Non-commercial F1s

[Frosti]

The main hurdle small scale hobby breeders face is a lack of scale. The more plants there are in a generation, the higher the chances of finding the right combination of genes.

However, this is only true if the goal is to create on open-pollinated tomato variety. If the goal is an F1 plant, then all one really needs is one plant to determine if the F1 meets one's criteria of success. Of course this is only true if both parents are completely stable.

If the parents are common knowledge, then everyone with some tweezers and an electric toothbrush can recreate the F1.

My question is this, do you know if there are any non-commercial F1s out there? Meaning the parentage was deliberately disclosed by the breeder?

[JRinPA]

subscribed.

ehh

[Puffychicken]

The Heirloom Marriages from Pan-American seed co, like Genuwine have known parents. Genuwine is Brandywine and Costoluto Genovese. Is that the kind of thing you mean?

[Frosti]

The Heirloom Marriages from Pan-American seed co, like Genuwine have known parents. Genuwine is Brandywine and Costoluto Genovese. Is that the kind of thing you mean?

Yes, this is exactly what I was looking for. Ty!

[bower]

Quite a long thread about it here:
https://opensourceplantbreeding.org/for ... 695.0.html

There are iirc a couple of known F1 recipes from several sources mentioned, besides the ones Tim is working on, but I've forgotten the specifics.

In another discussion here recently, it was mentioned that Plum Regal has the recessive gene for male sterile breeding, linked to a light green color on the plant. So if you wanted to produce volumes of hybrid seed on a commercial scale, you could get the gene there for your mother line of hybrid F1, and easy seed production.

[Tim DH]

Hi Frosti,
Bower beat me to replying…
If you follow the link given, there are 12 pages of discussion on the subject!! You could just skip to post 114 on Page8 which sums up how far we got last year.

I’m currently working on three main ideas

1) Creating an Early Red F1 for cold greenhouse use.
2) Creating a productive Cherry F1 for cold greenhouse use.
3) Creating a suite of Blight Resistant F1s for out-door culture.

My criteria in selecting parents is that they must be readily available so that anyone can follow the ‘recipe’.

Tim DH

[Frosti]

@bower, @Tim DH, this is perfect, exactly what I was looking for. I've got some reading up to do now

I'm currently thinking about crossing Green Giant and Pink Brandywine, but I don't want to go through the whole process of growing tons of plants, hence this thread ...

[JRinPA]

I can understand what you mean by a recipe, but, I do have doubts how effective that would be. My Stump of the World crossed with my Cuostralee .... versus Bower's Stump of the World and Cuostralee? 20 generation back, yeah they would be similar F1s. But now?

I don't mean to discourage, cool idea, I just think the varieties change a bit each time, even when they don't outright cross. But OP stable is not like cloning from the plant.

I assume when they do the F1s there is a lot of cloning involved, rather than growing out OP parent stock all the time?

[bower]

I'm pretty sure they grow the OP stock @JRinPA - same as for seed conservation, growing a decent number and culling anything that's off type.
I think the changes that do happen from growing at a certain site for years are epigenetic, which means they're reversible by spending a couple of seasons in a different environment.
Unless of course you or I grew one plant and saved the seed without realizing it was an off type of the classic.
Either way though, if you have a couple of favorites like SOTW and Cuostralee, you could certainly make your own F1. But I think it would be very similar to the same cross made elsewhere (barring the exception of a major mutation offtype).

It's actually pretty easy to cross tomatoes and make your own F1.
Just saying to encourage you to try it.

[JRinPA]

I started reading that thread above and Tim DH lists the same concerns on post #20.

Like Frosti says, much easier to make an F1 from OPs than to stabilize an OP from an F1. Just for that, cool concept, especially if something great comes out of it. I wouldn't know the first thing about which traits are controlled by what, the order of operations of it. I just eat em.

[Tim DH]

Hi Frosti,

Green Giant looks a good potential mother plant to me, being potato leaved, that’s an advantage, when crossing with regular leaved fathers, because hybrid seedlings show up very clearly in the F1.

I’m not so sure about Pink Brandywine as the other parent. Firstly its also potato leaved, so you’d loose that advantage. Secondly it seems to have been through the same hands as Green Giant (Craig LeHoullier and Reinhard Kraft) so it may not be as genetically distinct from Green Giant as you imagine. You are more likely to get hybrid vigour in the F1 with genetically distinct parents.

Personally I’d recommend ‘hedging your bets’ by choosing a regular leaved father which interests you, from a different source. Raise yourself three F1s. The cross you have in mind and both PL mothers crossed with your RL father. Then, next year, you’ll have three new hybrids to compare.

Good Luck

Tim DH

[JRinPA]

Hey, Tim DH, I wanted to say I appreciate you signing up over here. I know it can be tiresome to keep track of what was posted in different forums with different user groups. Glad to have you here on TJ.

[Frosti]

Hi Frosti,

Green Giant looks a good potential mother plant to me, being potato leaved, that’s an advantage, when crossing with regular leaved fathers, because hybrid seedlings show up very clearly in the F1.

I’m not so sure about Pink Brandywine as the other parent. Firstly its also potato leaved, so you’d loose that advantage. Secondly it seems to have been through the same hands as Green Giant (Craig LeHoullier and Reinhard Kraft) so it may not be as genetically distinct from Green Giant as you imagine. You are more likely to get hybrid vigour in the F1 with genetically distinct parents.

Personally I’d recommend ‘hedging your bets’ by choosing a regular leaved father which interests you, from a different source. Raise yourself three F1s. The cross you have in mind and both PL mothers crossed with your RL father. Then, next year, you’ll have three new hybrids to compare.

Good Luck

Tim DH

Hey @Tim DH,

Yes I'm aware of the advantage of crossing between PL and RL plants, but I believe this advantage really only applies when one is dedicating multiple possible growing spaces to a breeding project. Since I'd only grow out one plant for the F1, it is really not all that important to detect a failed cross early on. Worst case scenario, I end up with one more Green Giant .

Actually, now that I think about it, somehow I really gravitate towards potato leaf plants. Idk, maybe it's coincidence, but imo the average PL plant produces tastier fruits than the average RL plant.

Hybrid vigor would be a nice to have, but it's not my primary goal. My goal with sich a cross would be a new tasty tomato variety. Btw despite online reports about Pink Brandywine having subpar production, I somehow always have very good production with Pink Brandywine?

[Tim DH]

Hi Frosti,
A couple of years ago I started wondering why I had never seen a Potato Leaf F1. I'm growing four Open Pollinated Potato Leaves this year, so I'll probably try a couple of crosses, just out of curiosity.
Let us know how you get on with yours......

Tim DH