I have a triploid tomato seedling. It has three cotyledon leaves - the tomato is a dicot, so most tomatoes have two cotyledon leaves - but it appears to be vigorous and healthy. I am almost entirely certain that the third leaf is an additional cotyledon leaf, and not a true leaf; all three leaves are of similar size, and the seedling really isn't old enough to have any true leaves opening up yet.
I'm not sure what the consequences of not culling this plant would be. If we're saving seeds, I'd have to mark the plant so we didn't try and grow any seeds from it next year - in general, seeds from triploid plants are sterile, because they have an extra set of chromosomes, which makes fertilization of their egg cells difficult. In fact, seedless watermelons are seedless because they are triploid. So this tomato plant's fruits might not have any real seeds at all. On the flip side, if we did just mark the plant and keep it as an experimental gig, we would probably have to isolate it from the other tomatoes so that its (possibly viable) pollen wouldn't fertilize any of the other plants' eggs. But then there's the chance that it would produce a whole bunch of really delicious tomatoes! Oh, decisions, decisions.
So, I went to that grand vault of information, the Internet. Turns out tomatoes have been known to produce triploid progeny, and that they often do rather well. I suppose what I'll do for now is to leave the plant alone and see how it does.
The rest of the tomatoes are coming up in earnest! There are many seedlings in both the slicing section and the paste section of the tomato flat. And there are lots of jalapenos coming up, as well as a few Sweet Bullnose bell peppers (still no signs of life from the Gourmet bell peppers, but they shouldn't be far behind). The eggplant, not to be outdone, are stretching sleepily out of the soil. I'm so excited for all of these little babies! All of them are a tad etiolated, because there's really nowhere in the apartment that gets great direct sunlight, but I think/hope they'll all do great anyway.
Yesterday, I went over to Westmore to check on the progress of the plants that aren't in my immediate proximity. Most of the strawberries look swell, but some of them haven't perked up all the way yet. However, they should do so soon - they've been getting plenty of water, thanks to Anne Marie, me, and the surprising amount of rain we've been getting recently. All five transplanted raspberries look great, as do the remaining onions. No sign of the peas, beets, or carrots yet, but hopefully they'll poke their little leafy heads out soon.
Well, those are all the updates I have for now. Stay tuned - this is the busy season! Hopefully there will be a lot more happening soon.
WOG out.
