need help identifying chocolate beefsteak

[casino]

Hi, I have been given this mystery tomato (first time grown by me in 2009 saved the seed and re-grown by me in 2010) from a fellow gardener at my community garden who calls this tomato "Chocolate Beefsteak". There is no information about this tomato on the web under the name of Chocolate beefsteak. This is a very tasty tomato.
Does anyone know its real name? My garden notes say this:
Chocolate Beefsteak: Indeterminate, 10oz size Delicious earthy flavor, crack free, non acid but has a rich complex flavor, wonderful.
Here are a few pictures

[ContainerTed]

Regular Leaf or Potato Leaf????

The fruit could easily be Cherokee Purple or even Indian Stripe.

Ted

[casino]

regular leaf, indeterminate but short grower, about 4-5 feet tall.

[ContainerTed]

Many of my Indian Stripes in the garden last year did not have huge vines like Cherokee Purple is prone to have. So, from my choices, it seems to point to Indian Stripe. Also, the presence of the stripes is usually not as prominent with Cherokee Purple as can be seen in the picture on the left.

Ted

Make no mistake, there are others out there who can talk to other varieties that will fit the pictures.

[travis]

Nice tomato. Clear skin or yellow? Looks clear from here. Where'd seed come from? Give us more clues.

[casino]

The mystery of its origin. My friend made a purchase off EBAY titled 100 different heirloom tomatoes, mixed package. You will be pleased with this variety pack. These are not all my leftovers thrown together but a nice mix of everything that I grow in my garden.

And thats where we are at, 700 seeds in an envelope. My friend grew about 500 plants. Said I could have as many mystery plants that I wanted. I took and planted 25 plants and this one plant stole my heart out of the hole bunch. That was in 2009. I saved the seeds from this tomato and grew it again in 2010 and it performed exactly like I remembered it in 2009. Neither one of us could IDentify this tomato and we both grow chocolate cherries (love them) and the color and taste was simular to the cherries in every way except bigger. We did not want to call this mystery tomato (MT1) so we decided to give this tomato a name and we call it chocolate beefsteak. And thats the origin of this plant.

Now that I am a member of Tomato Ville I thought I'd ask the experts.
Whatever its true name is this tomato has become a personal favorite.
Joe

[travis]

From the information you have given, not only is tThere is no way to positively ID that tomato, there is no way to even venture a guess.

[ContainerTed]

Now that we have "THE REST OF THE STORY" (I was always a Paul Harvey fan), I have to agree with Travis. No way to ever know for sure, unless you want to have an expensive laboratory do a DNA match up.

Ted

[kath]

Originally Posted by ContainerTed

Now that we have "THE REST OF THE STORY" (I was always a Paul Harvey fan), I have to agree with Travis. No way to ever know for sure, unless you want to have an expensive laboratory do a DNA match up.

Ted

Do you mean without doing a side by side grow out of other similar looking darks?

[ContainerTed]

Yep. Too many variables and they all start with the Ebay seller.

Ted

[carolyn137]

DNA sequencing could be done but won't be done b'c as far as I know there's no known sequence maps for any of the heirloom varieties for comparison. For some commercail hybrids yes, as part of some lawsuits, but not OP heirlooms. Besides, do you know how much it costs if you wanted to pay a lab to do it?.

And no Kath since with the info now given one can't even begin to guess what variety it might be in order to do a comparison growout. Just go to Tania's site and click on blacks, and look at the number of varieties that are dark colored and usually beefsteak shaped. Some have stripes sometimes, some have stripes never and some have stripes all the time.

I agree with Travis that there's no way to know what it is at all. So Casino no doubt has a known variety but it won't ever be known to him.

Casino, please do me a wee favor and don't rename it.

Roger's Best Black. Grown by Roger in I think it was Sweden, he couldn't remember the name of the specific variety that he liked so much so called it Roger's Best Black.

QED.

[kath]

OK, so Casino's Best Black it is, then, huh?!

[travis]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Casino, please do me a wee favor and don't rename it.

Unless maybe Negro Desconocido or something meaning the same.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by travis

Unless maybe Negro Desconocido or something meaning the same.

Hic est viper in herba.

[travis]

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