A Sub for Early Girl

[digitS']

I don't want to beat up on her too hard. She really is a remarkable tomato. Some folks say, "Early Girl? No way!" They just don't find the flavor they were hoping for :/. And, we can't save the seed. Someone has got a leash around our tomato gardener's neck and we are drug-off to garden center every year to buy a packet from the racks .

What would a substitute look like? I'd say

> Slicer < (2 inch or 5 ounce, or larger) > Early < (less than a 65-day rating) >> Flavorful << >> Not a Hybrid <<

Steve

Here are some varieties and my experience with a few to get us started. I may have included 1 or 2 in error & have certainly missed a few:

Alaska

Earliana ~ what i was growing when Early Girl was just getting started. i found it a bit "seedy."

Early Wonder ~ the flavor seemed kind of disappointing to me.

Fireworks ~ will try it this year.

Glacier

Kootenai ~ one i grew a coon's age ago and i don't remember it being 5oz but that size is claimed by the seed companies.

Manitoba

Oregon Spring

Prairie Fire

Red Alert

Siberia

Siletz

 

[897tgigvib]

Digit, what if you do a multiparent cross, and then select.

season 1: cross early girl f1 with lemon boy f1 ((A))

season 1: cross early girl f1 with stupice ((B))

season 1: cross early girl f1 with glacier ((C))

season 1: cross early girl f1 with siberia ((D))

===

season 2: cross A with B

season 2: cross C with D

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season 3: cross AB with CD

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season 4: grow ABCD
cull out any plants that do not flower as quick as early girl...those may be good still for other choices though...
cull out any plants that are potato leaved...but those still may be good for other projects of course...
cull out any plants that produce yellow, orange or light scarlet tomatoes...again, those will be good for different projects...
cull out any plants that are simply not doing what you want for some reason or other...

===

season 5: grow your selected ABCD f2
repeat your season 4 cullings, shooting ever more for early girl tomato type, super healthy lemon boy type plants, at least as quick as early girl

===

I actually think that by season 4 or 5 you'll have it, with a couple or 3 seasons to stabilize. Actually, once you first have it, and spread seed to others to further select and stabilize with other fine tunings, there may be several versions to choose from.

well, that's one recipe for it
me, i really like the lemon boy plant. tough strong straight stems, close nodes, not too big, strong sage green leaves, and moderately early. a good one to add to the mix. stupice, some folks swear by its flavor, and is almost as early, nice round shape, well made interior with pretty gel packs. nice healthy plant. both glacier and siberia make decent little tomatoes and are even earlier. glacier's plant can be quite small. genetics from both of these will almost guarantee a descendent as early or earlier than early girl!

other recipes are possible! can you think of one?

 

[Jared77]

How about....

Sophie's Choice

Zarnitza

Moskovich

New Yorker

or

Sasha's Altai

All ones I've got on my want to try list plus some you listed too. So what if it takes a couple slices to make a sandwich....beats having to wait longer to GET one on your sandwich

 

[MeggsyGardenGirl]

Hi - I'm new to TEG but I love growing tomatoes! What about Moskvich? It's an heirloom, 60 day rated and 4-6 oz. Grows well in my Massachusetts veg garden.

 

[897tgigvib]

Welcome Meggsy!



Moskvich sounds like a great early one!

make sure you remember your login stuff. there are some great folks here. most of us are ordinary folks, and this is like having a common backyard, bunch of neighbor gardeners chatting, except we're from all over the place

 

[digitS']

Digit, what if you do a multiparent cross, and then select. . .

other recipes are possible! can you think of one?

Are you thinking to "match" certain traits and then stabilizing the crosses?

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

That's sort of it Digit. Mostly, ABCD would be 50% early girl, and 12.5% each of the others there, and by crossing the f1's of each generation the dominant traits would have 4 times the chance of being set as stabilized. Early girl f1 is a hybrid that is strong with dominant traits. So is Lemon Boy f1.

One of the problems with trying to stabilize early girl without doing any crosses is that the recessive traits begin to express. And that has shown every time i've grown early girl f2.

That does not happen with lemon boy f2 though! lemon boy stabilizes pretty well! Try it. try saving seed from a lemon boy f1 and growing them. A lot of them are real good lemon boys. at least the versions i've had. they do change versions of these hybrids sometimes.

So, yes, lining up the similarities and traits of the 4 others in line with similarity to early girl, and selecting for early girl traits will get more easily the dominant traits that early girl has. Oh, remember, stabilizing dominant traits against available recessive traits is much moe difficult that stabilizing for recessive traits. Having early girl crossed in 4 times like this will bring in 4 times the chances of getting D/D at the genes as needed for a stabilized variety to show them. early girl f1 can express the dominants on a lot of genes even with them D/r. a stabilized version needs to have them as D/D.

Stabilizing one or 2, or even 3 genes like that is doable, but early girl apparently has a lot of genes as D/r. doing a multi cross like this may make it easier to get those genes as D/D stable.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

Marshall, what do you do to the flowers to make sure the pollination is the correct cross you want and doesn't get contaminated from another plant? do you bag somehow the branch with the flowers after pollinating? tape the flowers closed till the tomato forms? i'm just picturing you running around with a q-tip or paint brush once those flowers start opening up!

 

[digitS']

Oh boy, are you giving me another hybridizing project? I better see how my crosses with Kimberley go this year. I've also got the Porter so I can see again how different/similar to grandmother's tomato. Then, in 2014, I am hoping to see what a "Pearl's Porter" looks like. Of course, these are not hybrids but I still can't imagine if that helps or not . . .

Here is one that I missed on both the 2013 list and above: Coldset.

Years ago, there was some silliness with the "Parade Magazine" advertisers that Coldset was frost-tolerant. I just rolled my eyes. Sand Hill Preservation is the only company that sells it these days that I know of. They say it is not frost-tolerant. I have a little seed from a friend and want to see how it does.

One thing I thought about is saying that an Early Girl substitute should be an indeterminate, just like Early Girl. I'd prefer that but really understand someone who does canning or has an especially short season saying it just doesn't matter. A lot of the early varieties are determinate - one picking and that's it. The plant unloads and may even die after harvest. I don't feel that this trait is so good for my purposes. I'm not canning. I want as long a season as possible. Still, something like Legend has time to ripen and can really produce a huge crop but they come on so late that there's no season left anyway. I think that is the way I'd grow determinates and do canning: Grow a variety that takes all season to grow as much fruit as possible, then have the fruit ripen just as the weather really cools. Should make for more comfortable canning weather, anyway.

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

Chickies momma, I put up a separate topic about how I cross pollinate tomatoes