In the few Purple Tomato (clear epidermis) x Pink Tomato (clear epidermis) crosses I have made, the fruit was uniformly pink on all F1 plants.

The segregation and recombination for black/purple began expressing in the F2 and F3.

If you want a "black" F1 both parents will need that gene.

Lee

Susan

Blacks are called "black" with either clear or yellow. skin. "Purple" was the term used for pink tomatoes in the old days. This can be seen in names such as Prudens Purple, and Eva's Purple Ball, so refering to a pink-black as a purple tomato is often confusing.

Green-when-ripes are green regardless of skin color even thought the ones with yellow skin are often amber.

There are several points I'd like to make though:

• There are two things that make a black - the skin and the flesh
  
• "black" flesh is from two basic genes
  
• There are "purplish" fleshed tomatoes
  

Skin (epidermis) and flesh (the meat of a tomato which are the pericarp, septa, columnella and locules)

The skin is only a thin layer. There are three variations of skin that I know of: yellow (the dominant form). clear (recessive) and striped (a separate incompletely dominant gene).

One can simply look at a tomato's outside appearance and determine the color as mentioned by other posters. However if you still can't tell by looking that way, then peel off some skin, scape off any flesh cells still sticking to it and hold it the light. It will either be clearly yellow or whitish (clear).

back and top lit examples. clear skin is "pink/red" because not all of the flesh was removed before it dried

'Cherokee Purple' compared to 'Cherokee Chocolate' is a good example of the clear vs yellow skin and its effect on outside appearance.

Striped skin can have either yellow or clear versions depending on which genes are present.

Flesh with black and purples gets a little more complicated. I mentioned previously the green fleshed gene gf is responsible. But in order to get a black and/or purple the red gene must also be present. So at the most basic level two genes make it happen.

Here's where it gets more complicated. There are actually variations on red and the green flesh genes called alleles, modifiers or quantitative trait loci (QTL's which are several genes acting together) which can subtly alter their appearance. Some might not notice the difference or think the differences has to do with ripeness but their are differences. So there are differences in the red and the green flesh genes (yellow does this too) which ultimately blend to give a certain color perception.

When one combines red and green with paints they end up with "brown". But with the cells of the flesh some express red, some green, and some a mix. It's the combination of those cells and their percentages that determines how that flesh is perceived as either reddish, purple or what I think is a better description than black, "brown". That would be analogous to how much or what types of red or green one used in the paint to get a different shades of brown.

With just red, there is a basic dominant gene but there can be variations in or to that gene that make the flesh express different shades of reds. Which ever are present effects the red color and the way it interacts to give the perception of overall flesh color. Remember that color is the perception from the light that absorbed vs reflected. Some reds pigments reflect/absorb more blue where as some more yellow end of the spectrum. Thus, albeit very subtle one gets a range of red-orange to purple in flesh. I won't go into detail on the genetics of the reds. Just that there are differences.

With the green flesh gene, recent molecular work has found 5 different green flesh alleles (different expressions of the same gene) which probably also alter the perception of the end color. This work was just published last October and it confirmed what I had been seeing in some crosses. Variation in the intensity and perception of either purple or "brown" flesh. I had thought something was there but didn't know if it was an environmental effect or a real difference.

So there are "purple" fleshes that go beyond "pink". They aren't perfect purples but they stand out to me when compared to the more muddy brown selections.

More on that recent molecular work. Think of this molecular work as DNA fingerprinting. 5 alleles (fingerprints) of gf where found to be present in black lines. The author obtained 26 lines "green flesh" with red lines and compared their genes to the marker mutation line for gf and it's regular parent 'Alisa Craig' ('Alisa Craig' normal without gf and Alisa Craig with gf) at the molecular level.

I realize this is complex for most to understand. But if you think back to basic genetics you might recall that genes were made of base pairs (ATGC). They isolated the pairs that made the green flesh by finding the difference between 'Alisa Criag' normal and 'Alisa Craig' + gf. They then looked at those exact sequences in those other lines and found 5 different sets of sequences.

At the simplest a single base pair was different from the normal 'Alisa Craig' parent. Just at one pair an "A" was reversed to a "T". This was given the definition of "gf" From there other changes occurred at other sites or there were deletions to entire sets of base pairs. It's those changes that possibly contribute to the variation in color (the author did not note that).

There was an interesting note to this study. Based on the the "fingerprints" the author noted something I found interesting. In that section he mentioned that 'Cherokee Purple' and 'Cherokee Chocolate' are the same allele for flesh but then goes on to state:

"However, the reported origin of Cherokee Purple as a variety of more than 100 years originally grown by the Cherokee Indians is not supported by our genotyping which indicates that this variety is more likely to be derived from the 'Philippine No. 2' variety. Similarly, the 'Ananas Noire' that is reported to be from Belgium, likely has the same origin..."

He goes on to note that black varieties reported to be from Russia do share the same alleles and probably did originate there from the same source (he actually calls these "brown").

It's highly likely that breeders or people working at the stations shared seed of Philippine No.2 and then other variations arose when other researchers or interested individuals made crosses or new selections (with the exception of the allele gf² in 'Black Plum', noted below, which may have been its own unique mutation). This is possibly how this gene "spread". Much in the same way today that the P20 and OSU lines have been disseminated.

Though the study wasn't complete (it didn't look at every known gf + red type) one can deduce that 'Purple Calabash' or 'Purple Prince' could have been a parent to 'Black Cherry' as they share the same allele.

Here is a summary from the report on the different lines and their alleles:

Ananas Noire - gf
Black Crimson - gf
Black Zebra - gf
Carbon - gf
Cherokee Chocolate - gf
Cherokee Purple - gf
Indische Fleish - gf
Schwarze Sarah - gf

Black Plum - gf2

Black Brandywine - gf3
Black Ethopian - gf3
Black from Tula - gf3
Black krim - gf3
Black Pear - gf3
Black Seaman - gf3
Chocolate Stripes - gf3
Indian Dark Violet Beefstake - gf3
Japanese Black Trifele - gf3
Paul Robeson - gf3
Purple Passion - gf3

Black Cherry - gf4
Purple Calabash - gf4
Purple Prince - gf4

Black Prince - gf5
Nyagous - gf5
Purple Russian - gf5

Note that 'Black Plum' stood alone as a unique mutation/allele in this study. It had a single base pair insertion (addition instead of inversion or deletion) compared to the Alisa Craig "normal" GF sequence.

The study was done to help develop molecular markers to help detect the differences for future breeding efforts in gf based lines.

"A Survey of cultivated heirloom tomato varieties identifies four new mutant alleles at the green-flesh locus." Barry, C.S. and Pandey, P. Mol Breeding (2009) 24:296-276

I never studied botany, instead went to engineering and math.
So, your article is fascinating to me.
Thanks.
cyrus

Do you know any history of Philippine no 2 (When introduced?). My feelings were always that C.P. came from a gardener that just happened to be Cherokee, and that whatever tomatoes anybody had in the 1800s came from seedsmen one way or another and originated with whatever came over from Europe initially or was developed from those tomatoes. Did our Cherokee gardener get his hands on Philippine no.2 at the turn of the century?

It looks like my Black Plum x Lime Green Salad is going to be putting out some variable offpring.

P.S. Isn't it "Ailsa" Craig, named after the Rock where they get curling stones?

my comments are in red

1956

Green flesh, gf

Kerr, E.A.

The fruit of a late-blight resistant tomato obtained from the Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, as Philippine #2 is much fasciated and, when ripe, is a dirty purplish brown color. This ripe fruit color is recessive in the F1 and gives monogenic F2 segregation ratios (3 reds to 1 black). The fruit color is caused by a failure of the chlorophyll to break down when the lycopene is formed. Hence both chlorophyll and lycopene are present in the mature fruit. Since r r fruits (yellow flesh) do not form lycopene, fruits of r r gf gf genotype have a green color when mature. Preliminary tests indicate that gf may be linked (close on the same chromosome and likely seen together) with al (anthocyanin loser gene) in group VI and also with the type of fasciation found in Philippine #2. (Both traits were later reported as not found to be linked)

1961 (in pedigree appendix)

Nagcarlang Tomato type from the Philippines.

Graham, T. O., Horticulture Department, O.A.C. Guelph, Ontario.

The description of the Nagcarlang tomato type which follows has been made up in part from information given by Dr. Eugenio E. Cruz, Director, Bureau of Plant Industry. Manila, Republic of the Philippines and from Dr. Howard Peto, Peto Seed Company, Saticoy, California. The Nagcarlang tomato is the only type which will set fruit in high humidity areas throughout the Philippines. For this reason, during the winter of 1948--49, Dr. Peto called at Manila to see if the Nagcarlang tomato type could be used in a breeding programs so that a canning tomato for the Philippines would result. He also took tomato varieties, over to Mindanao and the Southern Philippines,of which Kolea and Anahu have proven adaptable.

Under Ontario greenhouse condition the flowers of Nagearlang are open in type and the pistils are exposed. As a result one must place pollen on the pistils if pollination is to take place. In the tropics high insect activity possibly carries out cross polination.

The Nagcarlang type has come into Ontario in two shipments. The first seed obtained has been written up in Scientific Agriculture 32:57-66, 1952. As far as is known the only surviving member in breeding programmes of the first shipment made to Ontario in 1948 is the type known as Philippine #2. Dr. Eugenio E. Cruz forwarded Nagcarlang to Guelph in the second shipment made in 1959, this seed having been gathered at Laguna in the Philippines.

In the Philippines Nagcarlang is known to be a wild-type tomato. Its history is unknown. It is not a variety as no two plants are alike. It is simply a heterozygous form which has survived in the jungles of the Philippines and which has also been brought under cultivation and even sold commercially. Dr, Peto has verbally stated that in the Philippines the Nagcarlang type has survived-and become pollinated in areas with 100 inches of rainfall per season. He stated that it ia hard to believe that such wild-type fruit could be sold commercially. However, he saw Nagcarlang fruits being sold when he visited the open market in Manila. He noted that the flowers hang down, shed the water, and do not experience as much blossom drop rainy weather as is experienced by commercial types.

While no two Nagcarlang plants are the same there are points in common. For example, practically all Nagcarlang fruits are small, very rough. and with a purplish "muddy" fruit colour. The fruits are firm and under Ontario conditions flat and sweet in flavour. They mostly ripen late in the season. The plants are very robust, and dense with healthy foliage. While Dr. Peto attributes fruit set under humid conditions to the flowers, the fact that the pollen remains active may have a chemical basis as the plants and fruits of the Nagcarlang type have a distinct purplish colour.

In the Philipyines the Nagcarlang tomato is resistant to disease and to periodic drought. In Ontario it is tolerant to late blight. Under Ontario conditions it will set fruit at temperatures as low as 45 deg. F, which is 10 degrees below the point at which tomatoes normally set fruit. In other words, it is cold tolerant, It is interesting to note that in the tropics Nagcarlang is resistant to sterility caused by damp conditions and in Ontario, far removed from-the tropics, it is resistant to sterility caused by cool conditions.

In the tropics the point of interest in to see if, through a breeding programs, the bridge can be gaped between the wild Nagcarlang type and the commercial varieties found on the North American continent. This would allow the commercial canning of tomatoes to be carried out in certain tropical areas such as the Philippines, where high humidity makes this difficult at the present time.

"In the Philippines Nagcarlang is known to be a wild-type tomato. Its history is unknown."

Maybe Cherokee Indians gave it to them?

And that pattern reflects not only possible origins of varieties but also those that were the result of natural cross pollination as well as deliberate breeding and then stabilized out to an OP.

Schwarze Sarah is really Sara Black, bred by Joe Bratka in the US but translated to SS in Germany so one can't associate SS with Germany, per se.

And maybe now is the time for me to ask Linda Sapp what her husband Vince, now deceased, used to breed Black Cherry. I'd asked her before about parentage and all she'd own up to was that the cherry variety Black Sweet was not part of the parentage.

The variety Black Crimson has appeared quite recently and most are equating it with Black Krim which it can't be b'c the gf allese are different. I've been trying to trace who first made Black Crimson avaialable but haven't been able to pin it down. If anyone has any information I'd appreciate it. There are two wholsale companies in CA that deal in high end fruits and vegetables and in the past I know that one of them has changed the names of known varieties to indicate something new and different.

Nagcarlang has been listed in the SE YEarbook for many years and is listed in the pink/purple section and the current offering is by SSE itself, seeds from an SSE member who is no longer active and had a huge collection, and the current listing says pink fruits.

There are also listings of Wild Phillipine ones listed, but I didn't take the time to riffle through my back Yearbooks to see if any of the them were Phillipine #2.

I've tended to see the so called blacks as either black/reds or black pinks based on visual exteriro color/epidermis color determined,and there are quite a few of the black/pinks that are listed in the pink/purple section of the Yearbook while most of the black/reds are in the other color section.

Carolyn, not part of the "black" tomato fad, but would admit to being part of the green when ripe current fad. LOL

On the other hand, I grew up with a father who would think nothing of making up a story to give you an answer rather than saying "I don't know", so I could see him giving me seeds from a grocery store Roma and being told that my grandfather brought them back from Africa.

Is there any evidence of breeding lines from Philippine no2.

I can't transfer that thread here b'c GW doesn't allow for other message sites to be posted here and in transferring it it's ASAP known b'c of the formatting, which is different than here.

Keith, you've also showed pictures of dark colored accessions from the Rick Center. Do you know where they were from? I know, I know, I could go look but you know the PGRC site so much better than I do that you could do it much quicker.

Speaking to just one comment made in an above post, Craig LeHoullier got the variety now known as Cherokee Purple from J D. Green of TN and it had no name. John had told Craig that the woman he got it from said that it had been grown by the Cherokee. Craig just used the info he was given and at firat called it Cherokee Brick Red, which unfortunately is still listed in the SSE YEarbook, and then changed the name to Cherokee Purple.

All attempts for John to track down the lady who gave him him the seeds have failed, so no other info is known.

At yet another message site a woman from NC said she had seeds directly from some local Cherokee and was offering seeds. I'm growing it out this summer as is Craig, but not holding my breath b'c she also says she has the only this and that variety as an original, which I know to not be true. Oh well.

I would hope that some of the researchers could look at some of the black accessions from the PGRC, b/c it might be useful.

When I have time I'll try to transfer here at least the names of the dark colored varieties known from the early to mid 1800's, but alas, I think all of them are now extinct, but were described in various publications, some of which were cited in that thread elsewhere.

To me it's perfectly possible that what the Cherokee were growing could well have been one of those dark colored varieties known to be in the US in the 1800's.

Additionally, as spiced has already mentioned, it was the Spanish who first distibuted seeds, from Mexico, to the Caribbean and Spain and also to the Phillipines, all on their trading routes at the time, which introduces yet another slant to this interesting story.

The Crimean region has long been thought to be the source of the original dark colored varieties, and I think that's up for reconsideration as well.

Right now I'm in my medieval mystery reading mode but can switch ASAP to any tomato mystery mode quickly, and have. LOL

Carolyn

Check it out. Fegee Beefsteak, offered by Livinston in 1878, alleged to be parent of so-called "True Black Brandywine" and alleged to have been a "maroon" beefsteak not dissimilar otherwise to Crimson Cushion, aka Ponderosa Red, aka Beefsteak.

Could Cherokee Purple have been derived from commerically sourced Fegee Beefsteak and simply continuously grown in Tennessee, or in Arkansas as in the case of Indian Stripe, while its growers just didn't give a squat what name was attached to the seeds grandpa bought?

****

A good friend noted that I'd made an error in the above paragraph.

It was Cherokee Chocolate that Craig first named Cherokee Brick Red, not Cherokee Purple.

I meant to transfer some of that info from there to here but see below.

I haven't been able to use my computer today b'c a power line fell and sparked a brush fire which burned yet more wires and so the power was out all after noon until about 30 min ago. Not on my property but up the road apiece as is said around here.

Carolyn

Could Cherokee Purple have been derived from commerically sourced Fegee Beefsteak and simply continuously grown in Tennessee, or in Arkansas as in the case of Indian Stripe, while its growers just didn't give a squat what name was attached to the seeds granpa bought.

****

Yes Bill, Fegee in all of it's alternative spellings was the main focus of those who posted in that thread I referred to and there plenty of sources and links cited.

But there seems to be some argumment about what color it really was, maroon, dark pink, whatever.

I'm looking at Andy's book right now b'c I forgot to look at your link and don't want to lose this post, and all that's reported is when Fegee was brought back from the South Pacific, which could be anywhere, as I see it, and was brought back in 1841.

And no color was indicated.

And Andy made a point of saying that this early Fegee was dispersed in the US and died out, and that the later variety also known as Fegee was from Italy.

And there sure is a lot of confusion between the two Fegees as I see it.

If the one that came here in 1841 was dark colored and was dispersed then yes, I was going to make the same point you did that the Cherokee and anyone else might have had access to the dark colored Fegee early on since I don't know when it died out and I could em Andy and ask if he knows, but if he did I think he would have given a rough date.

And since WWW says that Brandywine X Fegee gives a black tomato and Andy says Fegee died out it's rather difficult to understand how the dark colored Fegee could have been used in the 1920's to result it what's called True Black Brandywine unless it died out after maybe the 1930's.

There are lots of links I never read in that other thread so when I get the time I'll take another look and see what I can find that might be of interest.

I've known Andy Smith for many years and, well, I'm betting on him and his info unless something else turns up.

Carolyn

Fell completely off the face of the Earth?

Or just fell into obscurity and was only grown by a few individuals in such remote locations that it was only seen again when "civilization" discovered "heirlooms?"

Summary:
Philippine #2 was probably investigated by Peto for resistance

the Nagcarlang that is in TGRC has a different donor source (Miguel Holle from the International Potato Center in Peru) vs the USDA (Bureau of Plant Industry from Manila). They appear to be different:

TGRC

USDA description
Plant erect, stiff, to 49 inches high and 11 inches wide; fruit 1.6 by 2.5 inches, distorted shapes, purple, seven loculed, late maturing. A wild, cold-resistant type with protruding pistils which set fruit under rainy conditions.

There are many "gf" lines in the TGRC.

Hope this helps!