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What if...?

9/16/2014

4 Comments

 
Picture
The connection between plant breeding and writing novels? They both start with, 'What would happen if...?'

I love tomatoes. I grow a variety of colours but I choose them for their flavour. The dark ones at the top of the picture are known to me as French Black. A friend from a gardening forum bought some on holiday in a French market, loved them and saved the seeds, which come true to type. 


Underneath those are the classic red Alicante. This is an old variety our dads probably grew and has the old-fashioned tomato taste you don't get in the shop-bought. Again, if you save the seed, the resultant tomatoes are the same as their parents.

To their left are the fabulous Green Zebras. In my opinion this is the world's best grilling tomato with its balance of sweetness and acidity. Unripe, it's pale green and dark green. It's ripe when the pale green becomes yellow and the tomato feels soft. This also breeds true. These three are all pollinated by their own pollen so there's no genetic diversity.


At the bottom (there's a pound coin for scale) the oval yellow tomatoes are my own variety. I have one variety which I cross-pollinated but it's not in the picture as I didn't grow it this year. It'll be on next year's menu. The yellow is a selection from Sungold, a well-known orange cherry tomato famed for its flavour. It's also famed for its price - around £3 for 6 seeds! That's because it's a cross from two parents and has to be crossed each season.


People who know these things will tell you that you can't save seeds from a first generation cross of two varieties - known as an F1 hybrid - like Sungold. Don't be deterred if you want to do it. You can do anything! What you won't get if you do, is a Sungold tomato from your next generation. I did it about 7 years ago (it's called unhybriding or dehybridising) and from each generation of several plants, I saved seed from those with the best flavour. I no longer have a round orange tomato but an oval yellow one and each year I chose a flavour I like. I also select out the ones with the tough skins. This tomato is called Sweet Eleanor (after a grandchild). These Sweet Eleanors mostly come true from seed but there's still a little genetic 'settling down' going on. I've never had one that wasn't worth eating and the current line is producing a delightful tomato with a good balance of sweet/sharp flavours.

Incidentally, if anybody would like seeds of any of these, let me know before the season is over and I'll make sure I save enough. 
4 Comments
M T McGuire link
9/17/2014 07:14:05 am

I think I'm way too much of a dunce to breed my tomatoes. My Mum grows one called chocolate cherry, herself which I'd lovely. The stripy ones look cool.

Cheers

MTM

Reply
Kath Middleton
9/18/2014 10:00:31 pm

I've grown chocolate cherry myself, M T. It's a lovely bite-sized tom.

Reply
Catherine link
10/21/2014 04:37:21 am

How interesting. I never thought of doing this with tomatoes, or anything else. How do you keep the tomato flowers from contaminating one another? Tied in bags? Catherine

Reply
Kath Middleton
10/21/2014 07:24:10 pm

Hi Catherine. Most tomatoes (except a few of the heritage varieties) are self fertile. They shed their pollen inside the anther cone so they can't cross by accident. In order to make a cross, you have to catch the flower at the only-just-opened bud stage and cut into it with a scalpel. Then you introduce fresh pollen (about the same stage flower) from the second variety and that's the job done. Your other tomatoes will not interfere with the process because all the business is done inside the flower. It's not as easy as it sounds and you ruin a fair few flowers before you get it right. I tie a piece of knitting wool around those I've crossed so that I can distinguish the fruit when it's ripe. Then the seeds are saved from that fruit and the next generation grow out the following year.

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    Author

    Kath Middleton, author of Ravenfold
    Message in a Bottle
    Top Banana
    Long Spoon
    Souls disturbed
    Stir-up Sunday
    Beneath the Ink
    The Novice's Demon
    The Flesh of Trees
    The Sundowners
    The Angel Monument Muriel's Bear
    Tales from Daggy Bottom Becca.
    ​Through His Eyes
    ​Contributor to Beyond 100 Drabbles
    ​Criminal Shorts
    ​Part-author of Is it Her?



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