Strange brew for 2022

[bower]

I've started my plants too early for the spring that we're having, but finally the forecast is looking up and the overgrown seedlings at 8 weeks are about to get finally potted out. They've been in the greenhouse night and day for some pretty poor weather, looking a bit purple, wee bit of aphid action, but today the sun shone for an hour, it got warm, and I decided to unpack em from their tight little trays and see who's who.
Then I got excited to see them and took some pics, so I will start this thread now to share my 2022 projects. Early determinates all.
(1) Skipper F8 - stable or not
(2) Rodney F6
(3) the Yellow project - F5's
(4) bicolor project F2

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[bower]

As you can guess, the unpacking day is all about, who has buds, what do they look like, any clues or selection happening early on. The bicolor X determinate project is home to the great unknowns this season. A brown-black determinate minibeef was the mother, and Oaxaca Jewel PL provided the pollen for the cross. So I am looking for a lot of recessives here: determinate, bicolor, maybe also PL? maybe also gf?
I only have 11 plants so it's less likely to find any two of those in combination, but I might. Plan is to keep any determinate, any bicolor, and grow forth to seek the sister trait. Right now I have no idea what these plants will produce. The 'dozen' has never been a lucky number for me. Here I have 11 plants and only one is PL, for example. Then looking at the buds on them, I remembered there are quite a few other important traits to select for. Fruit size... we would like the bigger ones, please. Four plants have really nice looking large buds ready to open. I like these plants! The mini beef has only the 'locule number' alleles that produce fruit with 5-6 locules, but the 'fasciated' allele from the bicolor parent is a key to bigger fruit.

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There is no sign on any plant of a determinate pattern yet. Two plants are extremely dwarfed or 'runts'. Still in cell packs, but they've grown quite a bit and one of them has a well formed first cluster of buds. What strikes me as strangest of all in this F2, is that the number of leaves before first cluster varies from 7 to 10. Most of them have more than seven leaves before first cluster, but both of the parents were 7's. IDK much about the gene(s) that control it except that it is separate from determinate/indet patterns. So this is a surprise and I'm not sure how it will play out.

[Tormato]

Where duh green jell project?

[bower]

In the Yellow Project I have split my grow to follow two lines from the F5, dubbed Fruity Finch and Lemon Squeeze for now, for the different tastes. The taste in these lines - crosses between very different tasting parents - have been all over the place in every generation. So I doubt they will be stable yet but I expect they will be interesting. Right away there are noticeable differences in the two lines - LemonSqueeze are more compact and 3 of 4 are about to open some flowers with two adjacent clusters well developed. The FruityFinch plants are more tall only one of four compact, and they are all later with the adjacent cluster pattern present but not close to ready to open. And wow do they have long fur! Miaow!

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[bower]

Where duh green jell project?

So much green gel around here. We even love it.

But hey, I snuck a Ms. Pervaya Lyubov from the farm extras. Yessir, a PINK. Here she be. Not as early as our friends here, but respectable. And so... pink gelled.

PerLyubov-buds-May7-416.JPG

[bower]

Skipper and Rodney: Well I will just gloss over these long interminably long nearly stable old projects involving mmmmmmmega green gel. I decided to keep a watch on the Skipper until Rodney is stable as well - maybe next year? I would be stoked to find Rodney taste was fixed and stable this generation, as I really loved the one I saved last year, for the amazingly sweet aftertaste that it leaves in your mouth.
Skipper should be fully stable by now, but the seedlings were very uneven this year, including a tricot and a monocot. Two are now as early as they should be, starting to flower with two clusters in play. Rodney is close behind for earliness, with the largest buds showing a yellowing petal but not open yet.

Skipper-2cluster-May7-412.JPG

Rodney-buds-May7-403.JPG

[bower]

One more OP standard, cribbed from the farm extras - Zolotoe Serdtse. Love the growth habit on these, and it is one of the four parents of Skipper and Rodney, so it's interesting to compare for earliness etc. Not sure where I will find a place for another plant? Ah well there's always the bus shelter...

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[Whwoz]

Certainly looking good @Bower , will be following with interest. These early determinates of yours are making me think all sorts of silly tomato growing things.

[Pippin]

Thanks for starting this thread, will definitely follow what will be happening here! Big fan of early determinates too. I can so much relate to the excitement and impatience in waiting for the first inflorecence to appear, constantly counting the number of leaves before the first one, how many leaves after the first one… is it determinate or indeterminate. Strange initiation ritual for the new season.

In my project, the growing conditions seem to impact the number of leaves before the first flowers. Window grown plants that had less light and higher night temperatures tend to have more leaves than greenhouse grown that had better light and cooler nights. Could of course be that we have different genes involved too.

[bower]

Tx for sharing that observation, Pippin... I wondered if environment is playing a role. But in this case, the plants have been out in the greenhouse every day but one for almost a month, in really cool conditions for the most part. On a good day of the drizzle and fog trend getting to 60F or above for just a few hours in the afternoon and evening. Also spending nights out for the past couple of weeks, lows down to 42 F. While the usual would be in a window under lights, with much smaller variation in temperature at night. I just didn't have room this season with the farm starts. So it's opposite to the environmental trend you observed. But as you said, it may well be an interaction between different genes and the environment.
I should also check and see if there is any change in the other lines in these same conditions, as I've been assuming it is just this F2. Perhaps there are also different genes that keep that leaf number fixed in all conditions, vs allowing it to be variable.

I will try to be organized enough with the data on this, that perhaps something can be learned in the process....

[bower]

@Pippin I checked some of the other lines and some at least have made extra leaves as well! So you are 100% correct it is environmental and the different treatment this year, spending so much time in the greenhouse during their early growth, is the explanation.
Thanks again for pointing this out!

[Pippin]

I typically have something like 5-7 leaves before the first flowers, if it goes above 9 in my growing conditions in early spring, I try to avoid saving seeds (as I try to favor compact plants). The minimum number of leaves has been 3 when grown in really good conditions. That was a tricot, not sure if that had anything to do with flowering pattern. Saved some seeds from that plant too but no tricots in the next generation. Loads of tetracots in one other line though.

You have some interesting looking leaf forms there, must be the YP FF at least. Not sure if I have seen similar before, very even leaflets, the cuts just at the edges, not very deep cuts at all. They remind me of some other plant family, cannot remember which one right now but they do. They look really novel to me.

I have been trying to find a PL determinate line for my project without much success so far. That might look also cool in a very compact plant.

[MissS]

@Pippin Black Sea Man is a PL determinate. Not sure if it's a color you want but it fits your description.

[Pippin]

Thanks for the hint, @MissS! I tend to overlook these larger beefstakes and they often are indeterminates. It looks like a good source of det PL trait. I already found an European seed source that also lists BSM as det PL and made a quick order. Let’s see if I manage to incorporate it to my project.

[bower]

Let me know if it does turn out to be determinate after all. I've grown Black Sea Man from several different sources, and all of them turned out to be indeterminate. My Mom is especially fond of them though.

[bower]

What a difference a week makes... that is, a week of non stop sunshine! All tomatoes are potted up - 36 plants in total. Today it's been raining and outdoors a miserable steady 2C, but enough glimmers of sun to get up to 60F in the greenhouse. 30 of 36 plants are either flowering or about to flower, and today I spotted a first fruit set. The earliness prize goes to... Skipper F8, again. Flowering, setting, and pushing out that third cluster.

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[bower]

In the yellow project, there are lots of flowers open on the 'Lemon Squeeze' batch, just one 'Fruity Finch' has open flowers. Just goes to show how easily you can misplace a trait like earliness if it isn't selected for - last season was chosen only for taste(s). I'm expecting instability in the taste still, but really hopeful to find that combination of tangy and fruity sweet - hopefully in those earliest and most compact plants.

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[bower]

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In the bicolor cross F2, a lot of those big buds have turned out to be the 'double' or multi flowers so typically produced by cold stress - I shouldn't be surprised. It's also impossible to tell if some of these are determinate or not, because they firmly stopped with that first cluster of big buds in a whorl of leaves and are not extending any stem until the pressing business of getting some seeds made in this oh-so-cold-and-fickle environment has been dealt with. I do have a determinate pattern emerged on one plant, but it is not one of those with open flowers already. Some other plants are showing an indeterminate pattern, at least for now I'll take it as confirmed unless something turns up later. The lone PL plant is indeterminate, afaict. While the tiny runt that is flowering is one of those that I just can't tell until it grows past that urgent first cluster. It is a really dwarf plant with very short internodes, but I don't know yet whether that is heritable or environmental, and may even change as the season goes on?

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[bower]

Nothing open on Ms. Lyubov as yet, but Zolotoe Serdtse is getting close.

ZolSerdtse-may14-535.JPG

[Pippin]

Your plants are well ahead of mine and they are looking good. Hope the weather warms up soon, we seem to have passed the worst night frosts now here in Southern Finland.

Zolotoe Serdtse looks like an interesting plant, needed to google some pics of the fruit as it is a new variety to me. It seems to be an early orange, and it gets positive comments flavor wise too. Seems that I even have some old seeds of it too but have never grown it.