Interestingly, the element found in c-1 is identical in sequence (4867 bp) to the Rider elements responsible for mutations in the genes Sun, Fer, and R (Cheng et al., 2009). This active Rider element (Jiang et al., 2009) may also be responsible for some of the many spontaneous mutants collected at the Tomato Genetics Resource Center (TGRC).

Shule wrote: ↑Wed Apr 20, 2022 6:58 pm @Nico
Have you been bagging your blossoms?

How many fruits did you plant seeds from, in this project? If they all came from the same single fruit (or even two, but considerably less likely), that would make a lot more sense for this scenario. If you used seeds from lots of fruits, it doesn't make much sense at all (but I still have a hypothetical idea there). If you're not bagging blossoms, it's a good idea to save seeds from multiple fruits and package the seeds of each fruit separately.

How many plants did you grow from each fruit?

Have you been growing any RL varieties outside your project, or is your project (and/or PL varieties) all that you've been growing?

Have your neighbors been growing RL tomatoes?

Which variety did the initial PL trait come from? Apparently, there are lots of genes that provide for PL-like traits. So, knowing where it came from may be helpful.

If you've been bagging your blossoms correctly, then something tricky is definitely going on, or else you've mixed up your seeds. I can't tell you what happened there.

If you haven't been bagging your blossoms, it's most likely due to cross-pollination. Most likely, a father plant (RL/RL) pollinated all the seeds that you grew (making them PL/RL, expressing the RL). It sounds like it was probably a plant outside your project (perhaps one you grew, or perhaps one your neighbors grew).

In the case that you planted seeds from multiple fruits, one possibility is that the RL father had particularly strong pollen, and the PL mother had particularly weak pollen (maybe it wouldn't set in the heat while the father pollen would).

I would definitely expect the RL plants to have other differences besides leaf type (unless one of the possible RL parents closely resembled your PL plants in most of the other traits, or unless the father's traits are all recessive ones, besides leaf type). You could grow one out to prove whether it is a cross. In my experience doing that, they've *always* proven to be crosses, with other differences besides leaf type. If they look the same, due to dominant genes hiding recessive traits, then growing it out another generation should prove it.

If you haven't been growing any RL varieties outside your project, and your neighbors haven't been growing any RL tomatoes, then the most likely scenario is that an RL/PL father plant from your own project (if you didn't thin them all out) cross-pollinated everything, and chance had it that all the plants turned out RL/PL, expressing the RL, since it's dominant; so, next year, if further crosses don't occur, each seed should have a 75% chance of being RL and a 25% chance of being PL (it's still possible that they'll all be RL again, but it's much more likely, you'll have some PL plants, too, unless you don't grow many plants).

It's important to realize that if any crosses occurred, from plants outside your project, then you've got a new project, and should probably work with older seed that gives you PL plants if you want to keep going with the original project.