Landrace Gardening: Promiscuously Pollinated Tomatoes

Reader Contribution by Joseph Lofthouse
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In previous blogs I have written about landrace development projects that I have been working on for years. Today I am describing a project that is just beginning. I would like to convert my tomato population into a promiscuously pollinated landrace. A freely cross-pollinating population of tomatoes would greatly simplify the process of survival-of-the-fittest selection for families of tomatoes that thrive in my garden.

Background

In their natural non-domesticated state, tomatoes are a promiscuously pollinated crop. During domestication they were converted into a highly inbreeding crop. I believe this is due partially to not taking the tomatoes natural pollinators with the plant when it left its native land, and partly due to the intense focus in the last century on preventing cross-pollination. Naturally cross-pollinated tomatoes are typically considered a liability in modern times both in mega-ag and among home growers so heavy selection pressure has been put on the species to eliminate traits that lead to higher cross-pollination rates. I intend to reverse that trend in my garden and to create a landrace of tomatoes that is promiscuously cross-pollinating.

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