Can you tell reds from pinks (picture attached)

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Gardeneer

According to the color concept, pink is just lighter red.
If you have some, say, acrylic red paint. Add some white paint to it then it will become pink. How pink ? Depends on the amount of white that you add.

In tomatoes, red tomatoes have yellow skin. You can actually see thid at the eraly stage of ripening. On the other hand Pink tomatoes have clear skin. As it ripens you see thru it as very light color and keeps getting darker. A very ripe so-called pink tomato will be red when sliced, depending on the variety and its genetics.

In conclusion: There is no pink color. Pink is just a shade of red.

I don't think that pink is just a shade of red, and here's why,

In post #8 or 9 in this thread I posted about epidermis color but didn't say that much about it,so here's an example.

After Craig L got sent seeds for Anna Russian from Breda H in Oregon,he saved seeds and sent some to me.

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Anna_Russian

You can see that I got it from Craig who listed it in 1989 and in my tomato book I noted that after he saved new seeds he sent them to me and I grew it out shortly after that.

When I first saw the fruits they looked RED to me, so I also SSE listed it and called the fruits red, but I was wrong.

Imagine that, I once made a mistake.

After that I learned how to tell if a fruit was red or pink, and that was good since many times I've been sent seeds for a variety by someone and the fruit color is not specified or I wanted to check myself.

So here's what you do.

You have a red control, a variety that everyone agrees it's red, peel off a small piece of that thin epidermis and place it on a stiff piece of whitepaper,do the same for the pink control as well. Most folks grow both known reds and pinks in a season so it shouldn't be hard to find controls

Then peel off a piece of epi, from the experimental one.Then hold up the red control in front of that paper and it should be yellow,do the same with the pink control and it should be clear,then,aha,do the same with the unknown one and if yellow it's red,if clear it's pink.

But it's not all that simple,since not everyone sees the same colors and minerals in the soil plus weather can also influence color as well. There's also a layer underneath the epi that contributes to color.

On page I think 52 in my heirloom book I noted that the fruits of Anna Russian could be red or pink depending on several variables, but also noted it was PINK.

If you want to see a classic kerfuffle about fruit color go to the sticky threads near the top and look for the one titled ALL THAT GLITTERS is not Gold, from idig years ago.You'll laugh,you'll cry, and show all ranges of emotions,so read it,please, when you have time.

Carolyn