estiva f1 expectations vs big beef?

[JRinPA]

Hey all,

I was surprised when I did a search on here for Estiva it returned a measly 4 hits!? Does anyone grow this and how do they compare to big beef for taste/productivity?

I got a bunch of plants from a farmer friend the other day. He just planted out this week. Among his leftover seedlings were 9 big beef, a few brandywine, some that got mixed up so unknown, and a flat and half of estiva - I guess about 35 estiva plants. I can't plant them all myself but can rehome some to a couple gardens so I gratefully accepted them all rather than have them composted.

What should I expect from this Estiva? The price was very nice.

EDIT: make that ~75 Estiva. The flats are 5x10.

[NarnianGarden]

Wow. Never heard of the variety, so it would be interesting if you could keep us posted.

[JRinPA]

I'll try to update some as they come up. I had not heard of it either. I had to ask him to repeat the name twice! He said they produce really well for them and taste good. The farm is only a mile down the road but he gets full sun, full wind, and uses florida weave. I have a corner patch in our yard surrounded by trees so 5-6 hours sun, not much wind, and use crw cages.

The plants look great, especially the estivas. I can fit 20 plants comfortably in my patch so I mowed the winter wheat and planted out yesterday @ 3 ft with 8 big beef, 8 estiva, 3 brandywine and 1 unidentified heirloom/op from the heirloom flat. Hopefully these brandywine produce better than the single brandywine I tried last year.

I want to rototill some more yard this week and hopefully plant some more. We're also going to plant some out at family/friends.

If they are tasty it will work out great. We tried Romas for the first time last year and while they produced a good bit of fruit, the sauces are bland compared to those made with big beef/early girl/better boy.

flat of estiva f1 still waiting their turn



estiva f1 trenched, mulched with the winter wheat




A sad day for the girl - no more chasing bunnies from winter wheat. 2015 starting lineup: 8 big beef 8 estiva 3 brandywine 1 unknown. With all the estiva plants, early girl got bumped this year though its always a good produce with good taste for sauce.
bb es bb es
bb es bb es
bw bw bw unk
bb es bb es
bb es bb es




I guess I'll make like an ant with my high hopes...these little plants have big cages to fill. Last year beginning of August.
bb eg bb rm rear
bb eg bb rm
bb eg bb rm
bb eg bb rm
ml eg bw 4th front -- not bothering with mort lifter or roma this year though ml was nice and tangy


End of July 2013 - I miss that dog, he passed last Memorial Day.
SuperSteak BetBoy BetBoy EG EG
SuperSteak BetBoy BetBoy EG EG
- - - - - - - - BetBoy BetBoy EG EG
Big Beef BetBoy BetBoy EG EG
Big Beef BetBoy grape EG sunsugar -- haven't bothered with super steak again but big beef was a rockstar and supplanted better boy

[JRinPA]

We planted out on May 15 or 16. The plants are about 2-1/2 ft tall today, June 14. I really can't tell much of a difference at this time between the big beef and estiva. The brandywine are PL of course and have huge leaves. In addition to my yard, some of the plants went to my brother's house, and to a friend of my mother. All but a handful of them were put in the ground so we should get a good read on the estiva.

bb es bb es
bb es bb es
bw bw bw unk
bb es bb es
bb es bb es Jun 14th


The only problem I see so far are the spots starting already on the brandywine leaves. It has been very dry, so I hoped I would not see any spots for a while yet. I wish I had a yard/garden big enough to rotate crops. The following pics are the lowest leaves on one of the plants.

[JRinPA]

Also, that pic last month of the flat of estivas had one weird leafed plant...in the foreground, front corner. I'm not sure what that was. It was planted on May27 but seemed to be dead two weeks later when I went to do the first weave on that garden. Very strange leaves on that one.

[carolyn137]

I didn't know Estiva F1 either so I googled it and first, from Johnnys:

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-5716-estiva.aspx

And now the general Google search:

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Estiva+F1+tomato

There aren't many significant disease tolerances bred in so it must be an older hybrid.

I just checked the NCSU tomato cultivar list and it's not listed.

About the spots on the leaves, those are due to common foliage diseases so alternating where your plants are doesn't really matter since the spots are due to foliage diseases, not soilborne diseases.

The common foliage diseases, Early Blight and Septoria Leaf Spot are fungal and Bacterial Speck and Spot are, ahem, bacterial, and all four are spread by wind and also embedded in raindrops.

A good anti-fungal can help prevent the two fungal ones if used correctly, but there's really no good one for the bacterial ones , that is for the home gardener since commercial farmers do have access.

Carolyn

[JRinPA]

Carolyn, that is very interesting. I had figured a newer hybrid rather than older. Previously I thought I read Estiva was exclusive to Johnny's but I don't see that on their site at present.

I have considered daconil or the other brands containing chlorothalonil. I have never used any -cides and am hesitant to put any chemicals on the plants and into the groundwater. I have plenty of vermicompost and should brew some compost tea but it never gets done.

I pruned that particular brandywine last night before the storm, but it looks as though those spots are on some other plants as well. A terrible indecisiveness always washes over me when it comes to pruning bottom leaves and branches. I never know whether I am helping by removing them, or hurting the plant by opening the stem to disease or even spreading it myself from plant to plant.

[JRinPA]

My garden patch is about done now, Sept 8, but it grew plenty of tomatoes. I think I am about BLTed out. The weather was dry this year except for the second half of June. By the beginning of July my patch was already looking half dead from something that ripped through. At that point I stepped back and just let it be, and it turned out okay with a lot less worrying.

There are maybe 1-2 doz smallish tomatoes left on each estiva/big beef plant back there. The three brandywines back there were very marginal, producing only 19, 7, and 9 fruits to this point. The big beef averaged 15 each before Aug 11, 57 each to this date. The estiva averaged 13 each before Aug 11, 64 each to this date. The estiva average slightly smaller than the big beef, but not a whole lot. I can't tell the plants apart by eye.
Aug 24th garden patch


To me, the estiva F1 tomatoes are about like a larger early girl. They have 3-4 large seed chambers and a pretty good taste. Estiva are very uniform globes and free of defects. They are really nice for making chunky salsa; they scald and peel cleanly and the large seed pockets are quick and easy to clear, while being large enough overall that it doesn't become a chore to get enough tomato chopped for a the batch. Also, since the seeds/gel are pretty clean without splits and mold and such, I found it easy to strain that waste and cook it down to a ketchup consistency to add back into the salsa. I believe this year's salsa with mostly estivas is the best I have made.

Estivas



From my garden, the estiva were tastier than the brandywine. My brandywines, particularly the earliest/largest ones, were somewhat watery. They looked better than they tasted, and I'd get disappointed over and over, cutting one open for BLTs. Also, there were a lot of malformed/catfaced brandywines and cracks with mold later on. My big beef and estivas tasted essentially the same to me, both very good, sweet and somewhat tangy.

At my brother's house, we put 12 cages in a 12'x9' plot and it really produced. My brother's patch is essentially full sun all day, and was basically fresh compost/soil from his township. Lots of worms. They do recycling of leaves, etc, and he can get free soil/compost. It is nice, but his property taxes are way up there, so I balk somewhat at calling it "free". Anyway, his brandywines were larger and less error prone than mine, and had a better taste, even though his plants were the same origin as mine. His largest were about 2lb each. I remember when we cut one his open, it covered the whole bread -big square bread machine sourdough bread - and tasted as good as it looked. Nice and sweet.

I also grew some tomatoes elsewhere in my yard. A few plants in the backyard, in turned over lawnsoil, away from the garden but hugging arbor vitae to east so they didn't see sun until high sun. They were planted end of May, stayed healthy for a long time but grew fairly slow and lithe. This last month with even less sun, they have died off some. They only grew about 1/3 of the tomatoes as the garden patch, with some BER. I get almost zero BER in the garden patch.

Aug 24th, From Left, Sweet 100, Sunsugar, Tomato Eating Springer Spaniel, Big Beef, Unidentfied, Estiva. The unid I called red stitcher. They are firm to tough, meaty, with 6 seed chambers. The plant had dark green leaves and set small fruit that stayed green a long time. I was thinking determinate and for a while I was wondering if they were green when ripe until one finally blushed. Many display a vertical stitch pattern.


I have an estiva plant out front that is basically full sun that is still going full blast. It was planted end of May, about 2 weeks after my garden, and is still putting out very colorful, firm tomatoes that look identical to the estivas from my brother's patch. So far I have picked 69 good full size fruit from that plant, and there are a bunch more left. The cherry tomatoes and that estiva out front jumped their cages a long while back, so I took to weaving them back up against the cages.

Below:Estivas from front yard, more sun, more vibrant colors. Same taste, but firmer and tougher skin. Also, a little touch of BER on some of them out there. Just a little grey patch on bottom. Unfortunately first pic is clear but washed out, the second true color but blurry.



We also planted a bunch of estivas and a few oddballs over at a garden belonging to a friend of my mom. They were planted in 6 rows of 6 and florida weaved. It was even drier there than at my place and the plant's received little supplemental water. They ended up about 5 foot tall by the end. The plants stayed healthy (and the weave stayed up) but the tomatoes were much smaller. Most plants had split to a Y and then another Y or two, and had clusters of 5-6 fruit x 3-4 per plant. The tomatoes were small, tennis ball down to racquetball size. They looked very tasty and the couple of seconds that I ate while picking were sweet. She was happy to have some tomatoes to make sauce with, and I was glad to help and learned a bit about tomatoes growing in different gardens and conditions.
Florida weave, mid July.



I think having all those plants to distribute definitely helped me learn a little more about tomatoes this year. I think my garden patch, with all that morning shade and little wind, really doesn't do well with the big, long maturing tomatoes. Supersteaks a few years back were dismal. Brandywines last year and this year were pretty poor. Big Beefs work pretty well. The Estivas work, and Early Girls do well. Romas were bland with some BER last year.

I also planted a pair of Supersteak F3s out front in the rose garden. They were sowed in April under glass and were still small so I planted as twins. It was pretty late, end of June probably. I was out of cages, so those twins got staked and basically overhead wrapped with twine, then pseudo weaved up to the stake later. They have some huge, tangy tomatoes that formed passably well. I don't think they would have done nearly as well in the regular garden as they have out in the sunny rose bed.

Next year I will probably try to stick any big tomatoes up front in my garden or out front. We will probably plant more big tomatoes at my brother's - he really liked the two brandywine plants. And I know my mom's friend would like some mortgage lifters (her traditional favorite) and more brandywines.