Customize your favorite cherry tomato
Take your favorite tomato variety and decide what could make it
even better (i.e. bigger fruits or better fruit set). You will be
working to improve these traits.
Grow about 30 parent plants (you can grow fewer if you don't have
the space--you will reduce your gene pool but will still get
results). Arrange them in a block formation as opposed to a long row
in order to get as much cross-breeding as possible.
Grow your parent plants at least 40 feet from any other tomato
plants in order to keep them from cross breeding.
After removing or 'rouging out' any plants that don't look
healthy or meet your criteria, wait until the tomatoes become ripe
and take seeds from your very best fruits--for example, the top 10%
of the nicest fruits from the 30 % of plants that best meet your
criteria.
After gathering your seeds, put them in a jar of water at room
temperature until the seeds fall to the bottom of the jar. Then
rinse the seeds until the water runs clear, making sure to discard
any debris or seeds that float. You will then dry your seeds by
spreading them in a thin layer on a cookie sheet or wax-coated paper
plate and keeping them at room temperature.
HURRAY! By following these steps, you have most likely improved your
tomato variety tremendously with respect to the traits you were
selecting for. By repeating this process for another year or two,
you can improve them even more and will have a 'customized' tomato
variety that is distinctly different from the original parent
plants.
As an organic gardener, your best defense against disease and pest
problems is a good offense. One of the strongest components of your
offense is to grow vegetable varieties that are resistant to the
pests that you have in your own garden. There are many vegetable
varieties on the market that are tolerant of, or resistant to,
various adverse conditions and pests. However, by breeding your own
variety, you will be creating a custom plant that performs beyond
compare in your garden.
One of the easiest and most rewarding vegetables to work with in
developing your own variety or your own 'landrace' (a subset of a
variety that is uniquely adapted to a certain area, including an
area as specific as your garden) is the tomato. Tomatoes require a
relatively small number of parent plants which enables you to
maintain their genetic diversity by having a group of about 30
plants as opposed to about 1,000 for corn or 100 for broccoli.
Tomatoes also have a relatively small isolation distance of 35 to 40
feet. This means that if you are working on developing a certain
tomato variety (say a cherry tomato), you could have your beefsteak
or canning tomatoes 40 feet away and they will not ruin your work by
breeding with your cherry tomatoes.
Don't be daunted by this project even if you are a small home
gardener. You're the expert on what grows best in your garden. Only
you will know what you're biggest tomato growing challenges are.
Cracking fruit?
Late blight killing your plants? Poor fruit set when the weather is
hot? Beautiful tomatoes with bland flavor? All of these are things
that you can improve through breeding. So, if your favorite tomato
variety has a taste you absolutely love but doesn't grow as well
as you'd like or if you'd like to change the shape, size or flavor
of it in some way, you can have your cake (or organic tomato) and
eat it too!
For more information:
www.savingourseeds.org--has lots of specific technical information.
Geared for professional seed producers and amateurs alike.
See Also:
There's a
Goosefoot in my Garden
It's Easy to Grow
Great Garlic
How Does Your Garden Grow
Part One: Getting to Know Your Soil
Bountiful Basil
Recommended Reading:
digg it