Real earliness measures

[snugglekitten]

Hi,


I don't like the measurement of "from transplant."

First of all, whether or not its 50-60-70 or more days, it still doesn't say exactly when the tomatoes are ready.

Are they picked as green and gassed? Is that the readiness day? Or do we wait until the exact hour where flavor is more unique and strong?

Some of my tomatoes are big and green for a few months before others even flower (while the latter may produce ripe tomatoes at the same time roughly).


I am guessing there is a different gene for producing early and actually ripening, and all of this needs to be measured correctly.


What i want is to start seed in mid January and produce for the fresh market (with greenhouse and outside of it as well) from April to November.

The more off-season production in northern areas the higher the value.

The only thing worth producing in July and August are exotic produce that demands a premium, otherwise you are getting pennies on the dollar from your investment.


I think next year I will have sub arctic plenties out first until my f1 cherries ripen and sell the later for the rest of the year until frost.

I've never seen a single cultivar that can produce high quality, tasty fruit from April to November and not succumb to something nasty.

So until there is an ubermench 'mater, I will use several cultivars for market.

[bower]

hi sk,
I notice that a lot of commercial Russian seed suppliers use 'days from seed' instead of days from transplant, and I agree it is more useful, and the record I try to keep overall.

BUT, in 2013 I started very early, in 2014 I tried quite a bit later (both seed and transplant date, since it was a much colder spring). I was surprised to see just how much shorter the overall days to maturity from seed, when starting with longer days. Also, while most varieties benefitted from being coddled along at first, and held back until warmer days, there were a few that really were a lot later due to transplant date being held back. Days from transplant might be a better measure for that sort of variety (no idea how common that 'lifestyle' is..).

Someone on this forum (I believe it was Kath?) talked about growing Stupice every year as a 'clock' - that way you can compare the earliness of a variety with the known, reliable one, and if there is major variation in the 'clock' you don't get a false figure for 'new' trial varieties due to the conditions or treatment that year. I've been doing that ever since, except I switched to Moravsky Div as my 'clock' instead of Stupice because I like the fruit better and it's a bit more compact. They are closely related and equally reliable afaict, with MDiv coming in 2 days earlier than Stu.

For breeding earliness, there are three components of earliness under separate genetic control, according to some of the published literature, although many authors roll the last two together. Anyway, days from germination to flower is one component, days from flower to set is another, and days from set to ripe is the third. All three are subject to environmental influence as well, and may vary quite a lot in different conditions. This is where you really want some cold tolerance as well for the purpose of earliness.... if not, you can see a lot of days added on as a result of cold stress, or of missing 'degree-days'... afaict. Or you can end up with 'gaps' in the fruit harvest, that match the pattern of days that were just too cold for the 'early' variety to set...

[snugglekitten]

Originally Posted by bower

hi sk,
I notice that a lot of commercial Russian seed suppliers use 'days from seed' instead of days from transplant, and I agree it is more useful, and the record I try to keep overall.

BUT, in 2013 I started very early, in 2014 I tried quite a bit later (both seed and transplant date, since it was a much colder spring). I was surprised to see just how much shorter the overall days to maturity from seed, when starting with longer days. Also, while most varieties benefitted from being coddled along at first, and held back until warmer days, there were a few that really were a lot later due to transplant date being held back. Days from transplant might be a better measure for that sort of variety (no idea how common that 'lifestyle' is..).

Someone on this forum (I believe it was Kath?) talked about growing Stupice every year as a 'clock' - that way you can compare the earliness of a variety with the known, reliable one, and if there is major variation in the 'clock' you don't get a false figure for 'new' trial varieties due to the conditions or treatment that year. I've been doing that ever since, except I switched to Moravsky Div as my 'clock' instead of Stupice because I like the fruit better and it's a bit more compact. They are closely related and equally reliable afaict, with MDiv coming in 2 days earlier than Stu.

For breeding earliness, there are three components of earliness under separate genetic control, according to some of the published literature, although many authors roll the last two together. Anyway, days from germination to flower is one component, days from flower to set is another, and days from set to ripe is the third. All three are subject to environmental influence as well, and may vary quite a lot in different conditions. This is where you really want some cold tolerance as well for the purpose of earliness.... if not, you can see a lot of days added on as a result of cold stress, or of missing 'degree-days'... afaict. Or you can end up with 'gaps' in the fruit harvest, that match the pattern of days that were just too cold for the 'early' variety to set...

Hi B,

thats very interesting. I am breeding a certain line right now for the 'days set to ripe; as I think its hard for people to get a lot of decent fruit in the north when it takes longer than wine to get sweet.

[bower]

sk, that's interesting. May I ask about the 'set-to-ripe' days for your parent plants?

I didn't find a lot of variance for the set to ripe interval in the varieties in my 2013 trial. It was around 41-45 days for small fruit, and 48-54 days for most of the medium to large fruit. The only ones that ripened noticeably faster were Serdtse Dezdemony (39) and PI 120256 (31), both of which had very long intervals between flowering and pea size set.

I don't have my data from 2014 handy (seem to be crashing a computer every year now).. and hard to judge absolute values because of starting later (longer days) and other different conditions.. but I'll give you my "impressions" at least, as to the dominant or recessive components of earliness as seen in the F1's I grew last year.

Precocious (44-54 d) flowering, and early (55-65 d) flowering, were apparently recessive to late (67-72 d) flowering trait. I only saw one example of earliness heterosis, where the F1 flowered earlier than either parent. So I'm only expecting to see early 'days to flower' in 1/4 of the F2 involving a late flowering parent.

The second interval - flower to pea sized set - had a huge variance in 2013, and environmental conditions had a big impact on this interval in at least some of the plants. The best number of days for those that 'promptly set and grew their fruit' was around 10- 16 days, with still quite a few 'early' varieties coming in at 20-24 days in the cold conditions, other varieties ran up to 51 days. In 2014 F1's, some crosses between late growing and prompt growing parents were prompt growing fruit in the F1 in cool spring conditions, so I surmise there may be some dominance in this trait, at least for some combinations of alleles.

As regards the set-to-ripe interval, my cross with PI 120256 had ripening time similar to the slower ripening parent afaik, but it's just not enough data to even guess about the trait, where so much of the variance could be explained by environmental conditions and by fruit size, which does appear to affect ripe time predictably across varieties.

[snugglekitten]

Originally Posted by bower

sk, that's interesting. May I ask about the 'set-to-ripe' days for your parent plants?

I didn't find a lot of variance for the set to ripe interval in the varieties in my 2013 trial. It was around 41-45 days for small fruit, and 48-54 days for most of the medium to large fruit. The only ones that ripened noticeably faster were Serdtse Dezdemony (39) and PI 120256 (31), both of which had very long intervals between flowering and pea size set.

I don't have my data from 2014 handy (seem to be crashing a computer every year now).. and hard to judge absolute values because of starting later (longer days) and other different conditions.. but I'll give you my "impressions" at least, as to the dominant or recessive components of earliness as seen in the F1's I grew last year.

Precocious (44-54 d) flowering, and early (55-65 d) flowering, were apparently recessive to late (67-72 d) flowering trait. I only saw one example of earliness heterosis, where the F1 flowered earlier than either parent. So I'm only expecting to see early 'days to flower' in 1/4 of the F2 involving a late flowering parent.

The second interval - flower to pea sized set - had a huge variance in 2013, and environmental conditions had a big impact on this interval in at least some of the plants. The best number of days for those that 'promptly set and grew their fruit' was around 10- 16 days, with still quite a few 'early' varieties coming in at 20-24 days in the cold conditions, other varieties ran up to 51 days. In 2014 F1's, some crosses between late growing and prompt growing parents were prompt growing fruit in the F1 in cool spring conditions, so I surmise there may be some dominance in this trait, at least for some combinations of alleles.

As regards the set-to-ripe interval, my cross with PI 120256 had ripening time similar to the slower ripening parent afaik, but it's just not enough data to even guess about the trait, where so much of the variance could be explained by environmental conditions and by fruit size, which does appear to affect ripe time predictably across varieties.

Hi B,

I will send you some seed if you like once this experiment is stabilized at f7.

One of the parents is a master with the early ripening, it happens very quickly, so I still assume there is a gene involved.

The line I am breeding out keeps this characteristic (among others) that I think could make it a very popular home gardening variety, but I doubt its a really commercial variety for hardcore production.

It will be "open source" once its stabilized, and everyone can try if they like if they pm me.

[bower]

Cool... keep us posted.

[carolyn137]

First, know what gardening zone you are in and the last average frost date MOST years.

I like to state a range of days for early, midseason and late season since no one can predict the weather in any given season and there are so many other variables that are at work for any one person growing tomatoes.

It really makes me laugh when I see a DTM of 72 days or 67 days for varieties, no reality there at all.

For me in my zone 5 I indicated in my book the following.

Early, 55-65 days
Midseason, 65 -80 days
Late season, over 80 days

And Glenn Drowns at Sandhill Preservation says about the same for his online and catalog versions.

Over time I pretty much gave up on growing early season ones since with about a week more there were many more much better tasting ones, and I also wasn't in competition with anyone to get the first ripe tomatoes, as some were and still are.

Those in the coldest climates of 2,3 and 4 growing zones often have greenhouses and/or hoop houses,so they have to use different parameters,

Carolyn

[Rfdillon]

I very much wondered about these time estimates. I live in Houston, a TX, and have had one store-bought "Early Girl" in tge ground since the beginning of February. It has. Claimed 60 days until maturity, which means that I should have fruit by the beginning of April, but I don't yet have a single flower on it.Shouldn't it begin to flower soon?

[Gardeneer]

From flower to ripe fruit is a different matter. It also will depend on weather and variety. Few years ago I read a blog that somebody did a timeline record keeping of a certain beefsteak type. According to him, it took 53 days from a bud (getting ready to flower) until the fully ripe tomato.

So then, if it take an average size beefsteak type 53 days, it should take a cherry type about 45 days. Give or take a few.

Now lets say that you planted out a beefsteak on day "d1". On day "d2 =d1 + 20" , it will have first ripe fruit in about 75 days from plant out. There it is, your DTM.

From seeds I would add another 35 -45 days to DTM number.

[snugglekitten]

Some of the "earlies" in my experience can hang on the vine in a state of hardness and greenness for quite some time, which makes me think they were bred to be gassed.

The aforementioned cultivar I am shaping is indeterminate but ripens on the vine before many of the determinant "earlies."

Im starting to think the "new way" should be exclusively relative, instead of quantitative, so you could say which ones in which order a) blossomed, b) ripened, and c) where market-ready.