... growing and hybridizing all kinds of plants in zone 6b Maryland since the 1980's.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Anthocyanin tomatoes again

Might be starting to sound like a broken record, but these tomatoes with purple-black anthocyanin pigment are fascinating to me. Unlike the many so-called "purple" tomatoes in commerce that are really just pink/green blends, these actually really have purple anthocyanin type pigment. Granted it's fairly dilute in the yellow, golf-ball sized offspring of 'White Wax', but in it's tiny-fruited pollen parent [a derivative of 'Brandywine' X Lycopersicon hirsutum] the pigment is so strongly expressed that the top half of the fruit is nearly black. I have already rooted a piece of that especially dark one and am going to try rooting the yellow offspring. Maybe it would be best to try backcrossing. I probably wouldn't get the white background color of 'White Wax' back, but a black and yellow tomato might be really cool anyway. The last picture shows the insides of these two tomatoes. The little green hirsutum derivative has a funky hirsutum taste to go with its hirsutum appearance, but the yellow offspring is pretty tasty.



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