Mostly Blacks F3 and F4 - 2018

[bower]

Another I have pics for and hadn't mentioned, is the Black Kitten Paws F4. They were much later than any of the other lines, but they also set better when earlier ones were dropping blossoms in the heat. Only two made it into big containers, and the other four were planted together in a 5 gallon pot. Well the earlier BKP weren't sweet! But the late losers were really delicious. Saved seed of two of them which had a distinct and equally gorgeous flavor. The color of these is really dark, quite a bit darker than the pink-black Skippers, so really worthy of the name "black".

The first pic is to show typical cluster size for this line - in this first cluster there are 18 fruit iirc, which is just about right IMO, to compensate for the large size of the plant, without getting totally unwieldy (the multi-branched clusters can indeed be unwieldy!).
I stuck my tiny hand in the picture to make the fruit look larger.

[KarenO]

Wow, beautiful colour! They look just great Bower I’m happy for you!
An early tasty black that size will be a great addition to gardens once you are finished stabilizing your selections.
The epi is clear yes?
Karen

[bower]

Yes it's a clear epi. This is a simple cross of Stupice X Black Cherry. Both the pink and the black are very sweet and tasty.. I'm not sure what happened with the pink last generation as a friend of ours grew them out but haven't heard back from her. I know the huge clusters were carried on, which seem to be a trait in the black as well.



Will have to see if the earliness comes back next generation. These plants were really badly affected by transplanting and putting them under LED lights. The earliness was closer to Stupice in other generations. (which was the point of the cross - as you said.

[bower]

May as well post my gallery of Compass catfaces. In the pics, the grossly shaped ones are shown up side down to compare the rate of self-sculpturing madness, in a year that was oh so perfect for it.
CC 3 is the obvious choice for shape quality, having mostly small blossom end scars too, and shown sliced. All the Compass are smooth fleshed, dark hearted and dense. Only CC5 was really never sweet, the others had ups and downs, one fruit tasted outstanding which afterwards could not be replicated in CC1. The more consistent taste wise were CC3 and CC4, so I have kept seeds of them for future reference.
CC3 has also been crossed into the Rodney line, for a chance to produce a somewhat larger fruit with more locules in a determinate plant, but selecting to recapture the great Rodney taste may be ??? well it's a job to do, requiring space and willingness to sample many maters.