Tomato Crossing

[A Happy Seedling]

I've just moved into a new place. I have my eyes on several heirloom tomato seeds for my new garden. If I plant these together, will the bees cross them for me? I don't care exactly how the crosses look--I just want to see if I can get a good looking new variety by chance if I simply leave nature to cross these. Will this work?

[Lindsaylew82]

Tomatoes are generally "self pollinated". It isn't likely that they would cross, but it is possible.

If you would like to ensure a cross, there are steps to be followed.

You need to bag your flowers buds (before they open) with little mesh baggies! Both parents. Then you will need to pollinate one with the other. And then put the baggy back on until fruit is formed. You'll want to keep the seeds, those are the hybrids. So next year's tomato plants from those seeds will render you the hybrids.

Neat stuff!

[A Happy Seedling]

Thanks!

[applestar]

Well, to be absolutely sure that the tomato blossom won't "self" pollinate, you need to do a little micro-surgery -- while the blossoms are still closed and green, you peel off the calyx, petals and the anther cone which produces the pollen, exposing just the stigma. But the stigma is not receptive to being pollinated yet, so you have to wait about 36 hours. Removing the petals makes sure that bees and other Pollinator's won't be attracted/interested. Pinch off all other flower buds and flowers on the truss and mark it. THEN, when the stigma is receptive, you collect pollen from the other variety and gently apply the pollen to the stigma, which should be kind of glossy (but easiest way to tell is to make note of other blossoms on the plant that are at the same flowerbuds stage and apply pollen when the other blossoms have yellow petals that are curled back.

THEY SAY YOU SHOULD REPEAT APPLICATION OF THE POLLEN AT E-6 HOUR INTERVALS FOR 2 OR 3 TIMES.

Be sure to mark the blossom. If the pollination procedure was successful, a calyx-less fruit will develop.

[A Happy Seedling]

Sounds good!

[Algida]

From my experience, the new varieties resulting from cross-pollination won't get better characteristics. At contrary. It takes a lot of trials for getting an improved variety. Therefore, I suggest making sure that you'll have tomatoes resulting exclusively from self-pollination and collecting those seeds for the next year.