Improving fruit set in the south

[b54red]

Originally Posted by wildcat62

We have grown Indian Stripe regular leaf for a couple of years now. I purchased the seeds from Tomatofest. Great tasting and good producer both years. Have any of you grown/compared them to one another?

I assume you are talking about the comparison between the regular leaf and the potato leaf versions of Indian Stripe. I have grown both since I first found a potato leaf version in my IS seedlings and it has impressed me with its superior production in heat since then. It will usually produce far more fruit than the regular leaf but they won't always be as large but I think a lot of that is due to the amount of fruit they produce. The ISPL is without a doubt the best tomato variety at setting fruit in the hottest weather. Occasionally one or another variety will out perform it for a while but none of them has the proven ability to set such large numbers of fruit year in and year out. Like most of the black varieties it will split and produce poorly in exceedingly wet weather and it has the tendency to develop gray mold but despite that it is my most dependable variety. I'm not sure what my second most dependable variety is but it would probably be between Spudakee and Pruden's Purple.

Bill