Berkeley Tie Dye

[Fert1]

Cool! Thanks for the comparison. Now a few of my Japanese Black Trifele are getting some BER too. So it's not just the BTD. Those seem to be the only two affected ... so far.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Bama mater

b54red, I'm in North Ala, (Huntsville) I grew both BTD and Pink BTD Last year, BTD is a taller and later fruit setter very productive of Med to Large Green with multi colored stripes when ripe and very good taste, I was impressed and am growing it again this year. The Pink BTD is a shorter more stockier plant with med to large dark purple with lighter pink stripes very good taste and was an earlier fruit setter which ripened early but production was much less than the reg BTD.

I'm only going by what was written on the outside of the seed packet by the person I exchanged seed with and it said BTD pink. Both of my plants are over 6 ft tall and wrapped up in fruit. I only have one just showing the first signs of blushing so it shouldn't be too long before I get a taste. I really hope it is good because it seems far more disease tolerant than any other plant in my garden this year including all of the hybrids I have planted. Right now the only other one showing nearly as much disease tolerance is Neves Azorean Red and that plant is much bigger with larger fruit but not as many. I got to taste the first one off it today and it was incredible. Indian Stripe and Gary O' Sena are the other two that are seemingly immune to my fusarium problems but only time will tell.

[b54red]

Here are some pics taken early this morning of my first BTD. The plant is now 7 feet tall and it got a little of that black crud on it so I sprayed the whole plant with my Clorox mix. You can clearly see what it does to the diseased foliage about 2/3rds of the way up.
The other two photos are from the other side and a little more close-up.

[b54red]

I planted two BTD Pink plants. Now I have another problem. The second was planted a little over 3 weeks after the first and looked identical in every way until it came time for the fruit to be seen clearly on the second one. The toms didn't have the stripes but I waited til they ripened to post this so I could include photos of fruits from both plants so maybe I can get some answers to this quandary. The first two photos are of fruit from the first plant and the last two photos are fruit from the second plant. Besides being different in color the second plant's fruit is smaller.

[dice]

The fruit of the second plant looks like it was crossed with
a red or pink (bees). The way to know is to save seeds from
it and then grow a few plants from those seeds next year.
If they are not all alike, that plant with the red or pink fruit
was probably a bee-made F1. If they are all alike, it was
probably a stray seed from some other cultivar that got
mixed in with Berkely Tie-Dye Pink seeds.

Edit: I had something similar happen with Black and
Brown Boar last year. The fruit from one plant were
exactly like the descriptions of Black and Brown Boar.
The fruit from the second plant were larger on average
than the reported size range of Black and Brown Boar,
some twice that size. The color of the fruit was similar.
(It was not tastier than Black and Brown Boar or other
dark fruited cultivars that I grow, and it was not
noticeably productive, so I did not save seeds from
the off-type.)

[Fert1]

I am growing the original BTD, and at first I saw no stripes, but as the fruit gets bigger, now I'm seeing lots of striping. No ripe tomatoes yet, but I'm eager to try it. I've got one whopper on that plant.

[b54red]

I got to taste that pink smaller tomato today and it was very good. Better than most of the others that are similar in size and appearance. Definitely not a BTD because of the way it looks inside. It had four large gel sacks. I will definitely save the seed and grow again in place of some other pinks or reds that were a little lacking in taste or disease tolerance.

[ubergoober]

Originally Posted by b54red

I got to taste that pink smaller tomato today and it was very good. Better than most of the others that are similar in size and appearance. Definitely not a BTD because of the way it looks inside. It had four large gel sacks. I will definitely save the seed and grow again in place of some other pinks or reds that were a little lacking in taste or disease tolerance.

Has anyone thrown out some possible ID's for those pinks?

[b54red]

I have no idea what it is but I am going to call it Berkley Pink since I thought it was a BTD Pink until the fruit ripened. I am definitely saving the seed from it to see if it will reproduce those delectable pink tomatoes again next year. It is definitely in my top ten for taste and top 5 for disease tolerance so it will get several spaces next year. The only tomato fruit it looks like this year in my patch is Break O Day which is a different color but has similar shape and size. The Berkley Pink is better tasting, more split resistant, more disease tolerant and the plant is much, much larger.

[b54red]

Just got 16 tomatoes off the Berkley Pink today and with the 4 yesterday that is a pile of tomatoes in two days off of one plant. They are not really big, with most running from 5 to 8 oz with the occasional one larger or smaller; but they are beautiful and very tasty.

[beefyboy]

I am growing your Berkley pink and have 2 side by side. One grown in a 5 gal bucket and the other in my earthbox. Then I have the reg. BTD pink growing very close by in another earthbox. I have three different types of fruit growing. On Berkley pink the earthbox plant is basically a round smooth fruit with no stripes and its sister is noticeably different with deep ridges and has a slightly flattened shape and noticeable stripes like the original BTD but again, much flatter than the BTD.

Beefyboy,

Did you plant seed from Wild Boar Farms or gift or trade seed for the BTDP plants? It's sounding like a lot of bee activity in someones garden or the variety isn't very stable. I will be planting BTD and BTDP in the spring, but I bought my seed from Wild Boar Farms. It will be interesting to see what actually grows.

Ted

[beefyboy]

I did a poor job of writing that post above so let me clarify! the BTDP I got in a trade and it is stable. The berkley pink came from B54 and you can read about his finding on this thread. I grew two of his as he mentioned that he was not sure what the outcome would be in this case. I definitely have 2 different variations from the seed he gave me in which one is visibly striped and the other is like the one he mentioned that he had. I will have to take some pics!

[b54red]

Beefyboy keep me posted on the Bill's Berkley Pink. I am really looking forward to planting it out to see if I can get a repeat of what I had this past season. It sounds like you may have a repeat with one of the plants but only time will tell. When the plants get larger and have ripe fruit on them try posting some photos so I can compare them to what I had.

[travis]

It's pretty obvious from Beefy Boy's description of his two "Bill's Berkley Pink" plants that the stripeless tomatoes b54red showed in his pictures are F1 tomatoes from an accidental cross of BTDP and what Beefy Boy is growing are two F2 plants with one of them segregating for stripes, ergo new varieties in the making.