Striped tomato: help?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by habitat_gardener

No, the tomato they named (or renamed) was not-Heidi. They intended to grow Heidi, but the large red beefsteak that resulted was obviously not-Heidi. It was renamed because it bred true for them, the fruit was obviously nothing like Heidi, and no one could ID it based on anything else they'd grown.

OK, so they sowed seeds for Heidi but what they got was the large red beefsteak, which bred true for them for how many years?

So apprently not a cross if it grew true, so apparently a stray seed of a stable variety, but no one could ID it.

Sounds kind of weird to me.

Carolyn

[habitat_gardener]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

OK, so they sowed seeds for Heidi but what they got was the large red beefsteak, which bred true for them for how many years?

So apprently not a cross if it grew true, so apparently a stray seed of a stable variety, but no one could ID it.

Sounds kind of weird to me.

Carolyn

Here's the official story, from Tatiana's Tomatobase:

• First offered in the Seed Savers 2010 Yearbook by Candace Simpson of Palo Alto, California, a Santa Clara County master gardener (CA SI C), from a mislabelled plant at Master Gardeners plant sale. Candace grew this tomato for 5 years before offering it in the Yearbook.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by habitat_gardener

Here's the official story, from Tatiana's Tomatobase:

• First offered in the Seed Savers 2010 Yearbook by Candace Simpson of Palo Alto, California, a Santa Clara County master gardener (CA SI C), from a mislabelled plant at Master Gardeners plant sale. Candace grew this tomato for 5 years before offering it in the Yearbook.

Thanks

I thought this was a recent event so it never occurred to me to check Tania's website and while I have all the SSE YEarbooks of course I can't read and retain all 400 pages of tomato listings each year.

Carolyn

[Torquill]

Heh... thanks for vouching for me, Carolyn. I just wrote up a blurb for WI55 Gold for this same plant sale, in fact, as we're offering it. Many of my fellow Master Gardeners knew Bob Raabe, so there's a sentimental connection. I've been assisting the tomato sale committee with picking good early and container varieties, and with getting the descriptions and history correct. I'm happy to say that they will be offering the true Red Brandywine (that I got from you) rather than the pink impostor (aka Earl's Faux) this year.

I'm aware of exactly how difficult it is to ID a tomato, and only the fact that striped varieties are still such a small subset made me think it was possible to at least narrow it down. In fact, this thread has let me pick three or four possible varieties, which I can grow against our tentatively named "MG Red Stripe" to see what might match. If all else fails, we may find some more tasty varieties that we could offer instead.

Last year, I tried growing some seed I had that was labeled "Lillian's Yellow Heirloom", and I knew it was off-type as soon as it came up (it was RL). I grew out a few anyway, and as it happens, the MG garden was growing a tomato that matched it exactly: Wapsipinicon Peach. If it hadn't been a peach, I couldn't have been really sure, but the pool is so small that when every detail lined up, I felt confident with the ID. There are a few more striped varieties than peaches, it's true, but not many of that size. So we'll see.

I appreciate all the input to this point.

--Alison

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Torquill

Heh... thanks for vouching for me, Carolyn. I just wrote up a blurb for WI55 Gold for this same plant sale, in fact, as we're offering it. Many of my fellow Master Gardeners knew Bob Raabe, so there's a sentimental connection. I've been assisting the tomato sale committee with picking good early and container varieties, and with getting the descriptions and history correct. I'm happy to say that they will be offering the true Red Brandywine (that I got from you) rather than the pink impostor (aka Earl's Faux) this year.

I'm aware of exactly how difficult it is to ID a tomato, and only the fact that striped varieties are still such a small subset made me think it was possible to at least narrow it down. In fact, this thread has let me pick three or four possible varieties, which I can grow against our tentatively named "MG Red Stripe" to see what might match. If all else fails, we may find some more tasty varieties that we could offer instead.

Last year, I tried growing some seed I had that was labeled "Lillian's Yellow Heirloom", and I knew it was off-type as soon as it came up (it was RL). I grew out a few anyway, and as it happens, the MG garden was growing a tomato that matched it exactly: Wapsipinicon Peach. If it hadn't been a peach, I couldn't have been really sure, but the pool is so small that when every detail lined up, I felt confident with the ID. There are a few more striped varieties than peaches, it's true, but not many of that size. So we'll see.

I appreciate all the input to this point.

--Alison

Did you know that Seeds by Design in CA sent out seed for a WRONG Lillian's Yellow Heirloom to several seed vendors a few years back? It was RL, not PL as Lillian's should be, and was very small, and I don't remember the rest.

But if what you have matches Wapsipinicon in all ways, including the fuzziness, then all is well.

Carolyn