Monday, July 9, 2018

"Pink" fruit, epidermis pigmentation - the y gene

I've not really tracked the pink epidermis gene in my crosses, but I've realized that I should.  Here is a link to the outstanding Frogsleap Farm web page that explains it in detail.

"Pink" tomatoes are homozygous recessive for mutations in the y gene, which is necessary for yellow pigment accumulation in the fruit's outer epidermis.  Classic "tomato" colored tomatoes are wild type.  "Pink" varieties are slightly pinker than the standard red ripe tomato, which is a little orange-red.  It's pretty useless to really compare online images of pink and regular red tomatoes unless they are together side-by-side in the same photograph.

Frogsleap farm reports that Cherokee Purple, Green Zebra and Brandywine are y/y.    (A few years ago I grew Pink Ping Pong, but found it unremarkable.)   Since CP is y/y though, this suggests that "pink" was segregating in my IR x CP F2s, but sadly I did not pay attention to it, and I don't know yet if any of my saved F2s were y/y.   I think the answer is no.  However, there's a decent chance that the y allele was still kicking around in the F3s, so some of my F4s might be y/y.

Example below of +/+ and y/y skin:   A 28D3 fruit is clearly +/+, vs "Carbon" which is y/y (just ripe today).


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