Heirloom Breeding

Hi all, I am a new member. I am interested in breeding tomatoes specifically for my area (California Bay Area). Although we have a long growing season, it isn't really the greatest for tomatoes (60s for lots of the summer). Thus, I am interested in crossing a few heirloom varieties and selecting for plants that do well here.

Does anyone have experience with crossing heirlooms for the purpose of creating new varieties adapted to a particular climate?

Welcome Phred!

Hmmm..interesting question,and I'm not really well versed enough to go very far with this.

Have you ever done any breeding with tomatoes? The flowers are self fruitful,so you would have to make your crosses before the plant's own pollen fertilizes the flower.

Tom Wagner visits her on occasion and he's probably one of the formost experts in this field.He's responsible for many varieties that you see now. Green Zebra comes to mind first.

All I have had any experience with is the process where you would stabilize a cross,and my crosses are just happenstance garden occurances.

What you would do once you have a tomato that you like,is to grow this tomato out over at least 5 seasons..or until all plants and fruit from the seed that you save are identical.

Carolyn,you can jump in here anytime you want...I've just got my head above water in this subject.LOL

You would do this by selecting one fruit that has all of the characteristics that you desire and save the seeds from that tomato.You would plant lots of seeds that first year,because there would be so much genetic material sorting itself out,you'll have quite a few different plants and tomato types.I'd do at least 24 to make sure you get the one that you want.

If any of these F1 hybrids exhibit the traits you want...save one tomato from that season.You'll do this each season...which is inbreeding the characteristics you desire.As far as how long it takes...it depends on how long it takes for your cross to grow true each time a seed is planted.I'd probably make sure with a couple of seasons of true growing plants,at about 50 plants each year.

What say the experts??? I've not got this far in my project and am not sure how long you grow it before you call it stable.

There are several unstable varieties out there that are commercially available..Isis Candy is one.So,things have been offered before they were ready.

As far as breeding heirlooms,people are doing it,but I'm not in that loop,as I'm into the history as well as the tomatoes.

In my opinion...and opinions differ...when you have the stabilized tomato that you are searching for,I would call it Open Pollinated as opposed to Heirloom. The word 'heirloom' suggests a family treasure and the new 'created' tomato would have none of the history associated with seeds that were grown for generations. Just my opinion.

So many tomatoes have been named just to ensure their commercial viability...Black Brandywine for one...there is no such heirloom.It was created, and the tag put on it to make it instantly popular.Seed companies have grabbed it up and suggested a history that just does not exist.

I'm enjoying my stabilization project and hope in several years that my Mystery Girl will be a yummy addition to my friends and family table.

Thanks Melody.... I agree that whatever fixed line is produced would not fit the "heirloom" definition, and should be named something different. I am trying to think of a name that would be appropriate... "Fixed Heirloom Mutt"? FHM for short?

Does anybody have a standardized name for these potential hybrid varieties? I guess you could just identify the parents..

If you're going to do one on one crosses, isolate the F1 seed and use that, then that's a hybrid and those are F1 hybrid seeds you'd get from the fruits.

But if you're going to do the crosses, isolate the F1 seed, then grow that out, and all plants and fruits should be identical, then isolate the F2 seed and grow that out to see what you have and then go from there making selections and genetically dehybridizing, then you don't have a hybrid.

You dehybridize it to a genetically stable form which is then called open pollinated.It is no longer a hybrid.

In my book on heirloom tomatoes I call varieties that are man made "created heirlooms" to distinguish them from family and commercial ones and also from those varieties that arise via natural cross pollination which I call a "mystery" group.

I wrote this post only becasue in your response to Melody you referred to your varieties as potential HYBRID varieties and I don't think that's what you meant.

Before you embark on your project, which could be lots of fun and others have done it, it might be a good idea to review those varieties that have been grown under such conditions, meaning the ones primarily grown in the PNW, as well as San Francisco Fog, Latah, Stupice, Oregon Spring and all the others developed by Dr. Baggett at OSU, such as Siletz, etc. Dr. Baggett's varieties are all parthenocarpic and thus do not need fertilization to set fruit, thus set fruit in cool conditions when normal pollination cannot occur.

Carolyn

Hi Carolyn

Yes, you are right, the lines I was talking about would be hybrid-derived but certainly not hybrid. "Created heirloom" sounds pretty good...

One question though, when does an heirloom become a commercial variety? It seems that with all the interest in heirlooms (I see more and more at the supermarket) the distinctions may start to get pretty fuzzy. For example, what would you call an heirloom variety that becomes popular enough to have a breeder cross in disease resistence? Is the resulting "improved" variety still an heirloom?

Thanks for the cool variety suggestions, and.. your book is great.

It's not that an heirloom becomes a commercial variety, it's that there is a class of heirlooms called commercial heirlooms because they were introduced by seed companies before 1940.

1940 is used as the cutoff date becasue by that time seed hybridizers were introducing true hybrid varieties.

YOur question about introducing tolerance genes into true heirlooms is one that has been faced before. And there are very few examples. One is the variety Rutgers, which is a commercial heirloom and so called improvements to it meant adding genes for VFN ( Verticillium, Fusarium ( race 1) and ROot know nematodes.. But the improved variety is still a commercial type heirloom.

Off hand I can't think of any TRUE family heirlooms where someone has trued to alter the true nature of the variety, with one exception. Dr. Jeff McCormack, former owner of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange did produce a Red Mortgage Lifter with VFN tolerances but I think many folks look at that variety, which is pretty good, BTW, with some suspicion.

Most of us interested in heirlooms want to preserve as many of the genes as possible to maintain a variety and don't want to see any genes added. I'm speaking here for myself and some of my closest tomato friends but also for those of us who have long been involved in the preservation of genetic diversity.

The whole purpose of maintenance of genetic diversity is to preserve varieties, not to alter them.

You're going to see more and more heirlooms at the supermarket becasue it's become big business, especially in California where you live. Money drives it. There's one company in LA called Melissa's, that wanted to see heirloom tomatoes put into supermarkets all across the country. I was called by them for consultation but backed out for many reasons. To wit: you don't grow heirlooms in Mexico and pick them grass green or at breaker stage 2 in order to be able to ship them, and still think you're going to have any kind of decent taste left.

Trying to get taste out of a grass green picked tomato is the same as picking them green and gassing them with ethylene and we all know what winter pale, anemic looking tomatoes look and taste like. Some are trying to grow them hydroponically and also in inground greenhouses, but heirlooms don't lend themselves well to that type of culture, at least so far for most folks who have tried.

I'm not going to go on a whole jag here and talk about tolerances to disease ( discussed at length in my book) but most tolerance genes are pretty useless for the home gardener. And please don't forget that the origin of the genes is FROM OP varieties and also some of the other eight species of tomatoes, so some have natural tolerances anyway.

Where I live and grow in upstate NY, for instance, a variety that is VFNT is useless since we don't have those diseases in the north, Oh, maybe a bit of Verticillium, but nematodes are only a problem in a few states in the US and Fusarium toleranace is not good and Fusarium has three races and few varieties have all three genes and it only gives you a week or so more of harvest time.

And the most prevalent diseases are foliage diseases and there are NO tolerance genes for any of the common foliage diseases that are known. ( one minor exception, but not worth talking about)

Carolyn

Thanks for the comprehensive response, Carolyn. I agree that preserving varieties is a good thing to do, and that the "heirloom" moniker should be applied restrictively. It is true, of course, that if hybridization efforts lead to the loss/abandonment of original varieties, genetic diversity is lost. On the other hand, I think that using heirlooms to generate new varieties that are well adapted to a certain use, or taste, or growing condition, will actually enhance genetic diversity available (so long as the "old" varieties are also maintained).

Personally, I have no interest in focusing on disease resistence. I am more interested in climate (and pot) tolerance... because where I live we are very land limited, and summer seems as cold as winter at times. I appreciate your suggestions regarding the Baggett varieties.

Your comments regarding Melissa's are interesting. My own heirloom (tomato) dream is a little different. I would like to see more people growing heirlooms (or, I confess, heirloom derivatives in some cases)... even when they live in more urbanized situations.

Hey Carolyn, I've been reading about Seed Saver's Exchange and I would like to commend you all for your hard work conserving heirloom genetic diversity.

You have inspired me to participate... as I have decided to devote a portion of my modest garden to saving seed each year (obviously it's only fair, if I am reapong the benefits of seed-savers in my little breeding projects).

One question though... With all that you do related to tomatoes, how do you also find time to be a professor? Is there a special brand of coffee we should know about? I hope you have saved us some seeds...

In answer to your question, my life was very frenetic for many years. I'd moved back East from teaching Med Students in Denver for many years to take care of my aging parents with health problems. Back means to the Albany, NY area.

And then i had access to acres of ground so that's when I went so crazy and grew over 1200 different tomato varieties and was listing 2-300 varieties with SSE each year.

I'd drive to work with my old clothes in the backseat and drive right from work to the farm and go to work in my many gardens.

I was also taking care of my mom most of that time, my father having passed on in 1985, just three years after I moved back East.

But I had summers free until classes started and that allo3wed me to do all but the many fermenttions.

I had to retire from work in 1999 because of the need for two hip replacements( still not done). And I moved even further north in NYS to a lovely home and 30 acres.

But these days I sow seed for my maters and eggplant and peppers and then drive the seed pans to my fave farmer friend Charlie, who, after I make many trips to transplant the plants, grows them on for me.

I have one garden up here, about 10 min away, and my friend Steve does all the work becasue physically I can't. It's Steve's garden. And then I grow a couple of hundred plants at Charlie's and he and his boys do all the work. I'm blessed having two good tomato friends. I have to take someone with me to Charlie's ( about a one way 40 min drive) to help pick fruits for fermentation.

So I'm retired and no longer wear two hats at the same time.

SSE has been a very important part of my life and I consider Kent and Diane personal friends. I don['t always agree with some decisions that are made but over th eyears I've made many great SSE friends. And two years ago I did make it out to Decorah to be a featured speaker.

I list very few varieties now. Time to let the young folks dso the work. So for 2003, for iunstance, I won't be listing 300 varieties and sending out 2,000 packs of seed per year, which took me abut 20 hurs a weeek when I was wroking fuol time, but I do have five new heirlooms I will be listing. I'll be sharing seed with Linda at Tojmato Growers Supply and Glenn and Sandhill Preservation, and maybe sending them to Johnny's or Pine tree or Shepherd's as I have from time to time.

There are some seed companies I know well and trust and have dealt with in the past nd many I want nothing t9 do with. No, I won't list them here. LOL

Carolyn, not taking the time ot proof read becasue I'm pushed for time tonight. Have not done my catalog phoine shopping for Christmas yet. LOL