Question on origin of Eva's Purple Ball

[zeroma]

I am wondering what the ral history of Eva's Purple Ball is? I first heard of it in an older issue of Organic Gardening as being the winner of most productive tomato in whatever class it was listed.

Other than that bit,
who grows it,
how does it do for you,
what zone are you in
any problems with it
how do you use it, slicer, canning?

I'm planning to grow it next year and really curious about it.

Thanks,

Zeroma

[rsg2001]

A great site to look for such information on tons of varieties is Tatiana's TomatoBase. Here is the link to Eva Purple Ball which came to the U.S. via the Black Forest region of Germany. It is also one of my favorite varieties as it's pretty consistent, and the tomatoes are fantastic.

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Eva_Purple_Ball

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by rsg2001

A great site to look for such information on tons of varieties is Tatiana's TomatoBase. Here is the link to Eva Purple Ball which came to the U.S. via the Black Forest region of Germany. It is also one of my favorite varieties as it's pretty consistent, and the tomatoes are fantastic.

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Eva_Purple_Ball

It was Joe Bratka, the original source of seeds to me who has introduced many varieties. I convinced him to join SSE and co-list Eva with me, and he did, but then SSE was not for him.

Some of you may know him for the various so called white ones he bred such as Snow White, Super Snow White, Rabbit and Ghost.

He also bred all the sara thises and that's in many colors and passed them off as heirlooms when indeed they were not.

The only authentic heirloom ones I got from Joe were Eva, not Eva's, Purple Ball, Marizol Purple and Marizol Gold ( a great gold/red bicolor). He then went on to actually breed other colored marizols such as a red and pink.

Then came the incident with what he called Purple Brandywine which he also passed off as an heirloom, but he bred that one as well. When I asked him about it he said if folks wanted heirlooms, he'd breed them.

I convinced him to change the name to Marizol Bratka b/c the initial cross that led to Purple Brandywine was a cross between Brandywine and Marizol Purple, but he'd already distributed seeds as Purple Brandywine, so the two names exist, but almost everyone has switched to Marizol Bratka as I think is only right to use his name so folks know it isn't an heirloom.

And where does the word Marizol come from? A german student I taught told me that it's a shortened version of Maria's Zell, which means Maria's town/ village and Maria's Zell is found in the Black Forest of Germany,

Ok, more than you wanted to know but there you go anyway.

[RayR]

Consistent is right, always produces lots of those perfectly shaped pink tomatoes, never any cracking. I use them as a small slicer or cut up in salads. I don't can, so have no opinion there.
No problems with it at all, it's worth growing.

[dustdevil]

It's a wonderful tomato. It has one minor fault. I like to vine ripen mine and EPB has the propensity of dropping really ripe tomatoes on the ground. It also doesn't keep very long once it's ripe.

[Fusion_power]

It shows lots of genetics that are NOT typical of heirlooms and one specific trait that is common only in S. Penneli. I am of the opinion that it is a relatively modern creation. I like it for production, but flavor is in the 7.5 to 8.0 range for me.

When used as the female parent in a cross, it produces plants that are more productive than either parent most of the time. I have a stabilized cross of Big Beef X Eva Purple Ball that looks almost exactly like the EPB parent but has better disease tolerance. Randy Gardner used the (BB X EPB) in a cross with one of his disease tolerant red tomatoes and it turned out to be the most productive tomato that I have ever grown. In field conditions, I got an average of 85 pounds per plant in my garden this year. That is exceptionally high considering that a very productive variety rarely exceeds 50 pounds per plant.

DarJones

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

In field conditions, I got an average of 85 pounds per plant in my garden this year. That is exceptionally high considering that a very productive variety rarely exceeds 50 pounds per plant.

DarJones

I would be interested in field trialling that in Oklahoma.

[carolyn137]

Darrel, you said in your above post that you thought Eva Purple Ball might be a modern variety.

So I wanted to share with you that it's almost a dead ringer for a variety that's called Redfield Beauty.Both have that white mottling on the surfae and are of roughly the same size and shape, although one SSE lister says cherry sized for redfield, which is wrong, and both have a tendency to fall off the vine when fully ripe.

Redfield Beauty was released in 1897, here's a link to Victory Seeds with a description, since Mike has a special interest in Livingston varieties and Red field Beauty is thought to be a selection from the Livingston variety Beauty.

http://www.victoryseeds.com/tomato_redfield-beauty.html

And here's Tania's desription:

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Redfield_Beauty

Redfield Beauty I think was one of the varieties that either Craig or I got out of the USDA PC Grin back in the 90's when it was still possible to do that.

My stacks of SSE Yearbooks on the floor to my left it too much for me to look through right now, but I did pull out the 2000 which was near the top and saw that I did list in in 1995 and I was the source to almost everyone who listed it in 2000. If I found my original listing it would have had an NSSL accesion number.

All to say that many of the Livingston varieties turned up in Europe in the late 1800's and early 1900's so could there be a relationship between the two and Eva Purple Ball started out in Germany with Joe Bratka's relatives?

it's a possibility but the fact is that Redfield Beauty dates from about 1897 so is not a modern variety,I had grown Eva Purple Ball before I grew Redfield Beauty and was a bit surprised to find that they were so much alike. But for me Redfield was a bit lighter pink, a bit smaller and I thought the taste of Eva was much better. But both also had that distinctive white surface mottling.

But of course who knows whose hands the seeds had passed through before I got them. Eva went directly from Joe Bratka to me, but Redfield was donated to the USDA, as I noted and Mike at Victory seeds also notes in his description and does indicate an NSSL accession number.

[Fusion_power]

Carolyn, I've known of the Redfield Beauty similarity for a long time. The difference I see is that Eva Purple Ball has a distinctive trait that gives it tolerance to early blight in my garden. The only place I could see that trait coming from was a wild species as noted above. I suspect therefore that EPB has a more recent origin since the disease tolerance genes don't show up until about 1930.

DarJones

[zeroma]

Thanks rsg2001

I do use that link a lot, even though I didn't look it up there before asking my questions.

[zeroma]

Carolyn,

Now that's what I'm talking about! You answered my curious mind. I have read your previous posts about the Purple Brandywine and really wanted to know more about the possible 'not really an heirloom' issue with some of the wonderful tomatoes out in the world.

So is Eva as you state, the real heirloom and Eva's Purple Ball a newer open pollinated version of Eva by Joe?


zeroma

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by zeroma

Carolyn,

Now that's what I'm talking about! You answered my curious mind. I have read your previous posts about the Purple Brandywine and really wanted to know more about the possible 'not really an heirloom' issue with some of the wonderful tomatoes out in the world.

So is Eva as you state, the real heirloom and Eva's Purple Ball a newer open pollinated version of Eva by Joe?


zeroma

Yes, Eva Purple Ball is a real heirloom. That one and the two Marizols I mentioned above. This was before Joe decided he was going to breed heirloom varieties.

Some seed site changed the name to Eva's, which was wrong to do which led to some other seed sites doing the same thing, unfortunately, so no, there was just the one Eva Purple Ball first listed by Joe and myself in I think the 1991 or 1992 SSE YEarbook.

[Granite26]

Every year I keep adding more Eva Purple Ball plants to my grow. Great flavor, very productive and nice blemish free fruit. A winner for me here in WI.

[Longlake]

Originally Posted by zeroma

I am wondering what the ral history of Eva's Purple Ball is? I first heard of it in an older issue of Organic Gardening as being the winner of most productive tomato in whatever class it was listed.

Other than that bit,
who grows it,
how does it do for you,
what zone are you in
any problems with it
how do you use it, slicer, canning?

I'm planning to grow it next year and really curious about it.

Thanks,

Zeroma

EPB was a standout in my Zone 3 garden this year, and will definitely be making a comeback in 2013. It produced tons of fruit quite early, and kept churning them out. No disease problems. No deformed fruit. Just perfect tennis to baseball-sized fruit with plenty of juicy flavor. Was great on BLTs, salads, salsa and canned...totally satisfying my tomato fix until the bigger beefsteaks started repening. Even then, I kept going back to EPB for a juicy snack. Definitely worth growing!

[zeroma]

Now I''m really pumped to start growing EPB in 2013's garden. Thank all of you for sharing your wisdom and experience about this new 'favorite' want to grow plant.

How large does the plant grow for you?