These are the two biggest tomato plants. Both have flowers developing. Timing might be a few days off. Not sure how to cross them. First two pictures is Cherokee hybrid (F2 or higher). selectively breed for nematode resistance( nematode infested pot). Is it a determinate?
The other 2 pictures of a store tomato F3 selectively breed for production and size.
South Florida 11a
by defeater33
5 Comments
You emasculate a flower and take pollen from the other plant and put it on there. It’s hard to do, you’ll have to look it up. It takes gentle, steady hands
I hate to say this, but YouTube would probably be your best bet for finding instructional videos on how to do it. I say that because I think a lot of people will answer with “use an electric toothbrush”, or “use Q-tips”. I’m not saying that they’re wrong ( I’ve never done it, so I can’t speak from experience on it ), but it might not be the most detailed explanation on how to get the results you’re looking for with your plants. But I hate telling people to just go look on YouTube, so I’m sorry about that. Best of luck!
I have gotten a little art paint brush and used it to transfer pollen from blossom to blossom.
It seemed to work well as I would get different types of tomatoes on all the plants.
I’m doing it this year in Phoenix also as I have a bunch of small plants that have come up from last year’s garden now in pots. The weather looks favorable for an early harvest in the spring.
The short of it: Since tomatoes are self-pollinating, you got to do some surgery with a tiny knife and a pair of tweezers *before* the flower matures and the anther cone starts shedding pollen. After that, you use your preferred pollen transfer tool (my favorite is a single-use bumblebee superglued to a toothpick) to cross.
Tomato blossoms are self fertile. It will be a crap shoot if the seeds you get in the fruit will be a cross.