BLT worthy micro, with a hope for size.

[dfollett]

Yes, final cull is determined by height, girth and vigor - as long as they meet minimum standards for each. One thing I look at more and more in addition to overall height is the distance between leaf nodes. Sometimes, two will be the same height, but one shows more leaf nodes that are closer together. Pick that one. The ones that are short but with a greater distance between leaf nodes will usually continue to stretch out more than the others do..

One other selection criterion you may use for the final pot is whether it is multiflora or not (if you want one or the other). By the time I put them in their final pot, they usually have started to blossom - sometimes set fruit. Although if you get very much fruit set, they struggle when transplanted.

What Sean described is likely what you will see. I typically move between 1/3 and 1/2 up to the final pot - and then you'll still see what Sean describes. They all gain height slowly. Some reach a certain height and quit getting taller. Some do not. The later the F generation, the more consistency you will see - which is what we are after.

[HL2601]

When I started over 100 150xF2's in November I noticed 2 remarkably smaller seedlings and tagged them. By the time they were ready to ripen fruit-March-they had both "caught up." I always keep the smallest seedlings but sometimes that can be misleading with these micros, just as Dan and Sean have said above.

[CBo]

7 weeks from seed

[dfollett]

They look quite uniform. Are they the same line or is that a mix of different lines? 135X by chance?

[CBo]

They are 109x from an orange fruit.
I have another tray of 109x from a pink/orange bi-color that i havent posted pics from yet. I'm culling today to move those up to 1 gallon pots for the final grow out.

[CBo]

Here is from the 109x pink/orange fruit:
First is the main group I potted up.
the. There are 11 and I decided to keep 2 additional for fun. I just liked the looks of them. One is dang near a PL but just quite ain’t.
One major leaf broke off a couple weeks ago so it looks a little lopsided. oh yeah, it’s the only one out of 11 that is in full bloom. That’s out of 11 that graduated and are going to 1 gal pots. It also includes an additional 8 culls I have that are too tall that are only pushing buds out now. Haven’t tossed them yet.
So, it’s got earliness potential? 7 weeks from seed yesterday.

It also has a thick stem and nice node spacing. Definitely got the rugose characteristics. Height will be wildcard, well, and fruit.
I will say that the first truss has some nice sized flowers and buds. There are 9 flowers total on it. It terminates in a trilfoliate leaflet on its own stem.

[dfollett]

I assume one that blooms first would have earliness potential but I've never followed through to confirm that they mature first. 6-7 weeks is about the time I pot them into their final pot. Most are showing blossoms by them. Often you can identify the multiflora by then. I think I owe you a write-up of what you might expect from the different crosses. I'll try to do that tonight.

[CBo]

Dan, they all have small buds but varying degrees of emergence across the spectrum.
The plant I saved is in full bloom. I am not seeing yellow on anyone else. Definitely soon on many though.
I get it though, the meaningful measure would be when a fruit is harvested days from sowing.
So far, I don’t seem to have any MF.

[dfollett]

Here is a quick write-up about the three crosses you have.

109X – I don’t have specific expectations for this cross other than they should be interesting. I know very little about the indeterminate that is the male parent of this cross. It was a large RL F1 that produced large tasty multi-colored beefsteak fruit that was red with green and yellow striping. The female parent was an RL F1 micro that was itself a cross between a CL micro and an RL micro. Both of the micro grandparents had multiflora in their pedigree. They both also had multi-color in their pedigree. With that much differentiation in the pedigree, You could see most anything and stabilization of characteristics may be difficult.

128X – This is another cross similar to 109X, but the female parent of the cross was CL rather than the RL F1 of a CL X RL cross of 109X. You should see a minimum of 25% CL. They have the potential for multiflora, multi-color and who knows what else. As I’ve said before, some crosses have a significant number of micros and others seem to have very few if any that stay small. I don’t know about this cross.

There is one thing you could look for in this cross that may help us learn more about the genetics of micros and leaf type. 113X is a cross using the same mama as 128X and a different F1 with similar characteristics. Both F1 male parents are multicolored hybrids from FrogsLeap Farms. When I grew and micro-hunted 113X I didn’t pay attention to leaf type as I culled the tall plants – usually before they put out any true leaves. At the end of the process, the majority of the plants left as micros were CL, instead of the 25% that would have been expected. Mark McCaslin of FrogsLeap farms saw the same results with F2 seed from the same cross – again without tracking leaf type of the culled seedlings. It appears there may be some linkage between some of the genes that make the micro and CL. That is only speculative at this point but should be something that would be interesting to investigate.

161X – This is a cross between an F2 CL micro and an F3 RL micro. Both micros have multiflora, multi-color, CL, RL and PL in their pedigree. You should see a significant number of CL (25% or more) in the mix. There should also be a significant possibility for relatively large fruit on a micro. I am currently growing my first F2s of 161X. They are only about 7 weeks along, but I have been impressed so far.

[dfollett]

Finally getting ripe fruit from the 135X F4s. I have posted a few photos of some of the more promising ones in a few places. I need to consolidate them. I just picked these 3 oz., 4 oz. and 5 oz. fruit from two sibling plants. The 3 & 5 oz came off this 10" plant. It has a bunch more, but they haven't ripened yet. The flavor of the 4 oz. was great (for an indoor tomato), but not quite up to summer outdoor standards. But it did taste like a real tomato and not like a cherry tomato.?

[SeanInVa]

Very nice Dan!

[mwamsley]

Those look great Dan!

[CBo]

Here are some 109 x
Somewhere around 12 weeks from sowing.

Most are under 14"

Better pictures of individuals to come...

[HL2601]

Dan those fruit are amazing. WOW!
CBo- your plants look super healthy. Can't wait to see what they produce.

[CBo]

Been over a month since my last check-in.
I have 16 109X plants that are in fruiting stage.
I have picked fruit from all but 4. About 112 days from seed for many. A couple were closer to 100 days.
Not sure which, so I created (with help from the kids!) some working names to better evaluate what I have.
The parent with stripes really came through in my keepers. Nothing true red yet either.
Lots of orange and yellow, and many with stripes or subtle flecking. A couple pinks. All but a few are mini-beefsteaks. Maybe 3 cherries.
1 was Heavy MF and I planted it in the garden. It is only about 15" tall.
The 16 range from 10-17" tall.