Choosing a paste tomato

[crmauch]

Originally Posted by gssgarden

Just to follow up on a comment, I've never seen blossom rot on Shannon's and I've been growing it for a loooooong time!! lol

That's good to know!!! Thanks for sending the seeds. I'll be sitting by the mailbox as much as possible.

[MrBig46]

Originally Posted by joseph

There are many paths in the tomato genome leading to high carotene fruits. They are not all linked to the self pruning gene, and even if they are linked, the way to break linkages is to grow out sufficient numbers of plants that the odds become favorable. If I were breeding a paste tomato, I'd aim for something with a round fruit. They seem to have less problems with blossom end rot.

Joseph, please, can you write something about crimsson gene and Lycopen (antioxydant) in tomatoes ?
Vladimír

[crmauch]

I'd be interested in anything that can be said about the crimson gene as well.

[lakelady]

I have a small test going on in my garden (which is much neglected this year by the way) with pastes. For production, Martino's Roma is beating the pants off everything else I can't believe how many fruits are on there in the dense foliage. Determinate, but a fat plant. Seems to be in this order for what I have planted. I have had zero BER with any of these plants. Keep in mind, I have fairly well neglected my plants this year and the groundhog is eating a lot of plants but these are surviving:

Martino's Roma (typical paste shape)
Rio Grande (rounded paste)
Chico Grande (blocky paste)
Chistopher Columbus (these look like bombs lol)
Romeo (very large, but not that many of them)

My Jersey Giant apparently isn't Jersey Giant, so I cannot report on that one.

[crmauch]

Originally Posted by gssgarden

Chris, seeds are in the mail!!

If anyone else want her, just let me know!!

Greg, received that Shannon seeds Monday. I'm looking forward to starting them this winter!

Thanks again!!

Chris

[gssgarden]

Not a problem! Enjoy!!

Greg

[brokenbar]

Orange tomatoes for sauce is going to be a hard sell. For me personally, I want it a deep red. For my sun dried tomato business, they would not buy anything but red dried tomatoes although some of them were interested in the blacks.

All I want in a sauce tomatoes is as little moisture as possible, few seeds, large size and a tangy taste. No sweet stuff for sauce. Very few tomatoes match that criteria, including plenty that are touted as sauce tomatoes. I cannot believe that anyone who cares about their sauce would ever grow any of the numerous Roma's except Romeo. They are just a different shaped eating tomato in my opinion and are loaded with moisture which translates to cooking down sauce forever which changes the taste and not for the better. Sauce should be simmered in as little time as possible to reach the desired consistency or it's a total waste of time and tomatoes as the finished product will be inferior (compared to a puree that takes little simmering.)

And I know that many disagree with me and am only giving my opinion based on 40+ years of growing tomatoes/varieties to achieve what I consider the perfect sauce. I have never grown tomatoes for any other use other than sauce and drying...never. I despise raw tomatoes and absolutely never eat them. But what makes a perfect sauce is in the "eye of the grower" so maybe I am just full of it!

[Worth1]

San Marzano.
Speckled Roman.

Just my opinion.

Worth

[swamper]

most determinate plums are very weak in flavor. I've grown a lot of indeterminates that are decent but not great. most of my flavor evaluations are fresh, so I'm not commenting on cooked flavors.

I have a late portuguese san marzano type called manny that makes large fruits with deep red flesh and excellent flavor, a local heirloom called mary's best that is determinated making fatter earlier tasty pointed plums, and am trying vilms paste, piennolo de vesuvio, and golden rave, this year as well as a dozen other yellow and red plum varieties that were planted late. So far I'm impressed with the vigor of vilms but havent had a taste yet. golden rave is ok, but not zingy enough.

next year I'll have a few new f1s hoping to get more flavor into the above.

[Fusion_power]

97L97 is a determinate paste tomato with high carotene.

If you want indeterminate, I would suggest breeding 97L97 with Bellstar (for the jointless gene, round shape, and very dense texture) and with Costoluto Genovese (for a dense flattened sauce type with rich flavor) and if you want to bring in some disease tolerance, Iron Lady is a possiblility.


DarJones

[Tonio]

Originally Posted by Worth1

San Marzano.
Speckled Roman.

Just my opinion.

Worth

+1- I used SM2, speckled roman, cuor di bue, SM redorta, red pear. Made sauce and paste. Man , making paste takes a long time. Speckled roman is really prolific!!

Will have to try martino's next year.

[brokenbar]

I forgot to mention that my Kid (who can never resist anything new...) brought me a pack of Burpee's new "Super Sauce" tomato seeds. Touted as "weighing 2 lbs-seedless-early and prolific". It is also listed as a indeterminate.

Well...biggest one I had was 1 lb and 4 oz. My kid said his in Wyoming averaged about 1pound. They were indeed prolific and early. I think this is really a semi-determinate. My plants got about 5 foot while my Son's plants in Wyoming were about 4'. Very, very bushy and had some continuous fruit set but most of crop was in earliest fruit set. Mine had a few seeds in them, not much gel faction but they were much wetter than I like. The taste was surprisingly good for a hybrid. I may try to start the few seeds I get and see if I can stabilize it. Burpee's Big Momma is a staple in my garden and I stabilized it years ago. Big Momma is a reliable fruit setter, even in the unpredictable spring weather in Wyoming and they were also always one of my first to ripen. Big, meaty fruit with few seeds, almost no gel fraction and in the middle of my 1-10 dryness scale.

Apparently, I'm not the only one trying to grow tomatoes for sauce that are big, dry and with few seeds. Whether or not sunsequent generatons will grow and produce true is something that will have to be seen.