Tigerette x Cherokee Purple

[PVP]

Had a nice surprise this morning. The F1 seeds from Tigerette x Cherokee Purple cross I did two years ago sprouted.

Tigerette is a small stature dwarf determinate with chartreuse, rugose foliage and extremely short internodes - very compact but not a micro dwarf. The fruit can be yellow fleshed or red fleshed, it appears from the two plants I grew in 2008. Both flesh colors had gold stripes and the fruit is elongated, small plum saladette. Flavor not noteworthy.

For some strange reason, I crossed some Cherokee Purple pollen to flowers on both Tigerette plants. The Tigerette flowers are really small and tight and hard to emasculate when unopened, so I though I probably had botched the cross and did not plant the F1 seeds last year. In fact, the cross to the red fleshed plant yielded about 20 seeds and the cross to the yellow fleshed plant yielded only 6 seeds.

Anyway, I took a wild notion to plant half the red fleshed cross this year and this morning was surprised to see 6 of them germinated. One is a dead head and two still are bowed over with their heads in the dirt.

But three of the sprouts are up a bit taller that the other dwarf Tigerette seedlings in the same tray even though the F1 crosses emerged two days later.

Best of all, the F1 crosses have dark green cotyledons while all the other Tigerette sprouts have bright, chartreuse cotyledons; so I know I got at least 3 successful Tigerette x Cherokee Purple F1 starts.

Have no idea whatever why I did this or what to expect. Maybe something similar to the TV Dwarf Project but with unusual leaf color and a medium size, striped salad tomato.

[jcm05]

Interesting to say the least. Keep us updated on this. Maybe with some pics of the unusual foliage.

[PVP]

Update

Tigerette is the most diminuative seedlings of all the dwarf varieties I'm growing this year. The tallest Tigerette today is 1.5 inches tall with two sets of true leaves emerged and the meristem indicating the tips of the third set just now. These babies are super stocky and way stumpy. They are very consistent with one another considering they're open pollinated and I have about 36 total seedlings. They are all chartreuse as noted before and have thick, light greenish-white stems.

The tallest Tigerette x Cherokee Purple (all are F1) is 2.25 inches with two sets of true leaves fully emerged and the meristem showing about 1/3 of the first leaf of the next set. These plants (all 9 of them) also are consistent with one another within 1/4 inch height and are very stocky but not as stumpy as the Tigerettes. The hybrid is dark green with thick, purple stems.

Although the Tigerette x Cherokee Purple were planted on March 17, the other non-dwarf varieties planted on March 21 all are 1/2 to 1.25 inches taller with only two sets of true leaves emerged and no new leaf tips showing just yet.

In fact, a few of the F5 and F7 dwarves, especially the potato leaf ones, are as tall or nearly as tall as the Tigerette x Cherokee Purple (F1).

I was not involved in growing out any F1 or F2 seeds for the Tomatoville Dwarf Project so I don't have the foggiest as to what folks saw with Dwarf x Indeterminate at the F1. Did anyone happen to see the dwarf gene significantly reduce the height of the F1, or did that just show up in the F2?

Mule told me that Dwarf x Intermediate would shorten the internode of the intermediate in the F1, but I just didn't know how much to expect. This looks significant.

[sorellina]

Ciao Bill-

I only saw indeterminates in the F1 for the Happy dwarf I grew out. It was the F2 when we started seeing the short stature of the dwarf gene. I sure hope you get that chartreuse foliage in one of the generations.