So then really Tomatillo and tomato are not close relatives.

What is the Myth ?

I have read over the years so many comments that if you want your tomatillo produce fruits, you HAVE TO HAVE more than one plant. I have challenged that notion 3 times in the past and am doing it for the 4th time this season: THAT IS ABSOLUTELY WRONG.

I planted (AGAIN) a single tomatollo plant. When I bought the plant in late May it already had few flowers. I was pretty sure that they won't make it. I was right and it kept flowering all June, July and August, no husks in sight. Come September it started setting husks like crazy.
WHY? You would think that tomatillo (Especially Mexican strain, according to the tag) should like warm weather better, then how come it got to works when the temps went down quite a bit ? Hmmmm

JUST A THEORY:
I have not heard this nor I have read it anywhere but I think tomatillo is day - length sensitive. Being a native to mexico they like short days. Bu here in Seattle area our sommer day get almost 16.5 hours around June 22. (~ 15 hrs in May 22 ?). Early September about 13 hours. That is a short day.

By the way we have had plenty of honey bees, bubmle bees all along and the bees just love tomatillo flowers.

OK. Here is a shot from my lone tomatillo plant

If it is really prolific seysonn, I would think another Physalis sp. pollination source started blooming and all the bees are doing your plant the favor. They are weedy, very receptive and vigorous to that. Save the seed and grow it next time to see if the fruit looks any different.

Mexican Husk Tomatoes are thought to no be self-pollinating, but ag isn't a perfect world, so to say that no fruits form under the single plant scenario seems wrong to me, just that genetically they are incompatible so the incidence of self pollenizing/pollination will be quite low. You can tweak that by pollinating them a lot, but to explain the going wild growth of fruits, I think that requires either a mutation (less likely) or another Physalis like the strawberry tomato, prarie ground cherry or the Mexican husk tomatoes themselves which may be nearby, or are growing like weeds in disturbed soil, including in Seattle, or the other possibly identical or different subspecies of Husk-Tomato, P. p. philadelphica, which is native to Washington. But exercise a bit of caution, as some groundcherries which will pollinate the Mexican Husk Tomato are not edible.

I don't know that there are any myths, just that self-fertilization is at a much lower incidence due to the genetic barrier. But if you want to bust any "myth", you need to isolate the plant from all pollen sources of similar weeds within the genus which are flowering at the same time, expecially the guy at the other end of the road who has a few tomatillos that the behive is quite aware of since they love them :-)

PC-JMO

It is a question of quantity and quality desired and the growing conditions and insect activity in the area. Tomatillos require cross-pollination. So for ideal production across a broad range of growing conditions, growing more than one plant at a time is always recommended.

If you wish to plant only one plant for some reason, are fortunate enough to get some production from it, and are content with the production it provides, fine.

But that is no way makes it the ideal approach nor does it prove it would work for all. Rather it is simple math - the more blooms open at the same time, the more likely pollination and fruit set happens.

Dave

I have a suggestion for those who don't want 2 giant tomatillo plants in their garden, but still want the pollination benefits of having multiple plants. When I set out my tomatillo seedling in the spring, I direct-sow a handful of tomatillo seeds in the shade of the plant. By the time the direct-sown seedlings come up and start growing, the initial plant is well on its way to becoming a monster, and casts its shadow on the babies. This keeps them from ever getting very big, which is fine, because I want them to get just big enough to provide pollen for the main plant, and no more.

I've even had success pollinating one plant using cuttings from a second plant, kept in a vase of water at the base of the plant. I found this out the hard way one year when my pollinator plant died. A friend gave me cuttings in a vase, which I intended to plant once they established roots. I never got around to planting the cuttings, but it turns out it didn't matter. The main plant had essentially 100% pollination.

I don't buy cross pollination theory based on 4 years of experimenting myself. My plant is huge and ALL summer long had been covered with countless flowers.

As far as getting pollens from supposedly some unkown plant or weed, again is not logical. First of all, how come it did not happen in May, June, July, August ? Secondly, if somebody make such a claim , should come up with the name(s) of those weeds. Third, any cross pollination can introduce new genes and thereby change the fruits characteristics. So by now we should've had thousands of tomatillo varieties. But we don't.

Where is says production, go to Mexico and then find the info below that on self incompatibility and what other Physallis species within such and such a distance can serve as pollinators via insects.

Carolyn, who notes that this article has not been deleted by those who initially put up the link as have many of the earlier links for many items she has in her faves, which indicates to her that many still find valuable info in it.

Tomatillo is self-incompatible, so all plants are hybrids. Pollination is by insects. Cross pollination with other cultivars or other Physalis spp. would be possible if the plants are closer than 500 m. All seed production must be carried out in isolation.
----------------------------
the statement above is not very clear to me. It says:

Tomatillo is self-incompatible, so all plants are hybrids.

WHAT? It is self-incompatible, so they are hybrid?
Does that imply that, e.g, a hybrid tomato is self-incompatible ?

Then it goes on and says:

All seed production must be carried out in isolation.

Interesting. How they get cross pollinated in isolation ?

Anyway. I have experimented and am talking about it. Not just once, twice , thrice but FOUR times. It is like I have some yogurt in front of me and I am saying it is white but somebody else is telling me that I am wrong, yogurt should be black.

NEED TO MAKE THIS CLEAR>
It is possible that flowers within a single plant get cross pollinated (by insects, breeze..)BUT it does not mean that you have to have more than one plant to get fruits.

Because both the source of pollen and the warmer night peaked in mid-late August and you saw the effects in early September, according to your data.

"Secondly, if somebody make such a claim , should come up with the name(s) of those weeds."

I already did name them in my post above, and they incluse the most obvious source, other Mexican Husk Tomatoes (All Tomatillos are weeds IMO).

"Third, any cross pollination can introduce new genes and thereby change the fruits characteristics. So by now we should've had thousands of tomatillo varieties."

Big deal. Every time anyone fertilizes anything, new genes are expressed and mixed in interesting ways. "Tomatillos" are weeds and not many people give a crap about them. Scientists probably should get some help separating the complex if you can provide them data that there aren't many wild husk tomatoes and tomatillos,or Physalis this or Physalis that, again, including regular tomatillos that someone is growing nearby.

No sense complicating it. You could have had more Tomatillos in May, June, July and August if you planted another plant in your garden, but not the explosion, since until August the temps at night were on the upswing in your place.

In middle August and late August you had your two spurts of warm night time temperatures, so you now have the results of them in September, and the rest now is downhill. Those two warm night temperatures caused all the Husk Tomatoes and related weeds to grow vigorously wherever they were and give bees more pollen to bring to your plant.
Night temperature is critical, day length, if anything would. There are at least two main factors to put together to explain your results. The night lows, and when other wild or cultivated plants are blooming.

But why be so critical. The idea of day length is looking for a more complicated explantation than others that have been presented, and it is usually lack of light that causes failure, especially at your muted Northern Latitudes.

This is really barking up the wrong tree, the more Sun the better. If you add the night low temp in there you will see, but one graph is enough here:

PC

Now whether or not seysonn's plants were pollinated by other plants I obviously cannot say. Whether a brief upswing in the nighttime temperature played a role I cannot say.

Rodney

IMO seysonn's confused correlation with causation. There is no reason to suspect that 14-15 hours vs. 13 hours of light will do anything except help boost the plants with more light they need.

He asserts that the northern part of Washington State is a reasonable comparison to Mexico regarding day length ... which is quite absurd IMO, when you consider the total Solar power during Mexican Summers is overpowering anything the Washington/Canadian border area can deliver.

There is no theory, since he has done nothing to control the factors already known as important, namely checking when other pollen sources become available and how his Mexican Husk Tomato handles cold temperatures so far from home and what effect that will have on fruit setting, or even getting the accumulated solar watts and intensity.

Reminds me of when he complains about hybrids being readily breed-able and other mavericky such things. But the subject is an interesting excuse to see what sort of weather his section of the country faces in the further northern reaches of Husk Tomato growing.

Here, if you look at his April, May, June, and July you will see that until July temperatures at night regularly dropped to below 50 F, and July had a good run early on but then quickly lost steam and had cool night temperatures. It wasn't till mid August that he had a good warm night performance and pollen from other sources likely became plentiful and could reach his plant:

That IMO is more of a theory rather than anecdotal claim since it has been established that Tomatillos have a barrier to self-pollination. He’s had flowers all this time but no set. Cold nights and little pollen, no big surprise ... no set. Their threshold is somewhere between 50 F -55 F Warm nights, which in turn get all the tomatillos going wild and presto, fruits. Not complicated, and no need to say Washington has too long a photoperiod for Tomatillos in the summer!

PC, always interested in seeing tropical plants being grown in temperate climates.

The source of other possible cross pollinator plant( as put forward) is also mythical. The area where I am is not a prairie. It is mostly new modern residential developments, well manicured landscapings, practically with no unattended open area. The rest of raw land is wooded with western evergreens.
I asked how come it (cross pollination) did not happen in June, July and August but in September ? PC is saying that warmer nights set the stage for husk setting. I must inform you that all of June, July, August our night temps have been average around 56-57F. I check it more than once a day. All summer I
there has been no more than 15 nights with lows staying over 60F and higher as it follows per Accuweather data bank:

JUNE 0 nights. highest low 58 , only twice
JULY 5 nights
AUGUST 12 nights (90 % from 1st to 19th)
SEPT (so far) =0 . The highest of lows has been 59F

Look at this, if you will: Today's high was 89F. Tonight low will be 53F.
As Rodney already mentioned, the day length (shown in PC's graph) Is exactly what I have theorized.

PC wrote:

In middle August and late August you had your two spurts of warm night time temperatures, so you now have the results of them in September,

not true , PC. According to the data, per accuweather in front of me (another page).here are the numbers:

MID to END of August night low occurances : 60F>5 times;;; 59F> 2 ;; 58F> 2 ;; 57-53F> 7 times.
60F is not a "WARM" night by any stretch of imagination.

He asserts that the northern part of Washington State is a reasonable comparison to Mexico regarding day length ... which is quite absurd IMO, when you consider the total Solar power during Mexican Summers is overpowering anything the Washington/Canadian border area can deliver.

................................
absolutely wrong. Where did you get that from?
I have been saying to the contrary all along that Mexico has shorter summer days ( 12 to 13 hrs, just rough estimate) and I made a theory that perhaps tomatillo (Like some other plants) is day length sensitive..

Second: How did you construct your last chart?

here is Sep 1rst to 15th lows (Actual)
55/ 57 /55/ 52/ 57/ 59/ 56/ 56/ 56/ 54/ 55/ 50/ 53/ 54F
Aug. 20 -31
57F/ 52/ 56/ 57/ 56/ 58/ 60/ 61/58/ 59/ 59/ 57

so actually there has been no shift in night lows all of August. The average has been steady at around 58F.

If you really put together a temperature comparison

With respect to the photoperiod, I pretty much dismissed that it had anything to do with it since you said they'd been flowering. If day or night length had anything to do with it there wouldn't be any blooms initiated in the first place IMO. An argument against that would be to name any reasonable Solanaceous plant that is sensitive to long day (rather than short, which seem to be more likely IMO).

As for the Husk Tomato genus weeds, I'd love t go visit the Olympic Rainforest sometime and stop by on the way to spend a day poking around the neighborhood to find stray tomatillos and crosses of them. Loser has to buy the beers LOL. Lots of parks around there, and where did you buy your plant, at the Home Depot down the road in Issaquah,or, Redmond or Bellevue, or some nearby Lowes or Walmart, my point being there are other plants getting out there, and places where husk tomatoes can escape and grow near the Friendliest City in America ;-)

PC

In any case that's another factor to consider if you want to get to the bottom of what allows the plant want to set fruit without jumping to any conclusions and eliminating other ideas that are more likely from what we know about tomates. That would probably as big a priority to check out as cool nights. Basically the same two factors that cause my tomatoes here in pseudo-Florida (Northern Coast) not to set, hot nights in the summer and cold nights in the winter, even when you can mitigate them to get the plants through they don't always set, and then the temperatures change and the fruit sets like clockwork.

PC

Your juggling the numbers does not prove the requirement for having more than one plant.
I had already done reporting the appropriate lows from Accuweather . And that proved nothing in support of your point.
I have not entered weather into this discussion. Because our weather has been quite steady. BUT if any effect coming from the weather HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT YOU MUST HAVE MORE THAN ONE PLANT. that has been my point. The day length theory, is just that a theory that offers some possible explanation.
It has been said that tomatillo is native to Central Mexico ( latitude about 25N). Sammamish WA is on/near latitude ~48N.
I have done this experiment in Atlanta, GA (latitude ~33N) and got early and better results down there (Twice).

As far as blooming and not setting: As I mentioned before , the plant already had few flower on it when I bought it from nursery and kept flowering all along. Flowering and setting fruit are different issues. It happens in a lot of plants. It is called Blossom Drop. That is when the conditions are not right(Whatever they might be).
This is a FACT that my plant kept flowering June, July , August , September. And only from very late August and early September it started growing and ballooning husks.

Cross pollination theory is not correct. Even presence of insects is not a requirement tho it can be helpful. Last year my plant was sprawling. An when I pulled it after the frost, it had many husk touching the ground that I don't thing bees would bother that much. Anyway, that is beyond the point.

Enough said already.

1) You had no fruit set through August although you had lots of blooms the whole time.
2) Suddenly in September they went gangbusters self-pollinating.

You made the "theory" to fit your data, that although they self-pollinate fine, the day length was too long for them to set fruit, but as soon as the day length in Washington became 13 hours, all was fine and they self-fertilized and set fruit vigorously.

Problem with this sort of thinking is, there are already theories out there that explain everything that happened better than anything you said. Simply, the nights were too cold and the days were too warm, so the 13 hours day becomes a total red herring that didn’t belong in your post to start with since you confused a correlation with causation. Now you complain to me for opening my mouth about the absurd length theory to explain what already has IMO a very solid explanation. Hey, I wouldn’t be talking about it if it wasn’t part of your interpretation of your experience and discussed at length in your post.

Then we are back to the self-pollinating “myth” you aretrying to set straight, which is the first part of the two extraordinary claims. Extraordinary because nearly every reference for people that grow these plants mention the genetic barrier and it is out there in the literature by people who studied it. I say it is more likely someone else is growing tomatillos (and they do seed very well on their own) after reading your comment that the bees are all over the plant. You don't accept that.

I agree to disagree ;-)

Isolate a plant if you want to make an extraordinary claim on self-pollination, even though when you got your plants the day length was similar and no fruits were formed.

Perhaps you are always getting mutant plants. Hey, at least you don’t sound so keen on the day-length business now that I made you look at the highs and lows and you apparently came to the conclusion by yourself that highs abd lows are the most likely explanation for failure to set fruit, just like tomatoes LOL. Seemed to me you were so sure of your self-pollinating theory, that you invented the day length theory to explain why it didn't initially self-pollinate with all the blooms that fell off since you were focused on self-pollination and not thinking it through. Now you get my point that the blossom drop is temperature related. No problem. Thanks for the spirited discussion. It is good to challenge the status quo and I respect that.

PC

The recommendation is to plant more than one for several reasons. No different than planting 1 artichoke, 1 stalk of corn, 1 squash plant, etc.

Hey, if you only want to plant one tomatillo plant - go for it. But shouting from the mountain tops that you have solved one of the great mysteries of life is just plain silly..

Dave

So all this ranting is just so you can claim that you are right and everyone else is wrong? How profound! Since when does 1 incidence of anecdotal experience prove anything?
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

1 incidence of anecdotal experience prove anything?

It is not JUST ONE incidence. And it is not anectodal. You are free to think so. It has been done 4 times. Even a single incidence prove that you can have tomatillo fruits with just one plant. But I have done it 4 different time, in GA and WA.
You have to come up with a reasoning not just saying "everybody else says this or that"

BTW: You have said the following before:

" Posted by digdirt 6 -7 AR (My Page) on
Mon, Jul 25, 11 at 21:32

Just like tomatoes, they will only set fruit within a specific air temperature and humidity level range. That is regardless of how many plants you have.

So while I agree that you get the best results with more than one plant, IF the pollen is viable it is possible to get a few fruit from a single plant. "
HMMM. What is "few"?

Posted by wertach 7b SC (My Page) on
Tue, Jun 3, 14 at 12:39

I agree seysonn, I have grown one plant many times also and they produced.

My reason for only having one plant sometimes is because I don't use many tomatillo's and one plant is more than enough.
----------------------------
Posted by fmart322 Z6SNJ (My Page) on
Tue, Jun 3, 14 at 20:35

I've grown just one plant and it produced a lot of fruit.
it also got huge and took up a lot of space.
---------------------------------------

Sometimes a person will set out one plant and get fruits and have no idea if there are any other Physalis species nearby that could overcome the incompatibility of that one plant.

Some persons think that Tomatillos have the same temperature requirements to set fruits as do tomatoes, and some don't/

Some think this thread has run its course and some don't, I'm in the former group.

Carolyn, who has grown tomatillos and Cape Gooseberries and Chinese Lanterns in the Physalis genus.

Carolyn

WHAT? It is self-incompatible, so they are hybrid?
Does that imply that, e.g, a hybrid tomato is self-incompatible

There are different kinds of botanical incompatibility.

Self-incompatibility means that the plant in question must be pollinated by a different plant. So your tomatillo plant cannot pollinate itself, but your plant can be pollinated by another tomatillo plant of the same variety, or by another tomatillo plant of a different variety. [I've never heard before that tomatillos can be pollinated by other Solanaceae, so I can't address that issue.]

All tomatillos are hybrids in the sense that the pollen parent is a different physical plant from the plant which bears the fruit.

Here's a PubMed abstract dealing with how self-incompatibility works:

Self-incompatibility is a widespread mechanism in flowering plants that prevents inbreeding and promotes outcrossing. The self-incompatibility response is genetically controlled by one or more multi-allelic loci, and relies on a series of complex cellular interactions between the self-incompatible pollen and pistil. Although self-incompatibility functions ultimately to prevent self-fertilization, flowering plants have evolved several unique mechanisms for rejecting the self-incompatible pollen. The self-incompatibility system in the Solanaceae makes use of a multi-allelic RNase in the pistil to block incompatible pollen tube growth. In contrast, the Papaveraceae system appears to have complex cellular responses such as calcium fluxes, actin rearrangements, and programmed cell death occurring in the incompatible pollen tube. Finally, the Brassicaceae system has a receptor kinase signalling pathway activated in the pistil leading to pollen rejection. This review highlights the recent advances made towards understanding the cellular mechanisms involved in these self-incompatibility systems and discusses the striking differences between these systems.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11814052

==========

The source of other possible cross pollinator plant( as put forward) is also mythical. The area where I am is not a prairie. It is mostly new modern residential developments, well manicured landscapings, practically with no unattended open area.

Well, whether or not there are any wild Solanaceae in the area, residential developments are just the place I'd expect to find a few veggie gardens with tomatillo plants!

Got yuppies in the neighborhood? Got Latinos? Got foodies? Got anyone who makes salsa? Then the chances are excellent that you're not the only tomatillo-grower. And as was said above, the bees are bringing the pollen to your plant.

==========

So since you have no way of proving that your tomatillo fruit haven't been fathered by half a dozen different tomatillos planted by your neighbors, the only way you can logically claim that tomatillos aren't self-incompatible is to grow a single plant in total isolation (completely closed and bee-less greenhouse, etc.), flick the flowers each day to encourage the pollen to move, and then see if you have any fruitset.

==========

Tomatillo is self-incompatible, so all plants are hybrids.

WHAT? It is self-incompatible, so they are hybrid?
Does that imply that, e.g, a hybrid tomato is self-incompatible

No, it doesn't imply that a hybrid tomato is self-incompatible. Tomatillos are self-incompatible, but tomatoes aren't self-incompatible. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that a hybrid tomato would be self-incompatible.

Furthermore, the sense in which "hybrid" is being used is different for tomatoes and tomatillos. All tomatillos are by definition hybrids -- their genes come from two different plants. Tomatoes, on the other hand, need not have two different parents: pollen can fertilize the same plant (even the same flower). In that case, each seed contains two identical sets of chromosomes.

And if a tomato is fertilized by another tomato of the same OP variety, then each seed contains two sets of chromosomes with exactly the same genes. (Same deal.)

When I was in junior high I could have told you why your "then hybrid tomatoes are self-incompatible" argument is a logical fallacy, but that was half a century ago.... Maybe someone younger can address that.

Some persons think that Tomatillos have the same temperature requirements to set fruits as do tomatoes, and some don't/

Are we talking about temperature requirement/conditions here ? NO!
Are we comparing tomatillo setting fruits to tomato ? NO.

The point is: CAN A SINGLE TOMATILLO PLANT PRODUCE FRUITS ? This is regardless of temperature.

Let me propose a possible scenario here:

Suppose that I did one or more cuttings from my sole plant early on and ended up with 3 plants. Will then they produce fruit ?
I would think that the flower on all those plants are genetically identical

Another scenario.
I saved seeds from a single tomatillo fruit. And subsequently planted, say, 3 seeds and each became a plant, growing next to each other. Would they then produce fruits ?

I would think again that the flower on all those plants are genetically identical

&&&&&

No Seysonn, I don't have to participate in this thread or any other thread, but since I put up the link that I did a lot of posting has referred to information in that link.

So I will post where and when I want to.

Carolyn

Carolyn
%%%%%%%%%%%%
sure, of course. That is the choice we all do have.
Thank you .

I am going to isolate a few buds, which have not opened yet ( by nylon tulle). This way no insects can possibly have a chance to introduce pollens for another source. This will take some time. I should have thought about this earlier.

That may be someone's idea, but it is an experiment.

You wrote:

"Another scenario.
I saved seeds from a single tomatillo fruit. And subsequently planted, say, 3 seeds and each became a plant, growing next to each other. Would they then produce fruits ?

I would think again that the flower on all those plants are genetically identical"

No, no and no, for the three plants. Stop making assumptions and better inform yourself. Each seed is the product of a different pollen particle. Tomatoes and by extrapolation husk tomato, sex and conception is different from human sex, there are, for argument's sake, from 20 - 300 ovules in a blossom if I have that right. Your tomato is the product of an orgiastic union in which one pollen grain ends up satisfying one ovule and plenty of pollen grains can end up as odd men out. That is why complete pollination can be important if you want a big tomato, since partial fertilization may not stimulate unfertilized ovules to develop seeds *as well as* tomato flesh surrounding them.

Further easy experiments you can try, if you are willing to not presuppose your conclusion of self-fertilization, are:

(1) to count how many healthy looking seeds are in the fruit you already have set.

and (2) try to sprout them (10 days, typical) just like tomato seeds.

In experiment (1) you are checking the uniformity of pollination which is self-fertilized vigorously would probably reach a maximum level of the total number of ovules. If by introduced pollen from other sources, this might vary. Check a random distribution of fruit sizes so not to introduce systematic error.

In experiment (2), which you will finish in two weeks' time, you are checking an alternate hypothesis that is reasonable to check, and would post-facto, potentially support your conjecture of "self-fertilization" (actually not fertilization but simply self-stimulation).

If the seeds sprout, you now have data that your fruits contain viable seeds. If they do not sprout and you do a serious job at it, that would suggest that fertilization never took place, but pollination or some other mechanism did stimulate fleshy growth. This is an interesting hypothesis to me in that if it were found to be, likely further hypotheses would be pollen from the same plant may have triggered the fruit growth, but fertilization may have been prevented, sort of between the extremes being argued.

The birds and bees of Tomato Love, as PC understand it.

In experiment (2), which you will finish in two weeks' time, you are checking an alternate hypothesis that is reasonable to check, and would post-facto, potentially support your conjecture of "self-fertilization" (actually not fertilization but simply self-stimulation). "
------------------------------------------

I am not interested in doing such experiments.

Just answer the cloning question (if you will) AND also what would be your explanation if an isolated bud/ flower produces fruit ? If it happens ?

I think you guys need to step outside and lace up the gloves. This is insane. It's freakin' tomatillos for crying out loud. Big whoop.
%%%%%%%%%%%%

Don't you worry, Deeby !
Nobody is getting hurt here.

Just answer the..."

All right seysonn,

No further need for responses to anything here LOL, since disinterest is contagious, and it is evolving to be off topic...not transferrable to tomatoes. I see you already made your conclusions and would much rather mark fire hydrants than a constructive and enjoyable discussion about "genetics" which is what I want.

Please accept my wishes for good luck with your project, and any respectable original idea you may have. If you should learn anything new either way, there is nothing wrong with adjusting your ideas as part of the reasearch and learning curve. I do it all the time.

(Deeby, I actually agree with seysonn. No one is getting hurt, just bored, impatient, irrational, stir crazy and whatever else is typical when herding cats)

PC, who believes men sent by NASA walked on the moon.

Seemed to be the whole point of the thread to begin with.

Real proof, produced 4 times.
You believe in what you think. I have no quarrel with anyone.

On Sept 17, I wrote "
IDEA, is idea for an experiment here. Is that understood ?
I don't like to get into lengthy discussions on details of genetics.
But you did not say anything about cloning ?
If I plant 3 clones, what will happen ?

Subsequently I isolated two bud, not nearly to open yet. I covered them with tight nylon tulle, that no even smallest insect

Isolated flowers

So then I gave them time to flower and finish all sexual activity. Finally I saw husks formed in the tulle.

Removed the tulle and marked them ( by tying a piece of the same tulle:

Here are some pictures.

I Think, probably this late in the season that temps are going down to 50s and 60s those husks won't be filled but nevertheless the flowers have been self pollinated and fruits formed.

So this experiment has proved 100% to me that tomatillo is in fact both self pollinating and self sufficient, just like tomatoes. I am sure that inter pollination within a SINGLE plant by wind or insect can improve the odds.

CASE CLOSED !

With the frost in forecast, yesterday I harvested some husks near full. But since my plant started setting much late in the season and due to cool temperatures afterwards, the husk did not get real full. Amazing thing is that I found some flowers on the plant. The plant still looks healthy while all my my tomatoes are dead and gone.

Here is a picture of my harvest. Ten times more are left on the plant which are half full or even smaller