More calcium tests to prevent end rot

 This year I am growing 7 FL plants and testing some calcium treatment to see if I can finally reduce end rot in the Flamme plants.

I have 4 in-ground and 3 in buckets.

Plan: Beginning on Monday May 22,  administer calcium nitrate weekly each Monday either to soil as liquid or foliar spray.    I found a bulletin with data claiming Ca spray reduced BER.

Spray: 15 mM calcium nitrate + tiny bit of dishwash detergent as wetting agent.   For 2 plants in ground and 1 in bucket.

Soil:  500 ml of 50 mM calcium nitrate applied to base of plant. 1 plant in-ground, 1 in bucket.

Control: 1 in ground , 1 in bucket.

Control and Spray test plants also receive 500 mls water at same time.

I did not spray a control of any sort on the Control or Soil plants.

May 27 2023 update

 It's Memorial Day weekend 2023.  All plants are growing pretty nicely with no signs of wilt or disease, but that is typical through May.  From my past years' notes, signs of disease, if any - usually sudden wilt - emerge in the first week of June.   

Aphids:  Some plants have pretty noticeable curling and slender leaves, particularly younger leaves, and particularly on FL but not exclusively.  For example, the two 55p plants are unaffected (these are F3 plants from a cross, so maybe still enjoying hybrid vigor).    One possible cause is aphids which were quite noticeable on the plants over the last couple weeks - followed by aphid mummies indicating parasitization and natural control.   

Interestingly, the enormous oak tree which overhangs much of the backyard is I think the source of aphids.  All of the plants, and my patio picnic table and chairs, are speckled with honeydew.  (ew).  

It's 2023

 I did not blog much in late 2021.  In 2022, I did not grow tomatoes at all, for the first time in many years.

As 2023 starts, I discovered some unfortunate news about my 55a7 x pBTD cross that I began a few years ago.  My goal here was to combine purple skin and green stripe.  In 2021, I collected seeds from F2 fruit, thinking that 1/16 would be atv/atv ; gs/gs , but at least some of the atv/atv that were not green stripe might also be gs/+ and thus worth breeding out to F3 in order to homozygose gs.   

Well.  This is a fine plan under the assumption that atv and gs are completely unlinked.  What are the odds?  Turns out they are tightly linked on chromosome 7.    I got the genome locations based on close markers from separate publications.   

Green stripe:   SNP marker SL2.50ch07_63842838

(Liu et al. New Phytologist, 2020.  GREEN STRIPE, encoding methylated TOMATO AGAMOUS-LIKE 1, regulates chloroplast development and Chl synthesis in fruit)

atv:  within SL2.50ch07: 60999091–61004074

Cao et al/. J Exp Botany 2017 -  A putative R3 MYB repressor is the candidate gene underlying atroviolacium, a locus for anthocyanin pigmentation in tomato fruit)

These are about 2.8 Mb apart, which I estimate to be about 4 cM based on the Tanksley map from 1992 (Genetics).

So - this means that the F1 was atv-+ / +-gs for chromosome 7.

For an F2 to be atv-gs / atv-gs , it would have to inherit two crossover chromosomes from the F1.  Odds of each are about 2%.  Odds of inheriting both are 1/2500.

What's also bad is that although I saved some F2 atv/atv seeds, these are about 98% likely to be homozygous wild type for gs - so they are not worth breeding out to get gs phenotype.

I suppose I could plant some F3 from the largest F2 purple fruit, just to see if I can a big size purple - gf line that is bigger than my old 46A2 line.  Try #18 maybe.

2021 is underway

SOWING 3/20/21

F2s to grow out from 2018 crosses.  F1 fruit were obtained in 2019.

2018 cross #13:   55a7 x pBTD F1(2019): ~60 plants.

Sowed 72 x 1.  Germination was very high, about 70.72.

2018 cross #30: ZPT x GDZ F1(2019):  20 plants.  Sowed 18x2. Here I am simply looking to see if I get anything interesting.  Pure curiosity.   The F1 was likely a successful cross.  If so it proves GDZ is not dominant, but might be interacting with ZPT.   The F1 fruit had ribs and air pockets like ZPT.  

Assuming ZPT phenotype is a single locus, the F1 would be ZPT/+ ; GDZ/+.

If so, ~2/16 should be = either one or the other parental phenotype.  Some may be like the F1, some may appear more “typical” round.  But the interesting ones are ZPT/ZPT ; GDZ/GDZ – 1/16; , or, at least homozygous for one locus and het for the other, which will be around ¼ , combined.

Roma: 18 plants (2017) sowed 18x2.

Home:  2xCG (2015; sowed 2w x 3 seeds), 6xFL (on order), 2xBC (2015, 2wx2), 2x TD (2019, 2wx2), 2xHC (2020, 3x2). All germinated ok

"Original" 2014 cross 55a1.2 F6  - growing 2 plants

4/25/21 - planted 40 plants cross #13

4/30/21 - planted ~20 plants cross #13,  8 plants #30.

Summarizing the 2020 tomato growing year

Summarizing the 2020 tomato growing year

Calcium nitrate to prevent end rot

I did a calcium nitrate application test to see if Ca application would prevent end rot (ER).  It did, although I nearly killed the test plants by over-applying.  I had two test plants and one control.  The strain was Flamme, which is very prone to ER.

Soil: Miracle-gro potting mix.  Test plants had ½ cup of calcium nitrate mixed in the soil. Control had zero.

½ cup ~ 120 g ; x 0.19% calcium (according to label)  = 22.8 g calcium = 0.57 moles.   (Calcium is 24.4% of pure calcium nitrate by molecular weight, but the material is probably not pure calcium nitrate. )

Transplanted the plants into these, 5 gal buckets 5/10/20.

On 6/7/20 I supplemented with even more calcium nitrate.  This time I dissolved 120 g (½ cup) of the calcium nitrate in 500 ml water and applied it directly.

To the control, I added ¼ cup of 29-0-4 fertilizer to supply a similar amount of nitrate as the test.  Note this was a slow-release pellet form; not meant to dissolve quickly!  I dissolved it in 500 ml water as best I could, and added to control.

Well by evening, the two test plants were wilting. Of course, I should have realized that hitting them with a solution of 0.57mol/0.5 L, or more than 1 molar salt, would hurt!   This arrested growth of the test plants.  They did not recover their wilted appearance until ~6/28/20, 3 weeks later.

However – they did catch up, and by season’s end it was clear that the test plants had almost zero end rot.

Final results:

Test plants:  35 fruit.  34: no ER.   ER rate 3%.

Control plant: 53 fruit.   No ER: 27.  ER: 26.   ER rate 49%.

Interestingly, the control plant had much less ER after about Aug 15.

June-July 20:  Control had about 50% ER.  Test plants had no fruit yet.

July 20-Aug 15:  Control had about 50% ER.  Test plants had zero.

Aug 15- end of season:  Control and test plants had almost zero ER.

  

Conclusion:  It works, but don’t use such a concentrated calcium nitrate solution. Try much lower, like 50 mM, perhaps every two weeks.

Indigo crosses

I grew a few plants each of 55a1.2 F4 and 46a2.3 F5, and 1 of 28d3.3F4.

I saved seeds from 55a1.2F4 plant 2.  I will now call this 55a1.2F5.   

I previously thought 55a1.2F4 was not gf/gf, but it actually is gf/gf.

Since these are NOT y/y, it is hard to see the gf/gf from outside.  Sliced open it was obvious. (“identical to Carbon.”)

46a2.3 F5 are gf/gf;y/y and indigo.  These seeds were from 2 years ago and so I had already grown the F5 last year.  These were decent as before.  Were prone to sunscalding but I got started late in 2020 and that was partly why – in late July the heat and sun get really bad. Perhaps y/y is more prone to sunscalding?

28d3.3F4 did not have much at all purple.  A nice cherry, but prone to cracking with overwatering.  I sort of prefer Black Cherry which was very sweet this year.

Heirlooms

I derived Tangerine Dream from a store-bought orange globe “

heirloom”.  Seems to breed true and was a decent yellow-orange beefsteaky tomato.  Would grow again.

Flamme calcium tests

Flamme is prone to end rot.  I have three plants in buckets.  Two have each been supplemented with 1/2 cup pure calcium nitrate;  one with none as control.

Transplanting to 5-gal buckets

On May 7, 9, etc.  I starting moving the plants from cowpots into the buckets.  The plants are well rooted - roots are beginning to go right thru the cowpots.

I put a brick in each bucket to stabilize it.  Planting medium is simply Miracle Gro potting mix.

Crepe Myrtle branches:  I saved a bunch of pruned, fresh, straight branches, though after storing about a month in the garage they are all warping a bit and are not quite straight anymore.  Next time, to prevent warping after harvesting them, immediately anchor them on both ends to a T-post till use  (if possible, need to test this.).

2x  46a2.3 F5, 
2x  55a1.2 F4, 
1x:  28d3.3 F4.

2x CA
1x BC
1x HC  maybe 1 more?
1x FB
1x TD

Still need to transplant FL.  Will grow 4 I think; spike 2 with lots of calcium to test if helps stave off end rot.
Still need to transplant Roma.