pollination of tomatoes/tomatillos
dsd...@my-dejanews.com
Could someone out there explain to me the pollination mechanisms of tomatoes
and tomatillos? Thanks -- David
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Roger Fowler
Some of the older varieties of tomato plants, (sometimes called heirloom),
are "open pollinated which means that honey bees and other insects spread
the pollen from plant to plant. Tomatoes that are open pollinated will
cross with each other. If they are all the same variety you can save the
seeds for next year. If there are more than one variety planted you will
get cross breeding and your seeds will not stay true.
--
The Ripper
Keep watching the skies.
dsd...@my-dejanews.com wrote in article
<6kv41k$vf5$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
DGholston
>Could someone out there explain to me the pollination mechanisms of tomatoes
and tomatillos? Thanks -- David<
Tomatoes, even one plant, pollinate themselves, although insects (particularly
bumblebees) can also get involved. Gently shaking the tomato bush in flower
will help the pollination process. Someone wrote here that tomatillos need
another plant to set fruit, but I am not sure that is true. I was under the
impression that tomatillos behaved the same way tomatoes do. I know that the
related tamarillo or tree tomato will set fruit all by itself.
Don Gholston
Jenn
Well...don't know about tomatillos...but as for tomatoes, they reproduce
asexually (but they aren't asexual!)...this means that each flower has the
male and female parts...so each flower can pollinate itself...in tomatoes,
this happens by gravity and wind, which makes pollen fall a very short
distance onto the female part, and bam, one pollinized flower. This can also
be done by insects or hand if you're trying to make your own hybrids...I'm
not sure how closely tomatillos and tomatoes are, but I bet it's probably
something similar...
Jenn
auda...@teleport.com
free recipes: http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/9559/
dsd...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message <6kv41k$vf5$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>Could someone out there explain to me the pollination mechanisms of
tomatoes
>and tomatillos? Thanks -- David
>
Pat Kiewicz
In article <01bd8daf$0ab0e400$73ccd8cd@mine>, rog...@fidnet.com says...
>
>Some of the older varieties of tomato plants, (sometimes called heirloom),
>are "open pollinated which means that honey bees and other insects spread
>the pollen from plant to plant. Tomatoes that are open pollinated will
>cross with each other. If they are all the same variety you can save the
>seeds for next year. If there are more than one variety planted you will
>get cross breeding and your seeds will not stay true.
The natural cross-pollination rate of domesticated tomatoes is actually
quite low. Here's a summary of one experiment in South America:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
An experiment was carried out at ICA's "La Selva" Experiment Station,
located 2100 meters above sea level at Rionegro, Antioquia, Colombia.
The objective was to determine NCP under field conditions, by planting
28 rows, at 1 meter between rows, of the potato leaf cultivar 'Alcobaca'
between 2 rows of the normal leaf type cv. 'Licato'. Seed was obtained
in each row of the potato leaf material, and seedling plants were
classified either as potato leaf (selfed seed) or as normal leaf (hybrid
seed). Thirty plants out of 50,400 resulted from NCP; yielding an overall
average of 0.064% NCP. Cross pollination occurred up to 17 meters from the
pollinator, with a maximum value of 0.6% at 3 meters from the male parent.
source was http://probe.nalusda.gov:8000/otherdocs/tgc/vol34/v34p12b.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most people should be able to safely grow and maintain heirloom and
open pollinated varieties at home. I have found that the earlier
blossoms are less likely to have been worked by bumblebees (who
leave marks on the flowers when they visit) and prefer to save seed
from the earliest fruits.
--
Pat in Plymouth MI
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dsd...@my-dejanews.com
In article <199806012359...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
dgho...@aol.com (DGholston) wrote:
> Tomatoes, even one plant, pollinate themselves, although insects
(particularly
> bumblebees) can also get involved. Gently shaking the tomato bush in flower
> will help the pollination process. Someone wrote here that tomatillos need
> another plant to set fruit, but I am not sure that is true. I was under the
> impression that tomatillos behaved the same way tomatoes do. I know that the
> related tamarillo or tree tomato will set fruit all by itself.
>
> Don Gholston
Thanks for all of the replies to my question. One of the reason I was curious
was indeed the question of self-incompatibility of tomatillos - I was under
the impression that they were self-fertile like tomatoes, but had read here
that they were not. A friend of mine, however, had one tomatillo "bush" last
year and although she had plenty of flowers, she didn't get a single
tomatillo. So --it appears that they are indeed self-infertile. I have two
tomatillos this year -- about a yard apart -- and hope that will be enough.
thanks again for all the responses, David
Gary Cooper
On Mon, 1 Jun 1998 dsd...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> Could someone out there explain to me the pollination mechanisms of tomatoes
> and tomatillos? Thanks -- David
>
Tomatoes are self-fertile -- they can pollinate themselves, or other
tomato plants, and the job of moving the pollen is done mostly by wind,
but sometimes by bees and other helpers.
Tomatillos are pretty much the same deal, except that several experienced
people report that they are self-sterile: Each flower must receive some
pollen from a separate tomatillo plant in order to produce a fruit. So if
you grow just one tomatillo plant, with no others nearby, you'll get no
fruit.
Gary
Gary Cooper
On 1 Jun 1998, Roger Fowler wrote:
> Some of the older varieties of tomato plants, (sometimes called heirloom),
> are "open pollinated which means that honey bees and other insects spread
> the pollen from plant to plant. Tomatoes that are open pollinated will
> cross with each other. If they are all the same variety you can save the
> seeds for next year. If there are more than one variety planted you will
> get cross breeding and your seeds will not stay true.
Umm, "open-pollinated" does not necessarily mean that the plants are
pollinated by bees and other insects. This term is apparently confusing
for many people; someone once asked me if it means you have to pollinate
all the flowers by hand (it doesn't mean that, either). What it means,
basically, is that if that plant's flowers receive pollen from another
plant of the same variety (or even from the same plant, in the case of
tomatoes), the plant will yield seeds that can reliably be expected to
produce an almost identical plant (identical to the parent) when those
seeds are planted.
The contrasting term to "open-pollinated" is "hybrid." Hybrid plants
result from deliberately crossing relatively unrelated genetic strains of
a plant (some hybrids are even crosses between different species), by
putting pollen from one into the flower of another. Obviously, this is
done by hand and in controlled circumstances, so the breeders can get
predictable outcomes. This often results in many desireable
characteristics in the offspring, one of which is "hybrid vigor" -- a
tendency for the first generation of such a cross to be bigger, more
disease-resistant, and generally more robust than the parent stocks. Some
such hybrids are sterile, however (some seedless watermelons are an
example), and in any case seeds produced by hybrids will have their genes
remixed in ways that (usually) produce something different from the F1
hybrid (the offspring of the original cross).
It's true that if you grow different varieties of tomatoes near each
other, they may cross-breed, but as Don has pointed out, in practice this
doesn't seem to happen as often as you might expect.
Gary
Gary Cooper
On Tue, 2 Jun 1998, Jenn wrote:
> Well...don't know about tomatillos...but as for tomatoes, they reproduce
> asexually (but they aren't asexual!)...this means that each flower has the
> male and female parts...so each flower can pollinate itself...in tomatoes,
> this happens by gravity and wind, which makes pollen fall a very short
> distance onto the female part, and bam, one pollinized flower. This can also
> be done by insects or hand if you're trying to make your own hybrids...I'm
> not sure how closely tomatillos and tomatoes are, but I bet it's probably
> something similar...
>
I'm getting a little tired of saying this (not yet tired enough to stop,
though), but what you describe above is NOT asexual reproduction. Indeed,
it is SEXUAL reproduction. If you're not happy with that term, call it
"self-fertilization." If you propagate tomato plants by rooting stem
cuttings from existing plants (which I understand is possible, though I
haven't done it), or if you clone cells from germ plasm (which is done in
plant laboratories), that's asexual reproduction.
The difference is that asexual propagation produces plants that are exact
genetic copies of the parents, while sexual reproduction produces
offspring with different mixtures of genes (even if all the parent genes
came from the same individual).
Not only plants, but many animals, can reproduce either sexually or
asexually. Then there are those, including many marine animals, that are
male during one phase of their lives and female at another stage. Some,
such as earthworms, have both male and female organs at the same time, but
still have to breed with another individual before they have offspring.
Others don't.
If you want to know more about this, or still don't understand the
difference, look up "meiosis" and "mitosis" in a biology textbook or
encyclopedia.
Gary
Gary Cooper
On 2 Jun 1998, Pat Kiewicz wrote:
>
> Most people should be able to safely grow and maintain heirloom and
> open pollinated varieties at home. I have found that the earlier
> blossoms are less likely to have been worked by bumblebees (who
> leave marks on the flowers when they visit) and prefer to save seed
> from the earliest fruits.
>
What do bumble-bee marks on tomato flowers look like? Are the marks the
same on eggplants, peppers, tomatillos, etc.?
Gary
GashlyCrmb
>Thanks for all of the replies to my question. One of the reason I was curious
>was indeed the question of self-incompatibility of tomatillos - I was under
>the impression that they were self-fertile like tomatoes, but had read here
>that they were not. A friend of mine, however, had one tomatillo "bush" last
>year and although she had plenty of flowers, she didn't get a single
>tomatillo. So --it appears that they are indeed self-infertile. I have two
>tomatillos this year -- about a yard apart -- and hope that will be enough.
I have two tomatillos planted within a foot of each other and I do not have
any fruit. (plenty of flowers though) My gardening neighbor (that gave me
the seedlings) has four plants squashed right in next to each other and has
fruit falling off the plants! Arggh!! His plants are only about three feet away
from mine. ?? Anybody? I hope yours do better than mine.
Lorie
zone 9a
Alf Christophersen
Gary Cooper <big...@utdallas.edu> wrote:
>The difference is that asexual propagation produces plants that are exact
>genetic copies of the parents, while sexual reproduction produces
>offspring with different mixtures of genes (even if all the parent genes
>came from the same individual).
Unfortunately, dandelion don't need any sexual formation at all to
produce viable seeds, but they are almost alone about it (at least so
said my textbooks)
Don & Jeanne Chapman
GashlyCrmb <gashl...@aol.com> wrote in article
(snip)
> I have two tomatillos planted within a foot of each other and I do not
have
> any fruit. (plenty of flowers though) My gardening neighbor (that gave
me
> the seedlings) has four plants squashed right in next to each other and
has
> fruit falling off the plants! Arggh!! His plants are only about three
feet away
> from mine. ?? Anybody? I hope yours do better than mine.
>
> Lorie
> zone 9a
I suggest you compare soil preparation methods with your neighbor. What
was added and when? I'd suspect you may have put too much fertilizer on
the plants, rather than not enough. I'd suspect you may have watered too
much, rather than not enough. With identical seedlings, the answer has to
be in some differences in the way you have grown them - play detective!
(And let us know if you find anything)
--
Don Chapman <d...@bio-organics.com>
Bio/Organics Suppy Center
3200 Corte Malapaso, #107
Camarillo CA 93012
Info & Orders <http://www.bio-organics.com>
tg
I grew about 12 different varieties of tomatoes last year in close
proximity to one another in a small garden, both hybrids and
open-pollinated types. I saved seeds from several Pruden's Purple
fruits, an open-pollinated potato-leaf type, and all 30 seedlings grown
from those seeds this spring exhibit the potato-leaf characteristic of
the parents. Which seems to support the notion that tomatoes are
generally self-pollinated, rarely crossed by insect pollination.
tg
Roger Fowler wrote:
<snip> Tomatoes that are open pollinated will
> cross with each other. If they are all the same variety you can save the
> seeds for next year. If there are more than one variety planted you will
> get cross breeding and your seeds will not stay true.
> --
> The Ripper
> Keep watching the skies.
>
> dsd...@my-dejanews.com wrote in article
> <6kv41k$vf5$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
> > Could someone out there explain to me the pollination mechanisms of
> tomatoes
> > and tomatillos? Thanks -- David
> >
Pat Kiewicz
In article <Pine.SUN.3.96.98060...@infoserv.utdallas.edu>,
big...@utdallas.edu says...
Look for a pair of small brown marks on the protruding part of the
tomato blossom. I learned this last year in an issue of one
of my magazines, in an article about domesticated bumblebees used
to pollinate greenhouse tomatoes. There was an illustration of a blossom
that showed signs of pollination. (I think it may have been one of
my science mags, rather than a gardening mag.)
Jim Adams
Each year I grow Burpees Tumbler variety tomatoes, not because they are
especially good but because they are very, very early. Unhappily, seeds
for this hybrid must be mailordered, and wind up painfully expensive - five
or six bucks for 20 seeds!
If I understand this thread correctly, cuttings from present Tumblers will
reproduce true. True?
If so, what I'm thinking about doing is rooting suckers from present plants
(they are determinate, and will poop out shortly), and doing a second set
in the fall, and try keeping them alive over the winter with the
houseplants. Or - now that I think about it - maybe it'd be easier just to
earn an extra five or six bucks a year :-)
Opinions appreciated.
Jim Adams
Gary Cooper <big...@utdallas.edu> wrote in article
<Pine.SUN.3.96.98060...@infoserv.utdallas.edu>...
On 1 Jun 1998, Roger Fowler wrote:
> Some of the older varieties of tomato plants, (sometimes called
heirloom),
> are "open pollinated which means that honey bees and other insects spread
> the pollen from plant to plant. Tomatoes that are open pollinated will
> cross with each other. If they are all the same variety you can save the
> seeds for next year. If there are more than one variety planted you will
> get cross breeding and your seeds will not stay true.
Umm, "open-pollinated" does not necessarily mean that the plants are
Jenn
Suckers will be like clones, they'll be trude...seeds however,
won't...depending on how well they've been bred, seeds will probably breed
25-75% true...
Jenn
auda...@teleport.com
free recipes: http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/9559/
Jim Adams wrote in message <6l746p$a...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>...
Gary Cooper
On 4 Jun 1998, Jim Adams wrote:
>
> Each year I grow Burpees Tumbler variety tomatoes, not because they are
> especially good but because they are very, very early. Unhappily, seeds
> for this hybrid must be mailordered, and wind up painfully expensive - five
> or six bucks for 20 seeds!
>
> If I understand this thread correctly, cuttings from present Tumblers will
> reproduce true. True?
>
> If so, what I'm thinking about doing is rooting suckers from present plants
> (they are determinate, and will poop out shortly), and doing a second set
> in the fall, and try keeping them alive over the winter with the
> houseplants. Or - now that I think about it - maybe it'd be easier just to
> earn an extra five or six bucks a year :-)
>
> Opinions appreciated.
> Jim Adams
>
Yes, rooting cuttings is a form of asexual propagation (like cloning), so
if you can get any to root, they will have the same genes as the ones you
took the cuttings from.
I've had good success getting a container tomato to survive the winter
indoors. You probably won't get spectacular production from that
individual plant in the spring, but if mainly what you want to preserve is
a source of cuttings to turn into more plants, this seems very feasible.
Gary