Intense Pigment

[Daniel Ricks]

Does anyone have experience with growing tomatoes with Intense Pigment (Ip) genetics, or know where/how I could access seeds for a variety with Ip? Based on what I've learned about it, I'm hoping to explore using it in an amateur breeding project. I know the TGRC has some accessions with Ip introgressed from a wild relative, but of course they specify that their germplasm isn't available to non-researcher-amateur breeders. I've tried searching the GRIN, but haven't found anything yet, although perhaps I just haven't gotten good enough searching that database. I would really appreciate the opportunity to purchase, trade or receive seeds from any of you that may have access to lines with Ip in them.

More on Ip. This is one of the 'high pigment' genes, that causes a darker leaf color, a darker color of unripe fruits, and higher carotenoid levels, among other things. Ip shows dominant inheritance, while three of the other high pigment genes are recessive (hp1, hp2, and dg). However, compared to hp1, hp2, and dg, Ip is said to have a more moderate phenotype, not as dark and not as consistently dark as these others.

hp1 interested me the most at first, until I learned about the negative effects that hp1, hp2, and dg have all had on seedling mortality, brittle stems, reduced growth and yield. BUT here's the thing: Ip is reported to Not have those negative effects, and so even if it doesn't have as pronounced or as consistently high pigment as the other high pigment genes, it seems like there would actually be a hope of generating a healthy plant with it with somewhat darker fruit and higher carotenoids.

I'm somewhat baffled by how Ip seems to have largely been ignored compared to hp1, hp2, and dg. With searches, you'll find a Lot more information on these other 3, where in the beginning of the researchers' work, they acknowledge that there is another one called Ip but that it doesn't produce as pronounced of an effect and then they move onto other experiments with only the top candidates like hp2, despite the terrible pleiotropic effects. It seems like it gets lost in people's desire for the extreme. I say I'm baffled, but then I need to include myself in that because I remember a time reading a paper that dealt with these genes, and I remember consciously blowing past the mention of Ip in favor of learning about the more extreme ones like hp1.

Thoughts? Experiences? Ideas on how I can get a hold of some seeds to try out? Thanks in advance for any insight you can give.

(Throwing on a couple of files that I see that I've previously saved:)

Ip Introgression.pdf

MicroTom with Ip.pdf

[Rockoe10]

Very interesting. I had never heard of this till now.

Thinking about the oddity this past garden season, i had one plant that had very dark green unripe fruit, every other variety i grew had the lighter green unripe fruit. The leaves also looked darker and more healthy.

I didn't think too much of it at the time, but perhaps this is the ip you're referring to?

The variety that expressed this trait was the "Money Maker" from MIGardener. His site is the same name (links and what not in the forum are finiky).

I purchased them in the Fall of 2018, not sure if that will matter, but sometimes crosses occur that are unintentional, then sent to consumers.

I recommend trying their Money Maker and see if that is what you are looking for. You'll get them for 50¢ during the off season.

PS
The ripe fruit was like neon red. This has to be what you are talking about.

[Rockoe10]

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Above are the darker fruit.

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These are the lighter fruit. All my varieties were this way

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In this photo, you see the dark color green, as the red starts to show in the bottom.

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This is a group of many of my varieties, all ripe. The Money Maker are the smaller kinds. They have a much deeper and more vibrant red.

[Daniel Ricks]

[mention]Rockoe10[/mention] Wow, that is quite the difference! Thanks for the tip, I checked out MIGardener's site and they are out of MoneyMaker for now, but I put myself on their waitlist. So if I understood correctly, only some of the seeds that you had gotten in Fall 2018 turned out to have the smaller, darker fruit, while others of the seeds produced the lighter larger fruit?

[bower]

This is the first time I've ever heard of Ip (unless I forgot it).
But dark green shoulders in immature fruit is a fairly common and well known trait that people look for, exactly because it does indicate the intensity of color (and often taste) since all that chlorophyll is converted to lycopene as it ripens. It's often been touted as a genetic difference between heirlooms and their progeny vs those which came from commercial breeding programs. I think the absence of green shoulders may be quite common in those cv's designed for mass production and mechanical harvest, however I haven't grown those so can't personally give examples.
Is it possible that Ip is a common trait and wasn't pursued because it is widespread? Maybe, maybe not.
One thing though, it is useful to know and to watch for those dark green colors.
I will qualify by adding that IME environmental conditions can play a big role in the green shoulder too. I'll mention Moravsky Div as an example, which always has dark green shoulders before ripening, but which was notably darker than usual in a cool and rainy (low sun) season - they were also especially tasty that year. So you might select for the darkest green one year, and find it is not so impressive the next. It will still be there though.
In OP tomatoes I've mostly noticed that some yellow and orange fruit don't develop the prominent green, or they lose it as they enlarge before ripening and become pale green all over. I speculate this might be due to pigment differences, but maybe not necessarily. I do have some yellow lines that have the dark shoulders - they are quite unevenly colored at maturity with noticeable intense pigment at the stem end. So it may be possible that other yellow and orange fruit I observed, were actually lacking that Ip allele.
Ultimately when we breed our own vegetables we're selecting for adaptations to our environment, wherever we are. I might select for pigment intensity that is expressed in one set of conditions cool and wet, but OTOH you might find other lines that express the same trait better in eg the warmth of North Carolina. So there is no end of opportunity to tailor your choices to fit your specific needs.

[Rockoe10]

@Rockoe10 Wow, that is quite the difference! Thanks for the tip, I checked out MIGardener's site and they are out of MoneyMaker for now, but I put myself on their waitlist. So if I understood correctly, only some of the seeds that you had gotten in Fall 2018 turned out to have the smaller, darker fruit, while others of the seeds produced the lighter larger fruit?

Correct. After germination, I selected the two strongest seedlings to put in my garden. One of them turned out to be this darker one. It grew the fastest, the strongest and prettiest. Up until the heat hit. It did not do well in the heat. In the end, I didn't save any seeds from the fruit. The fruit were smaller than its sibling, and I didn't think anything of the dark green traits, at that time. Fortunately, I do have a couple seeds remaining in storage from that first purchase in 2018. I may try to grow them again and see if I can find this trait again.

If I do, I'll be sure to let you know. And if you haven't gotten any by that time, you are welcome to them. But no guarantees

[Daniel Ricks]

Sorry for not responding sooner, you two!

This is the first time I've ever heard of Ip (unless I forgot it).
But dark green shoulders in immature fruit is a fairly common and well known trait that people look for, exactly because it does indicate the intensity of color (and often taste) since all that chlorophyll is converted to lycopene as it ripens. It's often been touted as a genetic difference between heirlooms and their progeny vs those which came from commercial breeding programs. I think the absence of green shoulders may be quite common in those cv's designed for mass production and mechanical harvest, however I haven't grown those so can't personally give examples.

I think I've read about this. Something called uniform ripening in commercial varieties? It's said to have an impact on reducing flavor, too, but perhaps there are confounding variables with other common traits selected for in large-scale commercial operations.
[mention]Rockoe10[/mention] perhaps it was a cross with another variety that had green shoulders/non-uniform ripening, or a stray seed altogether?

Is it possible that Ip is a common trait and wasn't pursued because it is widespread? Maybe, maybe not.

Definitely possible, I've wondered that myself. If nothing else, perhaps it has already been taken up by a lot of breeders and has become almost ubiquitous in modern commercial releases, more of a trade secret kind of thing. I'm curious to know. The TGRC entries regarding Ip talk about an introgression from a wild species (I think S. chmielewskii).

In OP tomatoes I've mostly noticed that some yellow and orange fruit don't develop the prominent green, or they lose it as they enlarge before ripening and become pale green all over. I speculate this might be due to pigment differences, but maybe not necessarily. I do have some yellow lines that have the dark shoulders - they are quite unevenly colored at maturity with noticeable intense pigment at the stem end. So it may be possible that other yellow and orange fruit I observed, were actually lacking that Ip allele.

This hadn't registered in my brain until you pointed it out! I looked and saw that my two non-cherry orange varieties this year (Tangella+Caro Rich) definitely do not have dark shoulders, but rather the lighter color spread throughout.

One thing though, it is useful to know and to watch for those dark green colors.
I will qualify by adding that IME environmental conditions can play a big role in the green shoulder too. I'll mention Moravsky Div as an example, which always has dark green shoulders before ripening, but which was notably darker than usual in a cool and rainy (low sun) season - they were also especially tasty that year. So you might select for the darkest green one year, and find it is not so impressive the next. It will still be there though.

Ultimately when we breed our own vegetables we're selecting for adaptations to our environment, wherever we are. I might select for pigment intensity that is expressed in one set of conditions cool and wet, but OTOH you might find other lines that express the same trait better in eg the warmth of North Carolina. So there is no end of opportunity to tailor your choices to fit your specific needs.

Interesting. I'll keep that in mind.. thank goodness for the ability to save seed!

If I do, I'll be sure to let you know. And if you haven't gotten any by that time, you are welcome to them. But no guarantees

If you do, thanks! No pressure though, if it doesn't fit with your plans/doesn't work out. We'll get to the bottom of this! I'll plan on reporting back anything else I find out.

[Pippin]

Here seems to be some pictures of immature Ip tomatoes: http://www.esalq.usp.br/tomato/Ip.pdf. I would guess that green shoulders / uniform is a different trait from Ip. In the pictures, both tomatoes seem to be uniform.

One cultivar that has dark leaves and dark green immature tomatoes is Evil Olive. It has Beta (or other dominant orange gene) and some green flesh gene (which could also explain the dark green immature fruit), weak multi-flower. The fruit ripes slower than other tomatoes. They are firm but unfortunally prone to splitting if given excess water during ripening. Meaty and mild, taste is difficult to describe because there is no comparison. It is very interesting variety and worth trying. I will be growing F2 plants next summer: interesting to see if There are both lighter and darker foliage already in the seedlings. I am actually after the Beta gene, some high pigment would be a bonus.

[Pippin]

Coming back to this earlier discussion as I have now some pics to share on Evil Olive and F2 plants from a cross with it.

Below is a picture of the Evil Olive immature fruit and toxic green foliage. It really stands out of being very green plant.

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Below a combo (also immature fruits) how Evil Olive segregates in F2 when crossed with a uniform tomato. I would guess that three of them might have a hp gene.

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It seems likely to me that Evil Olive could have one of the high pigment genes, not necessarily the IP but some. It probably has green shoulders and jointless too. If I have understood correctly, hp gene family causes exaggerated response to light leading to more chlorophyll both in the leaves and fruits. More chlorophyll means more carotenoids in the tomato fruit.

[bower]

Great pics, Pippin. Evil Olive is truly a dark one!
I have a similar thing happening with an F2 of a cross involving Beta (Orange 1), where some fruit have green shoulders and others do not, but the dark green from Evil Olive is spectacular. Can't wait to see ripe colors.

[Shule]

My Stick tomatoes, this year, and in 2018, are darker green than other tomatoes I've grown before they get ripe.

They're uniformly dark per fruit, as in the blossom end is basically the same shade as the stem end (I think it's a different mechanism making it dark green than many other varieties, for that reason). Some of the fruits are lighter than the others, though (but uniformly so), but most are pretty dark, and one is exceptionally dark (that one is shaded by a another tomato plant). Here are some pictures (in the first picture, that bigger, lighter beefsteak tomato is a normal unripe tomato for comparison):

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[Pippin]

Stick tomato looks really interesting. I remember reading something about these strange leaf types last winter.

If I am not mistaken, the dark green color in Stick tomatoes might be caused by the Curl (Cu) gene. Maybe the gene got the name from this cultivar, some seems to call Stick as Curl?

The Cu Syndrome
The phenotypes associated with the Cu mutation are presented in Table 1. Cu is characterized by compact foliage structures that are neverthelessformed in the correct phyllotactic pattern. They consist of compound ramified leaves with wrinkled, curled blades and an extremely corrugated leaf surface, presumably as a result of intercalary disproportionate growth (Figure 1D) and diminutive, unexpanded axil- lary branches. In addition, epiphyllic shoots of all types emerge from the adaxial surface of the supercompound leaves (Figures 1F and 1G). The growth of CulCu plants is greatly retarded: internode length is approximately one- quarter that of the wild-type length, and leaves and immature fruits develop extreme dark green pigmentation.

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ ... 3420b7cce5

The full pdf opened for me from the link.

[Shule]

[mention]Pippin[/mention] Thanks for the information!

I wonder what Evil Olive would be like with pompom leaves (but otherwise unchanged genetically).

[Pippin]

Adding here some pics on the Evil Olive (EO) F2s. The following four pics are in the same order as the unripe fruit pics in my earlier post, and the fifth is a new one (which is more orange than the others).

I don't have a pic on the F1 but I think it resembled the fifth pic the most. There is an article in net on the Intense Pigment gene which is interesting reading. Seems that the IP is dominant (while the rest of the HPs are recessive). My reflection that the F1 was very light orange fruit could hint towards EO not having the IP (but could still have some other HPs).

The IP genotype produced smaller and darker red fruits, and a substantially increased chloroplast biogenesis was found in its green fruit and leaf tissues. Ripe-red fruits of the IP genotype produced 34-38% more soluble solids and up to 62.6% more carotenoids, but no differences were found in the concentration of flavonoid compounds in its peel tissue.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19391624/

The first F2 plant was clearly a uniform pink with green gel. Little muddy appearance, resembled "Plum" in my mind.

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The second one was also uniform but the unripe fruit was little greener. This was very late ripening as I waited for two weeks to cut open the first ripe fruit from the pic and it was still hard. I think they had an orange hue but not sure after seeing the insides.

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The third had very small, dark green fruits and leaves. They started ripening orange but turned to red inside. Green shoulders. More intense red insides than the others (shows brighter in my other screen than in my laptop). Jointless (which I hate).

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The fourth was also one of these darker green plants and fruits. Green shoulders, resembles me of "Acorn". Orange hue outside but the insides plain red. Slow ripening. Jointless.

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And finally the extra, that more clearly expresses the orange. Also green shoulders, not sure how intense green the unripe fruit really is, maybe less rather than more. This is a beauty, reminds me Chinese steam bun "Dumpling" or a "Crabapple".

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As a side note, I don't know if the orange gene in EO is Beta or some other dominant orange. The cross was between a determinate and EO - and all pics here are from determinate F2s. I should not be able to see any oranges if the gene was Beta and the EO was indeterminate (which is very strongly looks like).

[bower]

Your third pic, Pippin, is what I would expect to see from Beta/- plant. Ripening orange then slowly red.
But IDK really what other orange genetics are circulating now in OP's.
Pics of Delta fruit look more like a shade of red instead of orange.
I got a similar range of colors from my old F2 - one 'green shoulders' plant is pink, another is a full Beta and has the nicest fruit so far. A couple of the outdoor plants have not really ripened yet although a first fruit to the stage of being picked, they are slow. One of the two 'uniform' types is a Beta black, the other ripened orange first and then completely red, so Beta/-. The Beta is noticeable on all of them except the pink has none; there is no intense pigment in these lines though, just ordinary green shoulders or 'uniform'. All determinate.
I was surprised to notice that the uniform fruit seemed to be more prone to mechanical damage. Any kind of knock leaving a big scar on the fruit. So there were noticeable wind damages on those plants compared with others.

[Shule]

Something people could do to try to find the reddest tomato would be to look at the ripe fruits with red laser glasses (which block all but the red light). Whichever tomato looks the brightest should be the reddest, is my guess. Compare to how pure red looks with them on (#FF0000--but then, I don't know the hexadecimal value for lycopene's color, which might not be pure red).

[Rockoe10]

I nerded out for a bit.

Lycopene absorbs light at the 518 nm wavelength, or #2dff00. That is a green color. However, what we see is all the light NOT absorbed by the lycopene, so everything expect the green. This leaves us with the complementary colors. Using the Triadic method, we get three complimentary colors, one being the red, or #ff002d. Which you will note is the original hexadecimal wavelength in reverse.

[Shule]

[mention]Rockoe10[/mention] Nice! I'm impressed. I finally know what color lycopene is. Where did you find the wavelength that lycopene absorbs? It would be nice to know the hex color values for all the carotenoids!

[Rockoe10]

This is where I got my info, but they're many studies on this. More detailed studies show the many peek levels of light absorption in more detail.

https://images.app.goo.gl/Bd56HqBRWTUaHJUi9