More 2016 planning

To do the F2 grow out, I am thinking about renting two plots next year...!  One for grow out, one for varieties.

I can't tend all that by hand.  I will have to use a weed eater.

The tarp needs rethinking too .  Although having tarp along the actual planting line is good for weed control, i was a lot of effort and time to cut holes for plants and stakes.   And I need a lot more stakes next year.

To reduce labor do this order:

1.  Put in stakes and plants.

2.  Put tarp on walkways between rows. Like 2014.

3.  Gotta mulch the plants like crazy to control weeds. Eg lotsa straw.  Need some straw bales.

4.  Use weed eater , weekly, to zap the weeds among the tomatoes that do get thru the straw.

5.  Prune tomatoes.

For the initial setup I might even need some help...

more notes for next year

Well. I'm always learning stuff about what works and what doesn't in the garden, though sometimes it feels like I'm finding out more about what doesn't work than what does.  So here are thoughts about what to do next year.

Of course, it's critical to have strong plants - so the germination in sterile medium is key. period.
Next, don't start them too late.  They may grow OK, but I am noticing the fruit set is poor now that the weather is hot.  This is pretty variable across varieties but I think it's real.  For example, I have a late-starting, but healthy, OS plant in my backyard that is not setting any fruit.    Exceptions are HC, which is sort of unstoppable once it gets going, and the F1 IRxCP, which seems to have 3-5 fruit per branch in a very similar manner to the IR parent.

ML is supposed to be wilt resistant but I think they are prone to the browning of mature leaves, which is probably fusarium wilt.   CP too.

Staking...Well I had a broken pole, so duh, wooden stakes can't last thru 2 seasons.   Not much point in the florida weave if the poles break.   So I may go to metal poles - at least for the ones at the ends of the rows because they have to hold up the most tension.

If an F2 growout is really to be done, there will have to be a lot of plants and a lot of staking!

Planting things farther apart is important.  Mainly, wider rows.   Planting stuff close to the "paths" between the plots was not great because they don't get mowed a lot.  So that does not allow access.

(Also planting onions 4 in. apart makes it necessary to hand weed a lot.  ugh.)

Pruning...There was so much rotting of fruit on the ground that it's just a big waste.  Might as well prune aggressively.   This should promote upward growth anyway as the plant will put its energy there.   I made a note to do this last year but I didn't do it.  Mostly because of the time involved I guess.   I will have to factor in more time.

Using hay or straw mulch would be a good idea up front for weed control.  

Is this a stamenless plant ??

So in my little backyard plot this year, I planted only 8 tomatoes.   Some of these were really small stragglers that died.  But, surviving to the flower stage were one "CP", one "OS" and one F1 IRxCP.  Fair enough.

The F1 is bearing fruit.   The CP and OS have flowers - a bit late since they were planted late, but they are there.  So finally some of the CP flowers were maturing, and I was interested to take a look and see if fruit were coming, or if I could try some crosses for the heck of it.   Then when I started looking at the flowers they seemed weird.  One had a very long pistil emerging and the rest of the flower looked kinda short.   I peeled back the sepals and there was just nothing that looked like petals or stamens.  There were small, lobe-like whitish structure where these should be.   Another bud on the same branch was slightly younger but had an emerging pistil. After peeling it seems to be the same as the other one.

I tried to take a photo as night was falling - not perfect but I think shows what I saw.  I had peeled away about half of the sepals to expose the gonadal parts.  Note that the pistil had already extended far beyond the sepals by about 3-4 mm.   The stamens and anthers were not really apparent at all, except for the small lobed structures I alluded to above.

Anyway, I figured these buds were worth crossing attempts!  A stamenless flower cannot produce male pollen; selfing is not possible, so it's a good opportunity for crossbreeding.  Unfortunately the F1 IRxCP plant that I had in the backyard had no flowers left.  Too bad, that would have allowed a cool backcross to the CPs.   Instead I had to settle for using OS flowers to donate pollen.  I brushed some peeled OS stamens onto the two CP pistils.  Therefore these are "CP female x OS male" attempted crosses; that is, Cherokee Purple x "Orange Slicer" which itself is an F1 hybrid.

If it's not a stamenless mutant, then the petals and stamens must develop much later than the pistils in this CP variety.    Over the next few weeks it will become more clear if this is really "stamenless" or not.

Harvest time 2015, Aug 1 update

Almost forgot to update.  Last weekend (Aug 1) I picked a decent amount of tomatoes.  And a neighbor gave me a bunch of romas, so I froze about 4 quarts of tomato puree (seeds strained out).

Some notes on this years' results... Since I have fewer plants, my yield is lower.  But a few things are different this year.  Of course, the plants that got a later start are behind and not really turning ripe yet - so the big plum varieties are not ripe yet, for example, but I see good fruit set.

My florida weave setup was mostly good - except for the southwest corner, where the end pole tipped over so much it's hardly effective.  So I think the take-home messages are:

1. Use stronger poles.  Maybe go with metal posts next year... More $$$ and heavy to move around but they would be an investment.  Also they won't bend like the wood.

2.  The twining really does have to go left then right around each successive plant to hold them in place.  If you skip the alternation, they will lean over into the next plant.

3. It's probably really important to prune the low branches. I lost a lot of fruit to critters and rot, because they were on the ground, close together and covered by foliage.  

If I am really going to try to attempt an F2 grow-out next year, I'll have to work hard to get a serious florida weave setup for a lot of plants.

Finally, I managed to try a few more crosses too.  I am up to ~8 total attempts so far. The first few failed but I think it's a war of attrition.

Reisetomate is probably a fasciated mutant

I had to look hard to find a description of the Reisetomate phenotype in the literature.  However, an allele of the fasciated gene seems to generate this phenotype.  fasciated (fas) is a well-documented gene that increases fruit size and changes the fruit's internal structure, by increasing locule number.  In fact all "beefsteak" tomatoes probably have mutations in either this gene, or a similar-functioning gene called locule number, or both.   The fasciated mutation in these varieties seems to increase carpel number.   So does Reisetomate - but with a key difference.   A review article by Steven D. Tanksley has a photo of a clearly Reisetomate-looking funky tomato, and he describes it thusly:

"...Moreover, one mutant allele of fasciated is associated not only with more carpels but also with unfused carpels (Figure 1D)".   
The Plant Cell June 2004 vol. 16 no. suppl 1 S181-S189

Because the carpels remain unfused, the result is a fruit with separate locules that are not really attached to each other.  Neat.

Here is a comparison of Reisetomate vs. a "ribbed" tomato, Costoluto Genovese.   The latter probably has a different allele at fas or a similar gene.  I think.