Not Ambrosia Gold

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jmsieglaff
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Not Ambrosia Gold

#1

Post: # 41046Unread post jmsieglaff
Mon Feb 15, 2021 6:16 pm

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In 2020, I was growing what came to me in a MMMM swap a few years back as Ambrosia Gold cherry tomato. I knew something was up as soon as the first true leaves started, I started 5-6 seeds and would pick the strongest one like usual......they were all PL (Ambrosia Gold is RL). So that eliminated an Ambrosia Gold cross since the F1 would be RL. What I ended up with was a red/brown slightly larger than golf-ball sized tomato with greenish shoulders. Very productive, very healthy plant, produced heavily until frost. Flavor is quite nice, sweet and acidic and rather intense. I highly suspect this tomato is a seed mix up due to PL foliage. I am not growing it in 2020, but certainly will grow it again in the future, as it was very good. Does anyone have an educated guess of what this tomato might be? It is shown in the cyan circles.
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jmsieglaff
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Re: Not Ambrosia Gold

#2

Post: # 41104Unread post jmsieglaff
Tue Feb 16, 2021 8:04 am

I doing some searching, I thought maybe Kumato, as it is about the right color, size and locule count, but from what I've found, that is RL not PL. Additionally, that is a store tomato, and this had a bit thinner skin than I would expect for a store tomato.

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Tormato
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Re: Not Ambrosia Gold

#3

Post: # 41137Unread post Tormato
Tue Feb 16, 2021 2:56 pm

Start several seedlings, looking for both leaf types, in order to find out if it may be a cross. Do you still have the original seed pack?

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jmsieglaff
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Re: Not Ambrosia Gold

#4

Post: # 41155Unread post jmsieglaff
Tue Feb 16, 2021 6:23 pm

All seeds that produced seedlings last year were PL, it was 5 or 6. I only have 2 seeds left from the swap pack, it is a clear baggie says Ambrosia Gold in black sharpie with a 16 written in the bottom right corner. This was the 17/18 swap.

OhioGardener
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Re: Not Ambrosia Gold

#5

Post: # 41178Unread post OhioGardener
Wed Feb 17, 2021 8:06 am

I grew Ambrosia Gold this year from seeds purchased directly from J&L last year and had some variation in color from gold to red-gold which I noted on my seed descriptions. Have you looked to see if there are similar varieties to what you describe on J&L's website?

I've ordered and grown a number of their varieties over the years because I like the sweet cherries and that they're experimenting with wild crosses, but I've also found several of the varieties to be unstable, some with obvious crosses or marked variation from plant to plant. I believe the description that I copied down for the Ambrosia Gold actually mentioned a previous cross in the line, so if someone grew and shared those seeds, perhaps you're seeing a F2 generation which just happened to uncover PL and black? In any case, the flavor of the AG that I grew in 2020 was outstanding and I'll be planting it again and trying to select for the the clearest gold fruit, although I actually noticed some variation in some cases on the same plant. I also have some extra seeds if you need them.
Debbie

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jmsieglaff
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Re: Not Ambrosia Gold

#6

Post: # 41181Unread post jmsieglaff
Wed Feb 17, 2021 8:29 am

Good idea to check out J&L's website. Nothing they are selling fits the bill, anything that maybe had some similarities are RL, not PL.

The reason I highly doubt a cross (unless it was a cross of two PL varieties, which Ambrosia Gold is RL) is I doubt I'd get 5 seedling--all PL in F2 of a RL/PL cross.......that probability of that is nearly zero. I'll plan to grow a plant from my saved seed in 2022. What I got in 2020 is worth growing again and worth sharing at some point (after I can see if it is true breeding or some sort of PLxPL cross). I would just hate to name something if it was a simple seed mix up when someone sent in their seeds to the swap and it is already a named variety.

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Re: Not Ambrosia Gold

#7

Post: # 41216Unread post OhioGardener
Wed Feb 17, 2021 2:13 pm

jmsieglaff wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 8:29 am What I got in 2020 is worth growing again and worth sharing at some point (after I can see if it is true breeding or some sort of PLxPL cross). I would just hate to name something if it was a simple seed mix up when someone sent in their seeds to the swap and it is already a named variety.
I'm in the same situation with a very nice cocktail tomato that I grew out of a seed pack that was supposed to be Orange Jazz that left me with no orange and no jazz, but very productive and tasty 2" fruit clusters on a plant that seemed almost immune to disease and produced all the way to frost. I'm going to re-grow several plants to make sure it's stable, but what to call it? It's probably a Ukrainian commercial variety of some sort, but I doubt I'll be able to ID it. There are so many tomato varieties out there that I'm only going to share it if it can repeat last year's performance.
Debbie

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