Black Russian?

[Granny]

Some of the seeds I've started this year are a variety called "Black Russian" from Thompson & Morgan. I had good germination, but at least half the plants were deformed and never took off. Now I have both potato leaf and regular leaf plants (all of which are supposed to be Black Russian) and all of the "Black Russians" seem very small - tiny even. The biggest is at best only half the size of a variety I'm growing that is supposed to be small, even though it is said at the T&M site to be a "medium sized" plant.

Anybody know anything about this tomato variety?

[carolyn137]

Anybody know anything about this tomato variety?

****

There's lots known about it as a Google search should show and it's quite available stateside, but I just checked my latest SSE YEarbook to see if I had remembered correctly about it and I had.

Black Russian is RL and indet, call it a semi-det, and fruits are in the 8-12 oz range.

Not to be confused with Russian Black which is also RL and has small 3-5 oz dark colored plum shaped fruits.

So it sounds to me like you got not only crossed seeds from T and M but also possibly some kind of seedborne disease that was evident from the stunting.

[nctomatoman]

The Black Russian I grew out a few years ago (actually, two different seed sources) were regular leaf, indeterminate, succombed to disease early on, produced round 3 ounce brown fruit of pretty good but not outstanding flavor - and were identical to Black Prince in plant habit and fruit.

There is now rampant confusion amongst the various blacks - a testament to the level of renaming, synonyms, and crossing going on. What a mess!

[mdvpc]

It seems that there are more and more reports of people germinating a variety and getting both pl and rl. Distressing.

[nctomatoman]

I think that it is an inevitable result of so many more people involved in seed saving and seed sharing. Kind of a double edged sword - great to see the interest, but there will be great variation in discipline, attention to detail, etc. Kind of like this young boy in my neighborhood who is very interested in gardening - actually is starting and selling some seedlings himself. Problem is that he ends up with some of his plants mixed up - wrong leaf type, lost tags, etc. I think that you can't underestimate the effort it takes to keep things straight! (hence my countless spreadsheets, power point diagrams, notebooks, vials of seed, etc). I am just glad that I got into this early on and got a good look at items as they entered into the SSE or directly from the sources - I can keep straight what a particular variety should be like, so, like Carolyn, can help set records straight (though we also run the risk of being pains in the *#&!)

[Granny]

Thanks Carolyn & Craig. I did look the variety up on the T&M website and on the internet in general. Y'all are just so much better at telling me that I have not lost my marbles as I look at two little bitty 'maters who are both supposed to be the same but clearly are not. Now I wonder if I got Black Russians at all - and what they might really be.

Carolyn, you mention "diseased." I don't like that word. Do you think that it is safe to grow out the few remaining "Black Russians" ? What is left appears to be doing well, just in miniature with variable leaf forms. I really don't want to contaminate all the rest though.

Craig, don't I know what you mean about the kid down the street. My little kitties had a field day with the markers in the pepper trays early on. Now I have 80ish "peppers" that are pretty indistinguisable from one another. Who knew kitties like to garden? Or sleep with their heads pillowed on the flats? August should bring surprises my way though. Next year I will double and triple label everything and then draw a map!

Granny

[mdvpc]

Craig-where do you get your seed vials, and what do you do to label the vial?

[nctomatoman]

I purchase the snap cap plastic vials from this supplier -

http://www.essentialsupplies.com/

I use the big stick on dots and number the tops and also write on the vials with a permanent black Sharpie - and the spreadsheet I keep (Excel) is backed up on two computers!

[Granny]

Craig, having had two computers die on me within hours, I back things up these days on DVD - and make duplicates of that LOL.

[elkwc36]

Craig I agree with what you said. And I know no one is perfect. But with all my trading, ect. the only wrong leaf types I had this year was with seeds I had bought from vendors. The same as last year. These were from vendors recommended on most sites. When contacted all said they were purchased seeds. So think there must be some main suppliers distributing wrong seeds. That bothers me more than the local kid trying to make a dollar. I had the wrong leaf Watermelon last year. Red Brandywine and one other this year. I planted 115 varieties and can't remember the other for sure without checking notes. Just my observation. But still not too bad. I will save seeds for the first time this year from plants I know and hope I have fair results. Jay

[carolyn137]

Carolyn, you mention "diseased." I don't like that word. Do you think that it is safe to grow out the few remaining "Black Russians" ? What is left appears to be doing well, just in miniature with variable leaf forms. I really don't want to contaminate all the rest though.

*****

You said some were stunted growth-wise hence my comment about possible seedborne disease. But if you havge somne of the correct leaf type that aren't, no harm in growing those on.

Infection is a quantitative process.

However, with crossed seeds you can't even assume that the RL ones are going to be Black Russian.

About crossed seeds. Most folks who know me know that I don't trade seeds, with few exceptions. And that's b'c I simply didn't have the time to fool around with crossed seed when I was growing so many varieties each summer.

I certainly understand that traded seed could be crossed, but I do expect a higher level of standard when dealing with a commercial vendor.

One of the problems with varieties offered commercially is that they often, or even most of the time, don't grow out what they're going to be selling b'c they want to get it on the website or in the catalog ASAP.

There certainly are several exceptions to that of those folks selling seed who do their own seed production, but even there, they don't always have time to check before listing it.

The same thing happens with SSE listings. I grow variety X in the summer of 2006 and want to list it. I have to submit the SSE application in the Fall of 2006 by a certain date to get it in the catalog.

And with the numbers of varieties I grew each summer for so many years there was no way I could check out all of them before listing.

Another facet of this is that you can save seed from 10 fruits of variety X and if even one fruit has a couple of crossed seeds the batch has to be labelled crossed. And often it takes hundreds of folks growing out from those seeds offered to even find the few X pollinated plants.

Carolyn