Yeah, I agree diversity is good, but I think the chances of it being something other than PP (a seed that didn't get cleaned out of the hopper they use to fill packets for example) is higher than it being a genetic variant.

Lacking space, Zach?

How about doing what I do: go GOOPP.

If you don't have the time or inclination to be a commuting gardener, or don't have that all-important gate thru your back fence, do you know someone with a problem keeping a vegetable garden properly filled? Give him or her that plant and maybe some other extra plants. Go "Garden On Other People's Property."

Make sure you have "visitation rights" and a promise that you can have, at least, one fruit.

I tell the property owner at the little veggie garden that his tomato patch looks the same as mine does, several miles away in the big veggie garden. It does! It's a hodgepodge of varieties. They seem perfectly happy with all the choices.

Steve

I do have a neighbor that I give a couple tomato starts to every year. She has no interest in starting indoors, and has for decades just purchased all her pepper and tomato plants. So, I help save her money and she helps take care of my "starts way more seeds than I need" problem. I will have to see if shes interested in growing a mystery tomato this year.

I don't like to make mention of my failed tomato hybridizing. Some of you remember that from a few years ago. In 2014 & 2015, I had 3 plants of the same 3 varieties. I thought maybe I'd be driven to try messing with the tiny tomato flowers again. I'm stronger than that ... resisted making a fool of myself, however ...

Last year, I added a 4th plant - a Yellow Jelly Bean. I give my neighbors over the fence a few plants. They are about 30 or 40 feet away. Well, look what I got from saved Bloody Butcher seed:

Yes, we call Bloody Butcher "Jaliranchr" after you know who. DW likes that name and hates hearing the other ... The regular leaf plants are not like their potato-leaf Jaliranchr sisters!

Steve

Uh oh!! I'm having trouble uploading a picture! Will try again later ...

Hybridizing... I leave my clumsy fingers out of that area. Dissecting tomato (or any other) flowers sounds like a recipe for frustration on my part. Saving I can handle, as long as no one decides to wash my jar of fermenting tomato seeds down the drain...The nerve I tell you.

Yours might be significantly more interesting than mine, Steve. An actual case of variance or hybridization rather than just a misplaced seed. Course, who knows, it might be one of those (very) expensive commercial varieties Johnny's sells that I got for free!

It was very frustrating, Zach!

First, there was the little problem of procrastination. Then, the flowers on the 3 plants didn't seem to be ready at the same time. Of course, mine was an uneducated evaluation. More procrastination ... an attempt at crossing and fruit set!!! They would NOT ripen outdoors! I'd waited too late in the season ...

So, I moved the plants into the greenhouse and finally noted the changing colors of the fruit. Picked and carried indoors while frost killed the plants in the greenhouse. One fruit in particular, ripened well. I saved the seed and waited for March. Nope. The tell-tail regular foliage did not manifest itself!! The flower had self-pollinated despite me messing with it! Shoot!

I had intended to upload one of 2 photo's I took with the cellphone this morning. I often type out a message with the tablet then edit in a photo with the phone. Didn't work ..! Sent the picture off to the pc so that I could see what it amounted to on a larger screen. Now, I wonder which direction I was pointing the camera! It's dark so I'll wait until morning to take the camera out. There were 4 seeds that produced regular foliage plants and I tried to place them close to the Bloody Butchers. One can't really see which leaf goes to which plant from the camera angle!

I know, it hardly matters and I really don't know which variety provided the pollen, anyway. If it was that Yellow Jelly Bean, I'm cooked! That variety is already a hybrid! Besides, the red of the Bloody Butcher will dominate and it may be several generation before the yellow fruit color will manifest itself!

It should be fun to see what shows up over the next few seasons. That was true with the "happened upon" Woodle variety I told y'all about.

It is necessary for the plants to be healthy and the fruit tasty! Otherwise, I'll lose interest ... that's also happened before. It's a little like "prospecting," don't you think?! I doubt that fiddling with the genetics would be much more exciting than discovery by happenstance.

Steve

I'm not really up to speed on genetics in general, I have a basic knowledge of punnets squares and complete, incomplete, and co dominance but only enough to be dangerous (course I had the process of meiosis drilled into my head so hard as a first year biology student I could probably recite that from memory... Isn't that a useful skill).

The specificity of plant, let alone a certain genus and species is something I, much like the act of hybridizing itself, leave to the professionals.

That all being said, I wouldn't call it cooked if your plants are crossed with a hybrid. That just means more genes are thrown into the mix. For example, instead of simply an XXYY crossed with XXYY you could get something along the lines of Xxyy with XxYy or xxYY or XXyy so on and so forth. Any number of these has the potential to produce healthy and tastey plants. The only reason I can understand why it's so taboo to save hybrid seeds is because of the unlikelihood of f2 being the same as f1, not because f2 will necessarily be bad, just different. Shoot, it may even be better!

It is very much like prospecting, though I'd wager few home gardeners have the same aspiration of "striking it rich" by snipping off stamens as did the starry eyed men who came West in search of the mother load.

Steve

I had several plants with flowers to clip off when I set them out, last week. There were 2 plants with actual fruit. A Jaliranchr and the regular leaf offspring.

I feel I'm getting close to a time when I can leave that Bloody Butcher name behind and tag a new variety with a new name ت. What I'd like to do is sow enough seed from the plants to recover that recessive potato leaf characteristic. Of course, there has to be a consistent fruit size, shape and color. Number 1 & 2 will be health and flavor.

It seems so likely that the pollen source was as I intended it to be when I was attempting to do the crossing. I am likely to be quite disappointed if it is not so.

Steve