Ramapo leaf question

[jeffinjonestown]

Checking my ramapo plants growing from barkeater's f6, I notice that the leaves are darker and more olive drab colored than any of my other tomato plants (rutgers, heinz, brandywine) that have been out since about the same time. Is this normal, or is it a positive or negative indicator of health or growing conditions? I just wanted to check to see if there's anything the plants are telling me I should be doing differently for them since barkeater was kind enough to send the seeds and I don't want to mess these up. Thanks.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by jeffinjonestown

Checking my ramapo plants growing from barkeater's f6, I notice that the leaves are darker and more olive drab colored than any of my other tomato plants (rutgers, heinz, brandywine) that have been out since about the same time. Is this normal, or is it a positive or negative indicator of health or growing conditions? I just wanted to check to see if there's anything the plants are telling me I should be doing differently for them since barkeater was kind enough to send the seeds and I don't want to mess these up. Thanks.

And the initial source of Bark's OP Ramapo was from me after I dehybridized the F1 hybrid.

I've never seen any drab olive color with Ramapo, either the F1 or the OP, so I really don't know what to say if you want to compare it with the foliage color of other varieties that you're growing.

If the plant gives you the expected fruits, etc, I tend to think I'd ignore the foliage color for now b'c I haven' the faintest idea of what it may be due to and have never seen it, as I said above, with the F1 and OP Ramapos that I've grown, and I used F1's to compare with my growouts of saved F2 seed, etc. from the F1 when dehybridizing it, so saw lots of those plants.

[jeffinjonestown]

Hi Carolyn, maybe I'm just being over worried. Checked my notes and it turns out the ramapos were in the ground a week before some of the others, and that week was sort of cool with rain every day. So maybe it's just that the young plants went through more of that type of weather?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by jeffinjonestown

Hi Carolyn, maybe I'm just being over worried. Checked my notes and it turns out the ramapos were in the ground a week before some of the others, and that week was sort of cool with rain every day. So maybe it's just that the young plants went through more of that type of weather?

I think that's a very good possibility.

When plants are cold and wet they can't take up P from the soil via the roots so start to turn a darker color that can turn to purple. When the sun comes out and the weather warms they turn back to green.

[jeffinjonestown]

That would explain it. Thanks again, and yet again the science I should have learned in school is instead learned from Carolyn. Let me know where to send the tuition check.

[Fusion_power]

No problemo Jeff, just send the check to me!!!!!!

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

No problemo Jeff, just send the check to me!!!!!!

Now Darrel, you're young, you're fully employed with a side buiness of selling plants. Apparently your health is fine as far as I know, and yet you want Jeff to send a check to you?

And here I am, advanced in age, with several artificial body parts already, living on SS and what I have transferred from my retirement monies yet trying to keep the budget for my fave dark chocolate in place as well as my book budget, and you would deny me the check that Jeff wants to send me?

Jeff, anything I might say that helps is free and I might write you into my will for the monetary thanks you wanted to send.

And Darrel, how about I write you into my will as well and let you make arrangements to have some of my fave heirloom variety tomato plants furnished and sent by you to a local source so specified in my will, which darn, I really have to update, and that would really be nice to repose under the green as it were.

[jeffinjonestown]

Carolyn, I don't want to think of wills or leaving this earth. My wife just lost her father (and he was more of a father to me the last several years than my own) last week. You need to be with us with your lessons and advice as long as we can keep you here. Otherwise, I would need to cut and paste all of your posts on several forums into a word processing document. Oh, I already did. As I like to say, I am not as stoopid as I look. That doesn't mean you are allowed to think of wills or leaving us, though.