Home Questions Tags Users Unanswered How possible would it be for a tomatillo to cross-pollinate with a peruvian groundcherry?

Question

I am high school student who is developing his final school project, I've decided to work on plant hybrids. I have researched some media and I have found that Tomatillo (Physalys philadelphica) and Peruvian Groundcherry (Peruvian Groundcherry) are both members of the same genus and because of that and their great physical resemblance I am interested in manually cross-pollinating the two in order to create a hybrid. I am just a bit worried because I do not know whether it will produce a hybrid, and if it fails, I won't have enough time to work out another cross.

So, is it feasible for these two plant species (Which i believe have the same number of chromosomes) could produce a hybrid? And in case that it is not possible, which types of fruit-bearing plants could be easily cross pollinated with other members of its genus.

Answer 1

Also, have you started yet? You could just try to cross them and then write a report about why the cross may have been unsuccessful. What are the goals for the project? You may find this paper informative: http://www.scielo.org.co/scielo.php?pid=S0120-99652005000100008&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en

Wikipedia reports: "Tomatillo plants are highly self-incompatible, and two or more plants are needed for proper pollination."

If you don't have time for the cross not to work, why don't you cross two members of the same species? Why not cross two cultivars of heirloom tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), for example?

As far as chromosomes go for your cross, I found the following from Margaret Young Menzel. The Cytotaxonomy and Genetics of Physalis. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 1951;95(2):132. http://ezproxy.uvu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.3143331&site=eds-live. Accessed March 28, 2019.

Physalis peruviana is 2n = 48.

Physalis philadelphica is 2n = 24.

The fact that they have a different number of chromosomes is not a major problem, but it may make your hybrid infertile (if you wanted to create an F2 generation).

Whatever you decide to do, make sure you research the conditions that will make for healthy plants. The last thing you want is to have a successful cross only to have your plants die from some pest. Also, you will probably want to do reciprocal crosses (cross the male of one species/cultivar with the female of the other species/cultivar AND cross the female of the first with the male of the second).