Wisconsin 55 Gold

[jmsieglaff]

I've read about Wisconsin 55 Gold tomato. It was a gold sport from a field of Wisconsin 55 tomatoes (red) that someone spotted, saved and maintained for many years, finally sharing seeds in the 2000s (http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Wisconsin_55_Gold).

I understand what a sport is--a spontaneous mutation that is heritable. If I understand genetics a little bit (maybe I don't), orange color in tomatoes can come from a variety of genes B, t, Del, etc. etc. or even a combination of genes, so how does a sport come about that demonstrates something the original plant didn't have? In this case I assume there were no 'orange' genes in the red Wisconsin 55 strain--so what happened to create this orange color?

[Black Krim]

Now u have me curious, too. I was just reading that description at T's and it is on my some-day-soon list.

[Cole_Robbie]

I'm not sure this article answers your question, but I thought it was neat:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/sc...ith-genes.html

The tomato, whose genome has just now been decoded, turns out to be one well-endowed vegetable, possessing 31,760 genes. This rich legacy, possibly a reflection of the disaster that killed off the dinosaurs, is some 7,000 more than that of a person

...About 70 million years ago, some lucky mishap in the process of cell division led to a triplication of the Solanum genome. The two spare copies of each gene were free to change through mutation. Many were useless and got dropped from the genome, but others developed useful new functions.

[jmsieglaff]

Never would have guessed tomatoes have 7,000 more genes than a person! Thanks for sharing the article.

[Wi-sunflower]

In case anyone needs seeds, I have a few older seeds right now and I'm drying a good sized plate of new seeds and should have them in 2-3 weeks after I germination test them. They are a nice tomato.

Carol

[Black Krim]

Originally Posted by Wi-sunflower

In case anyone needs seeds, I have a few older seeds right now and I'm drying a good sized plate of new seeds and should have them in 2-3 weeks after I germination test them. They are a nice tomato.

Carol

For us new to the forum,how do we find u??

[PhilaGardener]

Originally Posted by Black Krim

For us new to the forum,how do we find u??

Send a personal message (PM). There is a pull down menu next to the poster's name on the left side of the post; pick the second option.

Also http://www.tomatoville.com/private.php?do=newpm&u=3062 should do it!

[PhilaGardener]

Originally Posted by jmsieglaff

I understand what a sport is--a spontaneous mutation that is heritable. If I understand genetics a little bit (maybe I don't), orange color in tomatoes can come from a variety of genes B, t, Del, etc. etc. or even a combination of genes, so how does a sport come about that demonstrates something the original plant didn't have? In this case I assume there were no 'orange' genes in the red Wisconsin 55 strain--so what happened to create this orange color?

The production of pigment in the fruit involves biochemical pathways with many colored compounds as intermediate steps. A mutation that affects the activity of an enzyme responsible for one of those conversions can result in a change in the kinds of pigment that accumulate and result in differently colored fruit.

Darren Abbey has a nice blog post about it at http://the-biologist-is-in.blogspot....-tomatoes.html .

[jmsieglaff]

That is an absolutely wonderful article, I should not be surprised given the author. I am going to paraphrase: a 'gene' isn't necessarily something present but could also be a lack of something. In this case the lack of the ability to produce an enzyme that allows for lycopene production. Maybe another way to think about genes is an on/off switch. In this case the lycopene production gene is on for regular WI55, but in the single seed that produced WI55 Gold a mution turned the switch to off. Depending on the location on which chromosome, we call this gene something like B, t, Del, etc. My error was thinking of a gene as having something, but it is more either on or off.

Carol I'll check your site, but you know how that goes, oh these seeds look good, oh I'd like to grow those sometime, and so on.

Justin

[Wi-sunflower]

For Black Krim,

I'm a vendor listed in the "seed and plant source" forum. My web site is here and also the watermark in the pic. http://knapps-fresh-vegies.netfirms.com/

I currently have over 460 varieties listed and should have a few more later if they test well.

Carol