Production of hybrid tomato seed.<p>

Hojby, H. R.<p>

Under irrigation conditions at the Pretoria Horticultural Research Station
(South Africa) hybrid seed was produced on + +, psps and ms\2\ms\2 plants of
the Pearson variety by natural pollination, hand pollination, or emasculation
and hand pollination with pollen of the long-fruited San Marzano variety for
convenient identification of the hybrids.<p>
<pre>
The results of the 1959-60 season were as follows:

_________________________________________________________________________________
                             Seed obtained per acre of seed-bearing plants by
                              (a)                (b)                 (c)
                            Natural              Hand           Emasculation and
                          pollination         pollination       hand polination
                       __________________  __________________   _________________
Seed                   Total  Hybrid seed  Total  Hybrid seed   Total Hybrid seed
plants                 Lbs.      %   Lbs.  Lbs.      %   Lbs.   Lbs.     %   Lbs.
_________________________________________________________________________________
(1) Pearson + +        225.9   5.0  U-3   208.2  18.5   38.5   98.6   96.5   95.1
(2) Pearson psps        23.9   8.5  2.0    49.2  98.5   48.5  101.9  100.0  101.9
(3) Pearson ms\2\ms\2   65.7  98.0  64.4  108.3  99.5  107.8  108.0   99.5  107.5
_________________________________________________________________________________

</pre>
The pollinator plants give a normal yield of fruit and, therefore, the area
planted hereto need not to be an additional cost for the hybrid seed
production if the fruit can be disposed of in the normal way.  If this is not
the case, the costs hereof must be added to the costs of the hybrid seed
produced, i.e. in the case of natural pollination for an area equal to that of
the seed-bearing plants and in the case of hand pollination for about a
quarter of that area.<p>

Experiments carried out in connection with the above experiment showed that
the manual work of emasculation and (or) hand pollination amounted to 51, 32
and 15 hours per pound of hybrid seed for the best treatment of each of the
three kinds of seed-bearing plants, i.e.  the l-c, 2-c, and 3-b, treatments,
respectively.<p>

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