Cross Pollinate and create a new tomato
behlgarden(9)September 29, 2011
I have cherry tomatoes that are still putting up fruit and then I have chocolate stripe and few other heirlooms that are putting up flowers but no tomatoes.
I was thinking about cross polinating the big heirlooms with cherry. any tips? will the resulting plant be a cherry or bigger?
has anyone done cross polination and what has been the result?
All you need to know about making crosses is in the link below.
Perhaps you've heard of Dora, Bear Creek, Liz Birt and the very popular Purple Haze F1, etc., all hybridized by Keith.
At the site click on CULTURE then scroll down to How to make Crosses and below that the link to gene basics which you'll need to know about depending on what your goal for a cross is.
I've not done any deliberate crosses but have dehybridized a natural cross that led to the variety OTV Brandywine and also dehybridizd Ramapo F1 to an open pollinated version.
it's lots of fun to make crosses and many folks do it, but you do have to have enough room after the initial cross to form the F1 hybrid, assuming you start with both parents that are OP ( open pollinated) to plant out from the saved F2 seeds, make selections and go from there.
Hope that helps.
Carolyn, and look around at that site b;c there's lots of information and links to great articles and so much more.
Here is a link that might be useful: Keith Mueller's excellent site