For the coming growing season.

[Blue_true]

I am interested in cross breeding two tomato varieties. I want to cross breed a branch San Marzano tomato plant with pollen from a Portuguese oxheart tomato plant.

I will look at when to start each variety so that they go in bloom at the same time. What I am interested in is how to cross pollinate tomato flowers so that I don’t get the pollen that I don’t want on a stamen. Since tomato flowers point downward, it seems that preventing an undesired pollination is going to be a difficult task. One person believes that very small eyedroppers that can be used to suck out undesired pollen may work, although painstaking. The desired pollen can then be sprayed on the stamen. All that assumes that bees don’t blow up the entire plan, since they are industrious little beasts by day and I have just so much time to dedicate to the effort.

Any experts that have successfully cross bred tomato plants?

I realize that I won’t see the actual outcome until 2022.

On edit: I have done selection of tomato seeds to improve things like size and color, but I have never tried to cross breed. The reason why I am trying now is that I believe that I can tweak the flavor, San Marzano tomatoes are rich flavored, Portuguese Oxheart tomatoes are mellower flavored. One other option is to select seeds for several seasons until I get the San Marzano variant that I envision and forget about the cross pollination.

[Ziggysmom]

1. I experimented with Tiny Tim crosses many years ago

I recently saw this article which details the process nicely. I LOVE home raised tomatoes! Like to eat them just like an apple right after picking.

https://www.growingformarket.com/articles/onfarm-tomato-breeding-making-crosses-and-managing

[Blue_true]

5. Good starter information.

Looks like the process is easier that I felt it would be. I have never taken apart a tomato bloom, so the author lost me once the Sepals and Petals were removed and the cone was exposed. I would imagine that stuff is done to parts of the cone, but that part was unclear.

I have been mostly a seed selection jockey with tomatoes and plants had fruited. I never took the time to study the bloom structure other than the health of the blooms.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Ask DU's resident tomato expert:

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/10027943718

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. Right up my alley! Will bookmark and do a proper response tomorrow.

I've led an amateur tomato breeding project since 2004.

[Blue_true]

6. Thanks. Looks like my guess on the Mother and Father plants was right,

but after that, I made the process way too complex and likely to fail.

[The Roux Comes First]

4. How About Bagging the Flowers to Exclude Pollinators?

[Blue_true]

7. Tomato blooms are self pollinators.

So even if bees were not involved, the wind would likely be enough if it is persistent enough. So bagging the blooms likely would not work.

[The Roux Comes First]

8. Sorry, I Understood You to Be Planning to Clear Out the Self-pollen

[Blue_true]

9. That is what I planned to try, until a DU member posted a diagram that

showed my idea would not work.

I grew tomatoes successfully about three times as a child, but never tried cross pollination of two different varieties. I did do seed selection to try to improve fruit characteristics, which did seem to work some.