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Lebanon, Oregon

Thank you Marv for suggesting starting a new thread on this subject. In the beginning used to think in the same terms as bnot. A tomato is a tomato and we are just growing for size. But as this sport grows I would think we would want to not get sloppy and keep the integrity of the grower and seed line high. It will not be 100% accurate all the time but we need to do our best to keep the variety and seed lines intact. It is easier to have a higher standard up front rather than try to back peddle in the future years. In having accurate variety and seed data available a person can research a seed and plan for their line up. Sorry bnot you mixed up your seeds this winter. It hurts my brain as Marley mentioned. There may be that first time hobby grower that may not know the variety. That's fine. But the serious grower who researches documented seeds, variety, and crosses will prevail in the long run. They will be at the upper limit of weights and they will be represented on the tomato GPC page. It needs to parallel the AG's high standard of being able to track seeds. This sport is growing and it is not going away. The seeds are bringing in much more in auctions and supporting clubs so the accountability needs to remain high.

2/8/2017 3:27:44 PM

Germany

I totally agree. You guys should also discuss how to proceed with upcomming crosses. If someone grows F1 seeds every mater should be the same grown out of this cross. But when you go to the next generation, every plant out of the F2 seeds can grow to a totaly different variety. Complicated to keep track about stuff like that.

2/8/2017 4:58:33 PM

Lebanon, Oregon

I will grow some F2 seeds this year from the "Megadom" and "Slammer" cross varieties. No matter what they look like (Domingo, Megamarv, BigZac) this year and the following years, it would still be considered "Megadom" and "Slammer". It will be interesting to see what others will grow this year from those F2's.

2/8/2017 5:16:31 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

I will get into this discussion. I think it is a good subject. If you wish to bring it to a higher standard open pollinations should not be counted. This is not the time to call for a higher standard....if you start to research the lines...you will be hard pressed to find any of the current tomatoes that has not been exposed to an open pollination in a garden that had more than one variety grown. The damage of unknown cross-pollinations is already done. I contend..that calling a tomato a big zac..when it has had generations of open pollination in gardens of multi-variety is not truthful. When it is impossible to determine a variety from observation of plant and fruit...then whatever label has come down from the maternal line is irrelevant. The pollinator genetics matters also. I think that tracking tomatoes by weight and grower name and year is sufficient. We could breed by plant characteristics..instead of focusing on varietal name. Think about it....30 years from now...we will have had 50 years of open pollinations...how pure do you think any line is going to be?

2/8/2017 5:21:33 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

Of the three plants that i lost track of...the are from seeds from last summer that I grew last summer...in a garden of 20 plants. The maternal line of these tomatoes were of wixom slammer, delicious and big zac. The ratio of supposed varieties in this garden was...13 big zacs, 5 delicious, 1 domingo and 1 michaels portuguese monster. They were open pollinated.Each of the tomatoes that these seeds were taken from had 2 different varieties as its closest neighbor. I am thinking, high percentage chance..that at least one of these plants..is already not pure in variety. After I mixed up the plants...I dirty pollinated them. Each of them has been exposed to pollen from the other two. Per Marv's book...give the mega's extra pollen...well, i gave them pollen from what had available..which happened to be a different variety. I wont be releasing these seeds this year..but I will grow them out proabably for a few year to see which outperforms the other. If I would be lucky and grow a monster from them....if you are stuck on variety...don't ask for seeds. Someone tell me..what is the parentage of the Big Zac, the parentage of Delicious, the parentage of MegaMarv. Lets not limit ourselves...

2/8/2017 5:40:20 PM

Lebanon, Oregon

Yes, granted, you cannot guarantee a tomato to be 100% "pure" with open pollination. However, an open pollination with a tomato is not the same as an open pollination with a pumpkin. In my opinion itt should be termed as "Self" instead of "Open" because that would be a more accurate representation. A tomato flower self pollinates and is very localized. I am getting over my head so anyone correct me if I am wrong: The anther (male) of the flower will shower the stigma (female) with pollen. So pollination is very localized. So I am certain with 99% certainty that the seeds will carry on the traits of the parent plant. It takes the hand of a surgeon, timing, and patients to cross pollinate a tomato flower. You know, like Wixom Chris.

2/8/2017 5:45:39 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

Garden Rebel...you say researching the variety lines...tell me...how do you tell the difference between a Big Zac and a Delicious. I have pictures and fruits from both...can you tell me how to differentiate?

2/8/2017 5:53:59 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

research that i have done suggest that open pollination is 5% cross pollination. That is not 1%...after 20 years of open pollination...it is even odds of being not pure.

2/8/2017 6:00:56 PM

Lebanon, Oregon

You know I did the same thing bnot with some of my mega's, picking some of the males on other Big Zac plant and dabbing them on neighboring flower for extra pollen. Same variety though. You know, this is my personal viewpoint and find it very interesting to be able to track the 8.41 MacCoy back to the 5.07 Boudyo, the 5.07 Boudyo that produced many large tomatoes down the line. To be able to track certain tomatoes and find a few of the same genetics. Certain plant lines and characteristics will start to repeat over time if we are consistent. Yes, it would be a lot easier to just grow a tomato and see how big it gets and only care about that. It would be a lot easier for all of us that way, not really interested in where it came from or its variety. I just want to see an effort in a high standard. Sure there are many variables but at least we can try to be consistent as competitive growers as a whole. If you grew a world record, bnot, from a seed that you were not certain where it came from, I will still make sure I was the top bidder in the auction.

2/8/2017 6:09:02 PM

Mn

I'm gonna try and grow a big ass tomato and you guys can call it whatever you want :) .... maybe the Big Delicious MegaMarv ....kinda sounds like a porn star lol

2/8/2017 6:35:47 PM

Lebanon, Oregon

I just take the growers "variety" on good faith. In the long run it is just another marker to keep track of. Should it be mandatory? No. That would take too much policing and take the fun out of it. Should it be strongly encouraged? Yes. I am sure there are growers that see it as I do. Will the variety be 100% accurate? No. We are hobby fruit growers, not scientists. There will always be holes in the tomato GPC variety sections. Overall, in the long run, the top growers will know in general where their fruit came from. With different growers as myself trying different varieties (Russian Oxheart) to shake up the genetics to get something going, I will list its variety as extra data for the future.

2/8/2017 6:37:12 PM

Lebanon, Oregon

Either way Q Tip we are all tomato nerds. Some more nerdy than others.

2/8/2017 6:39:00 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

even Boudyo has grown Big Zac and Delicious in the same year. In 2011 he grew the 7.33 Hunt. They are listed as selfs..but were they closed pollinations or open pollinations called self. I think variety is out the window...imagine if we had 10 different varieties of atlantic giants. Instead of variety..lets start breeding by weight grower year...as in the pumpkin world.

2/8/2017 6:39:02 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

somehow i have in my possession some 5.59 qtip and some 5.22 qtip seeds...one says domingo x open...one says big zac x open. How close were these plants to each other? I have 10 seeds....what is the chance i have a domingo-big zac cross in these ten seeds? I think I should grow a world record from the one seed that may be crossed...I need to think of a good name for the variety.

2/8/2017 6:53:22 PM

Mn

"Big Tip" sounds like a good name bob lol - rick I couldn't agree with you more :)

2/8/2017 7:04:40 PM

Mn

And i plant all my tomato plants several miles apart to make sure here is a small risk of cross pollinations ;)

2/8/2017 7:06:43 PM

Central NY

I just had an idea for blossom condoms...

2/8/2017 7:38:59 PM

Would pollination sleeves be of any help in keeping it pure ?

2/8/2017 8:17:19 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

I say ..it is already not pure. We can go by weight grower year in the future...but i think that things have already been mixed.

2/8/2017 8:19:14 PM

Wixom MI.

Its true that no tomato is truely pure every bigzac tomato out their my have been contaminated by the wind or insects but all we can hope for is it to be as pure as possible.just hope that the next world record tomato wasnt growing next to a cherry tomato. Hate to have gaint cherry tomatoes for offspring.
The only true way to do it right is to cover the flowers with a bag before they bloom so nothing can contaminate them and that is not easy.

2/8/2017 8:33:02 PM

Wixom MI.

That is why i do my crosses indoors. This way i can control the environment better. Their is no wind or insects and all i have to do is cut off the pollon early enough so that it cant self pollinate and hope that i have other doner pollen ready at the same time.

2/8/2017 8:38:55 PM

Lebanon, Oregon

I must digress bnot, you make some good points. There shouldn't be a tomato police taking the fun out of growing tomatoes. In general a Big Zac variety line will throw mega blooms more than a Delicious line, even if it's not pure. I prefer the Big Zacs and like to see it listed in the variety. Chris's crosses have the Domingo crosses with a Big Zac, ect, creating a new variety. I like, and some others, like to see this variety. It shouldn't be mandatory but assist in peoples choices. I doubt planting a good line of Big Zacs will produce a cherry tomato. Marv put a lot of effort on this subject a couple of years ago and it went nowhere but raised awareness. You have to pick your battles. Some will list the variety if it is important to them and others but it shouldn't be mandatory. It's all in fun in the long run.

2/8/2017 11:40:56 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

This original discussion came about because of the proposal to require varietal identification for GPC standing. I disagreed with that for the reasons above. I have been questioning the validity of varieties since I started growing tomatoes which hasn't been that long ago. I am only on my third season of growing (i can grow more than one season per year). I have really tried to tell a difference between the different varieties without success. Given the exact same environment..they seem to react in the same way to me. I have had Big Zacs that have thrown singles and I have had Delicious that throw nothing but mega's. Going into next summer, I will have in possession a great gene pool to work with. I am thinking it will be seeds from 12 of the top 13 largest tomatoes grown in the past 10 years. I do not want to focus on variety. I want to focus on plant characteristics. Right now, i am looking at ribbon vine to mega. Nearly all the seeds i am planting now throw a mega first truss. Only about 1/3 of them have the ribbon to that mega. I could potentially try to use dirty pollination to cross two mega's that happen to show the plant qualities that I desire. Some of you might think i am doing a disservice to other growers...i am thinking it is growing to grow bigger.

2/9/2017 5:46:41 AM

Lafayette La

I would think all of the big tomato growers would want to keep track of lines/genes to breed bigger tomatoes. Is anyone trying to grow out all of these crosses to F-8 to stabilize it? I think it would be worth it to try to get a stable OP tomato that grew consistent 4 pounders and use that to make additional crosses. I'm just giving my 2 cents worth, I don't know if this was covered in another thread. Here's some interesting reading on crossing and genes. http://kdcomm.net/~tomato/gene/genes.html

2/9/2017 12:00:06 PM

On top of Brush Mountain, Pa.

The site mentioned above is something everyone growing for better genetics should read and try to understand.

2/9/2017 12:40:13 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

I have read that Marv...it is not new info for me. It is one of the reasons that one of my pumpkins lines has been selfed for 5 generations. As it applies to tomatoes- the only way to ensure that you are moving to the next F generation is by bagging the blossom and then manually vibrating it. I doubt that are many 100% F8 Big Zacs out there. I am thinking that more cross-pollination happened in the early years of the Big Zac. At that time...Delicious was the choice of competitive growers. So where does it leave the tomato growers of today after all these years of open pollination...should we just keep adding the label of variety to our seeds..even though that label may not be anywhere close to correct. I think better is to take it by weight-grower-year and keep track of that. We could call a bagged manually vibrated tomato a selfed, one with bees an open pollination, then the wixom method for true cross...and the dirty pollination where pollen is introduced to a flower without removing the male parts. I can see reasons for all of the scenarios. If we want to make it better...we cant keep going down the same road we have been on.

2/9/2017 5:29:30 PM

On top of Brush Mountain, Pa.

bnot, here is the thing with tomatoes. What we are mostly growing in order to get big tomatoes are ones that fall almost completely into the beefsteak category. One of the characteristics of this group is that they have a tendency toward having exerted pistils. This means the stamen is often exposed and not covered by the anther making it vulnerable to being fertilized by pollen coming from somewhere other than its own anther, estimated to occur about 3% of the time. As you know each tomato has one ovary and this ovary has a variable number of ovules depending on its variety and a few other things, mostly variety. Each ovule, if fertilized, forms one seed. So, around 97%,maybe more, of the seeds in a given tomato end up being self pollinated. The variety is kept "pure" by growers throwing away undesirable plants before planting and selecting seeds only from those tomatoes that have the characteristics desired, big in our case. If this did not work out pretty well, there would be no heirloom tomatoes today, and there are many. To move forward we need to grow seeds from the seeds whose genetics we know and select the best tomatoes from those seeds for next year. Thus, the need to keep track of seed genetics. Okay?

2/10/2017 9:12:32 AM

Wixom MI.

One thing about growing gaint tomatoes is that all the gaint verietys are in the beefsteak catagory and prety much all the beefsteak verietys will through out megablooms thus making it hard to identify the many differences between them. But their are usually differentces but not necessarily easy to see !!! Often it is in the fruit taste color texture etc... Or in plant vigure short stocky large agressive or potato leaf. For me i haven't had as much luck with the big zac and it seems to be 80%-90% of the gaint tomatoes being grown. I seem to have more luck in the mega marv and domingo veriety and. For me i have noticed that these plants are more vigorous or larger plants than the big zac plants. That is one reason i wonted to start crossing all these verieties. Now with the megazac this was from a megamarv plant that on a side branch grew a ribon vine like flower and by luck the 8.41 macCoy was in bloom at the same time.now i planted three megazac seeds and the one plant had a crazy ribon vine stalk but i dont know if that was just luck or if that will carry on into its offspring.i do believe that it took on the megamarv vigorous plant style and took on the big zac tomato. Both of the plants put out a 6 pound tomato and at the end they both looked a lot alike. But if we carry out these two tomatoes out 7-8 generation's they may look quite different down the line?

2/10/2017 12:47:25 PM

Lafayette La

Do you think having a ribbon vine is required to grow a big tomato? I have some beefsteaks growing now and I noticed almost every plant has the start of a ribbon below the first cluster where the plant wants to split into two stalks. I would call it a sucker but both are the same size and I just have to choose which one to keep because I'm growing single stem.

2/10/2017 3:08:05 PM

On top of Brush Mountain, Pa.

Can we please stay on topic?

2/10/2017 4:38:26 PM

Wixom MI.

A massive megabloom does not mean you will grow a gaint tomato. I find they are much harder to pollinate and harder to get the entire tomato to grow evenly.but if everything works out right you should have a better chance.

2/10/2017 4:45:43 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

Using your percentage Marv of 3% crosspollination of an open ( I had read 5 elsewhere but i will go with 3)..In the first year 3 out of 100 tomatoes have been cross-pollinated. Big Zac has been around what about 10 years...so if we take that 3% and multiply it out...it comes out to 30% of potential cross-pollination. Granted some of this cross-pollination would be crossed with another Big Zac..and some may have crossed more than once. Also..due to tomatoes having heterosis effect and growers tending to grow the largest grown...there is a chance that the offspring of the crossed tomatoes might have more chance of being grown again. The subject of variety identification is so muddled at this point..i don't see why I should restrict myself to growing only known varieties..when that variety may not even being true. I am growing for size only..not for taste, color, texture or to make an F8 for commercial purposes. I am going to have fun growing out my unknown three...maybe do more blind crosses.. what to do when one of them has a beautiful blossom..and is not dropping pollen. My answer add pollen from another plant this is dropping a snowstorm. Everyone grows for different reasons...If variety is important to you...then grow that way...refuse seeds from any big tomato that you can't track the genetics back 8 generations...and if you are really want to be precise..refuse any seed that does not have 8 generations of history..and none of those generations were open pollinated. But I don't think you can make the determination for me to toss my unknowns..which I have many of from many different growers. I enjoyed growing the Rakkas so much..i have planted a second one this winter. Maybe if i get seeds from this one I will add it to my unknown 3.

2/10/2017 5:07:27 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

How many of our current tomato seeds would we have now..if no unknown variety seeds were ever planted? Maybe i will just call my mixed up, double crossed, selfed tomato years down the line...the bnot heirloom. I would be ok then for variety...it has heirloom attached to it.

2/10/2017 5:08:01 PM

Lafayette La

Sorry Marv but that was kinda on topic. I mentioned it because if a ribbon vine is needed then that is another trait to track in crosses and you don't have to grow a plant long to see if it has one.

Chris, check your email. I sent you a message on Feb 3.

2/10/2017 5:18:22 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

Ragun..i will start a new thread to discuss..ribbon to blossoms

2/10/2017 5:39:39 PM

On top of Brush Mountain, Pa.

This thread was to be about whether it is of value to know and list variety and parentage of tomato seeds. I can't see how that has a lot to do with a ribbon vine? My bad? My computer is having problems so I may not be back for awhile. Trouble getting online.

2/10/2017 6:14:18 PM

Lafayette La

Marv I was trying to give more reasons to track lines/parentage/genes growth habits and most importantly crosses.

2/10/2017 7:55:41 PM

Wixom MI.

Bnot i like the idea of all the seeds to have a veriety listed on them even though they are probably part mutt !!!i agree that each big zac probably has a little mutt in them but when i look to cross a tomato i like to find the best tomato from each veriety available and i cant do that if i dont know what the veriety is. To me crossing two gaint big zac wont nessesarly give me an improvement because they will have all the same charactoristics and so no to little change.

2/10/2017 8:30:26 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

I tend to keep pretty good track of the genetics that I have. But I am somewhat glad that my confusion this year..gives me the chance to be free to mix however i desire. I would imagine that going forward..I will have both the known heritage and the dirty heritage. Any tomato that is unknown to begin with...or is dirty pollinated for whatever reason gets put into the bnot anything is allowed line. I can now grow four seasons per year. The ability to grow without the restriction of known parentage is valuable.

2/10/2017 8:38:28 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

the problem with part mutt..is first generation cross..is not part..it is 50%. Take the example of qtips domingo x open and big-zac x open. using marvs percentages..the 3 % of seeds that are crossed are listed under the domingo or big zac category. they are not part mutt...they are 50-50....so saying that as soon as a cross occurred is part...is not really what it is..it is a whole new variety. I don't know what the percentage of big-zacs out there are really big-zacs or a new variety. Tomato variety pool is messed up...and I don't think there is a going back.

2/10/2017 8:46:30 PM

Wixom MI.

The thing with tomatoes compaired to pumpkins is that a pumpkin can't pollinate itself a pumpkin needs help by man or insect. With a tomato the anter cone surounds the pitol so much that it is more likely to self pollinate by wind and vibrations than it is to be crossed by an insect.that is why we tend to say self pollinated over open with tomatoes. And pumpkins are open because they cant pollinate themselves.

2/10/2017 9:05:31 PM

Wixom MI.

Even with qtip planting his bigzac next to his domingo it is much more likely the wind or him touching his flower shaking the pollon from itself made a self pollination over an innsect crosspollinating it.that is why he says that its like 90% pure and not 50/50

2/10/2017 9:13:17 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

the seeds from it are either pure or a 50/50 mix...if 3% are mixed..and the growers grow out 100 seeds..that means that 3 plants are new variety. If heterosis takes affect and only the largest of those 100 is replanted the next year..if heterosis causes bigger..more of the mixed new variety will be planted. Each year that this happens among all the growers..by now..we have lots of unknown varieties that are being called big zac, delicious, domingo whatever. Multiply it all time the number of years that these varieties have been open pollinated in the same garden and what do you have?

2/10/2017 9:17:42 PM

Wixom MI.

With tomatoes they will most likely self pollonate themselves most of the times but we will never know when they get contaminated by something else and then just hope it didn't cross with a smaller tomato. Maybe the reason Boudyo seeds have done better than others is that maybe his bigzac did cross with a delicious and he didn't know? That could have been his unknown reason for his seeds to do better than other bigzac seeds ???

2/10/2017 9:24:35 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

Going forward, my point is...we really do not know what we have for varieties. I think we have to start to compare characteristics. The more generations it has been since a potential cross...the more that resulting tomato would exhibit the same characteristics. If everyone keeps open pollinating in mixed gardens for the next 20 years...variety will mean nothing at all...it is already questionable in my mind.

2/10/2017 9:40:33 PM

Wixom MI.

The thing about a mut tomato is that most of them will be crossing with an infirior tomato thus making a weeker offspring and less desirable tomato and then not getting planted and disapearing. Not many open crosses will improve from the parent tomato. Most will become inferior because it usually be an inferior cross.that being said we will only grow the best of the best and that is not likely to happen with a 50/50 mut mix

2/10/2017 10:01:01 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

i don't know about the inferior cross theory...i am sure their was many 7.33 Hunt grown next to early f big zacs. This summer, i will be growing the 7.18 Harp 2009 which is I believe an F4 big zac and also a 7.33 Hunt 2010 Delicious. Open pollinations do not necessarily mean inferior..it could be the cross of the biggest delicious x the biggest big-zac at that time.

2/10/2017 10:09:10 PM

Wixom MI.

When a bee pollinates a tomato it has pollon from every plant in that garden even if the small tomato veriety is on the other side of the garden that is why its a mut

2/10/2017 10:16:10 PM

Wixom MI.

If a 7 lbs bigzac crosses tomato gets crossed with a burpee big boy tomato you will not be growing any more tomatoes over 2 lbs anymore

2/10/2017 10:24:19 PM

Wixom MI.

My phone kept. Jumping around on me. (0: lol

2/10/2017 10:29:30 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

Without knowing what the ratio's were of varieties planted close to each other...we will never know. Some of the crosses might be in the biggest we have today....some would be eliminated early. It is a complete unknown. We can't go back in time...What is the plan for the future. My plan for this summer is to grow the seeds from 12/13 seeds from the largest tomatoes ever grown...I will try to self each of them using the bag method. If one is not dropping pollen...i will then probably dirty pollinate it. My goal is to capture the gene pool from this group. Seeds probably will mean more to me than size. After i have seeds from each..then i will probably start to grow them out based on characteristics. I probably won't be declaring variety on the offspring..because I truly don't know what they are. But i will know the mother and the pollination method. Wonder if the GPC can understand what 7.33 Hunt x bagged self would mean or 7.33 Hunt x DP 8.61 Sutherland. Lets bring thing to a higher level.

2/10/2017 10:38:35 PM

Wixom MI.

Lol... I don't think that the gpc wonts it to get that complicated. Don't forget only a small handfull of people will take the time to truly protect their polinated tomatoes the proper way by covering it with a bag. But to me marv and a few others the veriety name is very important because i do see a lot of differences in each veriety and i wont to continue to try different combination of crossing and it wont do me any good if i just keep crossing bigzac with bigzac all the time.that is about 90% of what is out their right now?

2/10/2017 11:37:09 PM

Lebanon, Oregon

Good info you guys, great discussion. I don't have anymore hair to pull out thinking about all the hypothetical possibilities of cross contaminations. It got me thinking but I will still put down what I think it its closest variety just for reference. It's great to talk about this stuff with the few people that are this passionate about growing giant tomatoes. The most important thing is your name next to the world record. I look forward to all the progress and surprises this year will bring.

2/11/2017 12:07:42 AM

Owensboro, Ky.

Not a giant tomato grower, per you's guy's enthusiasm...but the thought process...tomato growers won't bag & tag & keep track...seems to be a bit demeaning to the tomato growers. The AG folks bag, & tag, & keep track? I seem to understand that, that hasn't been happening in the last few years (or ever). But why not (and hopefully this thread has) start now. Peace, Wayne
PS...you guys & gals are only going to be as good as you make yourselves be!!!

2/11/2017 1:47:12 AM

Great discussion. The biggest point I see from it is that there has to be a fundamental change going forward in order for giant tomato growing to achieve what has happened with the AG's.

I would think it probably was not an easy sell years ago for the AG's but persistence paid off. Maybe this thread is the beginning.

2/11/2017 8:03:20 AM