterize the anthocyanidin profile, moieties, and total anthocyanin content. In general, combining atv with either Aft or Abg substantially increased anthocyanin production in the fruit. Over 23 different anthocyanins were detected, petunidin-3-(p-coumaryl)-rutinoside-5-glucoside being predominant.

I thought it would be interesting to breed some of my more advance blue tomatoes with each of the above genes...Abg, Aft, and atv.

I live in a climate that doesn't afford much pollen production...the temps have been in the fifties and sixties with rain every day for a while...with humidities in the 90's all night and morning and gradually reaching 75% by mid-day. Monday I started the breeding work about one o'clock and tomorrow I will try about 11 in the morning.
I wanted to cross one clone to each of the Davis accessions and luck would have it I had a Aft/Aft, atv/atv/ wo/wo, gs/gs line called YAMALI BLUE. It was done!

If I get viable F-1 seed, I hope to grow out the hybrid in Hawaii later this summer and look at the F-2 population either/or there and here in the Seattle area. Yamali Blue is a name that my friend in France named within a selection of seed of Seattle's Blue Woolly Mammoth. The hybrid will be easy to detect...heterozygous for the woolly trait but the other traits will be followed closely. I hope to make other crosses in a myriad of ways ...maybe even to offer seed of several crosses and segregations later on.



Pollen shed is limited with the temps and humidities as they are. As I like to have company when I cross, I will try to keep my profanity to a minimum. I have a professional photographer visiting me tomorrow in the field near Woodinville. He is taking pictures of me for the University of Kansas Alumni Magazine. I hope he will share some nicely focused pix with me. Maybe if I am nice to him, I will have enough photos to make a Power Point Presentation of me crossing tomatoes.

[crmauch]

I am intrigued by the blue tomatoes you've been breeding (I first stumbled on a picture of Fahrenheit Blue, and I've read through quite a bit of the OSU blue thread (have not got through all 21 pages).

I understand you have released several selections. Would you recommend one of them for breeding work, or should I start with OSU Blue? If one of yours, what would you recommend for color and/or flavor? Who is selling your varieties?

How did the photography session go?

[Tom Wagner]

The new seed extracted from my blue tomatoes in Hawaii should be listing now on my Tom Wagner Seeds .com site.

The photographer thanked me for taking an hour and a half teaching him about making crosses. He is offering me a whole slew of pictures to use for a Power Point...only charging as if for one picture...nice!

He wants to do two videos of me later on for a very fair price...I think he wants to learn more....here is a photo sample from the other day.....



I am placing pollen from a potato I call Cascade Villiage onto a La Ratte flower.

[Salsacharley]

Tom,

Thanks for sharing this.

This is fascinating. Would this type of work be considered "genetic engineering"? It seems it would, but in an organic sense.

What is the statistical probability of coming up with the series of genetic matches you achieved?

Charley

[tlintx]

Originally Posted by Tom Wagner

The photographer thanked me for taking an hour and a half teaching him about making crosses. He is offering me a whole slew of pictures to use for a Power Point...only charging as if for one picture...nice!

I don't think I've said so, but I really appreciate your detailed (and educational) posts. I always read them and learn something, even if I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment.

What I'm trying to say here is, I'm so jealous of your photographer right now. Looking forward to seeing the presentation!

[Darren Abbey]

Originally Posted by Salsacharley

Tom,

Thanks for sharing this.
This is fascinating. Would this type of work be considered "genetic engineering"? It seems it would, but in an organic sense.
What is the statistical probability of coming up with the series of genetic matches you achieved?

Charley

These are ancient techniques that are considered perfectly organic and natural. Though I think of them as GMOs (because they're modified with respect to wild plants), most people disagree and even I wouldn't call this "genetic engineering". This is more akin to "genetic dice-throwing" or simply "genetics".

The probability calculation would depend on knowing how many genes are involved and the particulars of their inheritance pattern. We don't really know this sort of information, except in a small number of cases.

[Salsacharley]

Thanks for the info.

Charley

[Tom Wagner]

I am a traditional plant breeder...a Luther Burbank style plant breeder and work with genes that are freely available in the tomato (Solanum) species. I am not introducing a trait not previously found in the closely related species. If you read much of the scientific papers, the term genetic engineering is not often used; more specifically terms such as transgenic are preferred.

I aced college level Probability and Statistics Math. The use of math goes beyond looking for one recessive trait showing up in an F-2 progeny...one out of four. Or even two traits...one out of 16, three traits 1:64, or four traits...1:256. Much of my work has to do with mutation like crossovers, translocations, etc., that were defying logic and expectations. I found that new expressions were enhanced with multi generational bulk hybridization and recombination. So in effect, I am more of a "junkyard engineer"....taking a bit of this and that and "welding" it together with something new.

What is the statistical probability of coming up with the series of genetic matches you achieved?

That is interesting since I can look back on a pedigree chart of some of my creations that have over a hundred different parents and marvel at the odds of coming up with a variety out of that mix.

I forced my old body to transplant about 1,000 TPS potato plants today. Many were fifth generation hybrids of diploid potatoes whereas each generation was a result of dozens or hundreds of female parents cross to hundred of potential male parents in successive waves. I did not have to make the crosses as diploids are obligate outcrossers. I often have hundreds of diploid clones blooming at one time and they love to have their pollen spread around. The probability issue is moot at that point, but serendipity sure plays a role.

I get inspired when I transplant potato TPS seedlings....below is one of the maternal grandmother clones just a few feet away....seems I rather like blue...



I didn't have to plant these....they are volunteer from last year and are multiplying like weeds...but that is the point.

[Fusion_power]

I think you should name that one Mailbox Blues. It is pretty enough to plant by the mailbox.

[Tom Wagner]

I thought it would be interesting to breed some of my more advance blue tomatoes with each of the above genes...Abg, Aft, and atv.

Today I was able to cross my blue tomato HELSING ★★★★★★★★ BLUE tomato to quite a few tomato varieties, segregations, and hybrids. I was able to use the Abg, Aft and atv as female parents. I noticed that the YAMALI BLUE crosses on those took from last week....little fruits are growing.

Serendipity occurred after making the above crosses. I had quite a few hybrids in the queue that had HJB as a male parent. It was fun making the backcross with HJB hoping for the seed to develop giving me 3/4 HJB background. The hybrid vigor of F-1 Striped Students x Helsing ★★★★★★★★ Blue was obvious....lots of suckering growth with many blooms. The hybrid had none of the physiological leaf rolling of HJB. So leaf rolling is recessive. The rolling of the leaves allows more sun to mediate the blue coloring on the fruits. I even made a cross between two versions of HJB F-5's that are derived from the same F-2 fruit of 2010. It will be interesting to see how many genes are not in common to make the hybrid showing a fair amount of hybrid vigor.

The pollen from HJB was used to make crosses with Dwarf Shadow Boxing, Blue Bayou, Blue Pitts, Chocolate Blues, (Black Brandywine x Black Prince) x OSU Blue,
Clackamas Blueberry, Yamali Blue, and a few others. At least four crosses were made with Chocolate Blues pollen to Dancing with Smurfs, Blue Goldy, Yamali Blue, and Make My Day.

Looks like I have made at least one hundred different combination crosses during the past week or so. I plan to stick with it through the early part of July and end up with a minimum of 500 different crosses that take.

Most of my crosses are for increasing my Blues collections, but late blight resistance, and early types will play a big part. Dwarf breeding will pick up during the week. Early hybrids as Imur Prior Beta x Spring Noir happened by happenstance. They were next to each other.

Green Zebra pollen is coming up in the next couple of days and I hope to cross for at least four hours utilizing nothing but that pollen.

[Salsacharley]

Oh My Gosh,

I am responding only because no one else has. You are way way above my meager head.
I can't comprehend the size of your operation.

I'd be honored and grateful to get a crumb from your table.

Charley

[Tom Wagner]

I am responding only because no one else has

Charley, I wouldn't worry that folks don't respond to every post. We all have busy lives and unless I include a question on my topics....I really see no reason for a response.

Anyway.....yesterday I lived up to my promise of using Green Zebra as a pollen parent. Getting good pollen shed from anthers outdoors here is still a problem, but after collecting anthers from 8 or 9 anthers and allowing them to dry in the sun...I was able to stay busy for nearly four hours crossing Green Zebra to a wide array of tomato lines. After that I used pollen from a Indigo Rose vine in a nearby greenhouse that proved I need more heat to produce ample pollen. The interest in Indigo Rose was to produce F-1 hybrid combinations for a future project. Crossing to Clackamas Blueberry will produce 7/8 Indigo Rose seed and a doable hybrid. Indigo Rose was also crossed to the Davis, CA collections of Abg, Aft, and atv lines. Re-introducing those ancestral lines into the Indgio Rose will be interesting to see what is left of the wild germplasm within those lines to offer that seed to the public someday.

I used pollen from an F-2 vine of Blue Bully x Green Brandy. The vine was showing a sl woolly trait and some blue in the stem and I wont know the other traits until it ripens. The crosses I made with it were for late blight resistance, a Yamali Blue line, a recombinant of Box Car Willie x Pink Brandywine with potato leaves, an F-2 of Sky Reacher x Green Brandy to see if I could get a late blight res line that has lots of the Green Brandy traits. That last cross will be verified if half of the seedlings have sl woolly leaves and would be tickled if half are potato leaves.

I really like crossing F-2's with other F-2's. Each hybrid plant has unique combinations and saving the seed from as many F-1's as possible will keep my associate in Hawaii busy for years resorting the recombinants.

Among the interesting crosses yesterday were between a Dwarf Shadow Boxing tomato and Indigo Rose. The hybrid would be outstanding to market since it would be a compact semi determinate with blue fruits. The idea for later is for a vivid blue fruit with stripes with pronounced coloring in the nipple end of the fruit. Maybe a dwarf version too!

Here is a sample photo of Dwarf Shadow Boxing...not from here in Washington but from a sib plant in Hawaii. I can look at a tomato like this forever...the hues of yellow, orange, red, and purple are breath-taking! It is akin to "TOMATO PORN" in my opinion.

[PaddyMc]

That is a crazy beautiful tomato. Any chance you're going to be listing seeds from that particular segregate?

[Tom Wagner]

I will obviously save seed from the several plants scattered around the country. My local fave will be in the queue for crossing today and/or in the next few days. I will use it as a male parent just to make sure the offspring are frequent.

[NarnianGarden]

Wow. I can't comprehend the amount of work and precision that has been going into this, but I can appreciate someone following their passion

Is the main purpose to increase the anthocyanins for added nutritional value, or is the blue tomato (and other veggies) just for beauty? I keep on reading that the taste is mostly nothing special, at least in the case of OSU Indigo...