Anyone familiar with Mikado Black?

[SharonRossy]

Just curious if anyone has heard of this tomato or grown it. Double Helix sells the seeds and Tania has a Mikado Chernyi. Not sure if they're the same and because I'm still ordering seeds it looks interesting.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by SharonRossy

Just curious if anyone has heard of this tomato or grown it. Double Helix sells the seeds and Tania has a Mikado Chernyi. Not sure if they're the same and because I'm still ordering seeds it looks interesting.

HEre's Tania's page for it and no sources for it except for tania herself are given for 2015 but I'm sure that some seed vendors who listed it for 2014 will be listing it for 2015 but it takes a long time for Tania to update seed sources for all the varieties listed.

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Mikado_Chernyi

Carolyn, who has only grown the original Mikado and from the long list of Mikado thises and that's it looks like some X pollination has been going on rather than direct breeding.

[jmsieglaff]

I've read about it and it intrigued me enough to get seeds (a swap here on TVille). 2015 will be my first time growing them. They will be part of black tomato trial. So go for it, the more notes the merrier!

[maf]

Doublehelix has an unfortunate penchant for renaming varieties from Russia, my guess is he is re-selling Mikado Chernyi under an assumed name.

[SharonRossy]

That's what I thought. Looks like I'll be ordering from Tania. She's always so trustworthy. Thanks Carolyn. Great to hear from you! Guess I'll give it a shot.

[jmsieglaff]

I think Mikado Black is just the translation from Russian.

From Tania's page:

Russian name: Микадо Черный (=Mikado Chyornyi)
The name means 'Mikado Black' in Russian.

[travis]

I wonder if the Russian language has "dialects" so to speak, or if some "Russian" tomatoes actually are Ukrainian or come to us with Ukrainian names rather than Russian names.

I really have zero ability to translate Russian to English, other than for online translators. But I notice that seeds I get from Russia, Belarus, and the Ukraine often include name tags that give the "Russian" names in Roman alphabet, but are spelled differently from sender to sender ... although the differences are slight, such as the transposition of the "y" and the "i" at the end of words, or the insertion of additional vowels in the middle of certain words, usually the adjective rather than the noun.

Maybe I should assume the spelling variances of the "Russian" pronunciation, when given in Roman alphabet, are due somewhat to translation from Cyrillic to Roman characters.

So, even when those purists who suggest we not translate the varietal names from "Russian" to English, we still end up with names for these "Russian" varieties that vary in spelling.

All that said, I agree that we should retain and use the "Russian" name attached to the variety, and only provide the translated-to-English name in parentheses for purposes of clarity of understanding rather than as a "re-name." After all, English is not the only widely used language on the planet. What if growers in every country decided, upon pride of language, to translate tomato varietal names into their individual languages?

[LDx4]

There are several common transliteration systems used for transliterating (translating) the Cyrillic alphabet to the Roman alphabet. It all depends on who is doing the transliteration. For example, Mikado Chernyy or Mikado Chyrnyi or Mikado Chyornyi are just some of the variants. When I was in college majoring in Russian, we were taught to use the first variant (Chernyy). But, it also is dependent on whether the original language is Russian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian, or another Cyrillic-based language.

Confusing? Yes!

Lyn

[SharonRossy]

Wow, ok so that's why it's confusing. Has anyone had any experience with this variety?