2013 Projects

Boutique Tomatoes · January 23, 2013

I thought it might be educational to post what I'm planning to try with my first year of making a serious attempt at tomato breeding vs my last few years of "I watched the video on youtube, lets go see if I can get a cross to take."

If someone has any thoughts or suggestions; knows of someone else already doing the same crosses or working on the same kind of thing, please chime in!

First is some things that are just interesting to me.

Sweet antho types that would look and taste like an exotic berry/small fruit are one goal. The old pastry chef in me would love to be able to do tomato desserts with something like this, or have sweet sun dried tomatoes that look like raisens. Plus if you think about the anthocyanin content in proportion to the fruit mass, you'll get a lot more per ounce with a very small tomato.

1. Several small fruited cherry/currant types (Sweet Pea, Gold Rush, Hawaiian Red, Coyote, etc.) x Helsing ★★★★★★★★ Blues or Fahrenheit Blues.
2. J&L Gardens Sugar Drop & Ambrosia cherries x Helsing ★★★★★★★★ Blues or Fahrenheit Blues.

I'm going to try to work out a fast harvesting method for shattering currants. If I do, I may do a few crosses with Alberto Shatters to try and bring it all together down the road. Alberto Shatters is reported to have thicker skin and not split when falling off (shattering).

Planning on these crosses to bring sweetness into antho tomatoes, the majority I trialed last year seem to range from acid to mild with no real sweetness to them, other than a couple of yellows that showed up in my Searching for the Blue Zebra plants last year.

3. My two dark antho large cherry lines x LA4454 to combine jointless and sucr genes
4. Tom Wagner's Clakamas Blueberry x LA4454 to combine jointless and sucr genes with a good flavored antho line
5. Bosque Blue x Csikos botermo to bring in the earliness and sweetness along with the stripes for Csikos Botermo into a good blue line. Both are productive cluster types, there is a possibility of some good synergy...
6. Large Blue Bayou x larger fruited Sungold derived line from Mark Mccaslin to combine Sungold flavor in a dark antho line.
7. Blue Green Zebra x larger fruited Sungold derived line from Mark Mccaslin to combine Sungold flavor in a strongly striped antho line.

And just because I think they'd be interesting for gardeners.

8. Blue Green Zebra x Green Tiger Cherry looking for a striped antho GWR elongated cherry because I think it would look cool. ;-)
9. Blue Green Zebra x Blue Beauty to get two antho parents and stripe options in what should be a wild assortment of colors in the F2's.
10. Tom Wagner's Sky Reacher x larger fruited Sungold derived line from Mark Mccaslin to combine Sungold flavor with late blight resistance potential and stripes.

Then as a seperate goal I'd like to incorporate modern disease resistant lines with some of the best heirlooms from my past grow outs. One key is I want to play with a mix of colors and fruit forms in the crosses. I have every intention of retiring somewhere in the south (I originally moved here from Florida and I do not enjoy Wisconsin winters) and know disease pressures are going to be a problem that I don't currently have to deal with. I'd like to have a fun mix of types to grow that incorporate some of the work that has gone into modern disease resistant hybrids, but I don't like an all red tomato garden. Without testing equipment available or any significant disease pressures here I'll have to rely on growers in areas that have disease pressures to assist with selections for this project though.

Hybrid lines I plan to grow for various crosses with heirlooms this year are:

Mountain Merit
Big Beef
Iron Lady
Carolina Gold
BHN-871

I'm going to grow these as some of my heirloom breeding parents.

Cowlick's Brandywine
Aunt Ginny's Purple
Barlow Jap
JD's Special C-Tex
KBX
Aunt Gerties Gold
Pork Chop
Mystery Striped Yellow from my Wild Boar Solar Flare seeds in 2012
Berkley Tie-Dye Pink
Chocolate Stripes
Dark Striped Sweetheart
Kozula 128
Solar Flare

Plus I'll be growing a lot of new to me varieties that I'm still working on the list for, wrestling with myself about a partnership with a local restaurant or possibly two.
The temptation to play with the new ones will be strong but I'm going to try to control myself to a manageable number of crosses to grow out.

2013 should be an interesting year. 2014 even more so... ;-)

January 23, 2013	#1
Boutique Tomatoes Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Northeast Wisconsin, Zone 5a Posts: 1,109	2013 Projects I thought it might be educational to post what I'm planning to try with my first year of making a serious attempt at tomato breeding vs my last few years of "I watched the video on youtube, lets go see if I can get a cross to take." If someone has any thoughts or suggestions; knows of someone else already doing the same crosses or working on the same kind of thing, please chime in! First is some things that are just interesting to me. Sweet antho types that would look and taste like an exotic berry/small fruit are one goal. The old pastry chef in me would love to be able to do tomato desserts with something like this, or have sweet sun dried tomatoes that look like raisens. Plus if you think about the anthocyanin content in proportion to the fruit mass, you'll get a lot more per ounce with a very small tomato. 1. Several small fruited cherry/currant types (Sweet Pea, Gold Rush, Hawaiian Red, Coyote, etc.) x Helsing ★★★★★★★★ Blues or Fahrenheit Blues. 2. J&L Gardens Sugar Drop & Ambrosia cherries x Helsing ★★★★★★★★ Blues or Fahrenheit Blues. I'm going to try to work out a fast harvesting method for shattering currants. If I do, I may do a few crosses with Alberto Shatters to try and bring it all together down the road. Alberto Shatters is reported to have thicker skin and not split when falling off (shattering). Planning on these crosses to bring sweetness into antho tomatoes, the majority I trialed last year seem to range from acid to mild with no real sweetness to them, other than a couple of yellows that showed up in my Searching for the Blue Zebra plants last year. 3. My two dark antho large cherry lines x LA4454 to combine jointless and sucr genes 4. Tom Wagner's Clakamas Blueberry x LA4454 to combine jointless and sucr genes with a good flavored antho line 5. Bosque Blue x Csikos botermo to bring in the earliness and sweetness along with the stripes for Csikos Botermo into a good blue line. Both are productive cluster types, there is a possibility of some good synergy... 6. Large Blue Bayou x larger fruited Sungold derived line from Mark Mccaslin to combine Sungold flavor in a dark antho line. 7. Blue Green Zebra x larger fruited Sungold derived line from Mark Mccaslin to combine Sungold flavor in a strongly striped antho line. And just because I think they'd be interesting for gardeners. 8. Blue Green Zebra x Green Tiger Cherry looking for a striped antho GWR elongated cherry because I think it would look cool. ;-) 9. Blue Green Zebra x Blue Beauty to get two antho parents and stripe options in what should be a wild assortment of colors in the F2's. 10. Tom Wagner's Sky Reacher x larger fruited Sungold derived line from Mark Mccaslin to combine Sungold flavor with late blight resistance potential and stripes. Then as a seperate goal I'd like to incorporate modern disease resistant lines with some of the best heirlooms from my past grow outs. One key is I want to play with a mix of colors and fruit forms in the crosses. I have every intention of retiring somewhere in the south (I originally moved here from Florida and I do not enjoy Wisconsin winters) and know disease pressures are going to be a problem that I don't currently have to deal with. I'd like to have a fun mix of types to grow that incorporate some of the work that has gone into modern disease resistant hybrids, but I don't like an all red tomato garden. Without testing equipment available or any significant disease pressures here I'll have to rely on growers in areas that have disease pressures to assist with selections for this project though. Hybrid lines I plan to grow for various crosses with heirlooms this year are: Mountain Merit Big Beef Iron Lady Carolina Gold BHN-871 I'm going to grow these as some of my heirloom breeding parents. Cowlick's Brandywine Aunt Ginny's Purple Barlow Jap JD's Special C-Tex KBX Aunt Gerties Gold Pork Chop Mystery Striped Yellow from my Wild Boar Solar Flare seeds in 2012 Berkley Tie-Dye Pink Chocolate Stripes Dark Striped Sweetheart Kozula 128 Solar Flare Plus I'll be growing a lot of new to me varieties that I'm still working on the list for, wrestling with myself about a partnership with a local restaurant or possibly two. The temptation to play with the new ones will be strong but I'm going to try to control myself to a manageable number of crosses to grow out. 2013 should be an interesting year. 2014 even more so... ;-)