Sun Orange and Sun Green

[Barb_FL]

Originally Posted by RJGlew

Hi Barb, thanks for the update. I am looking forward to hearing about the SunOrange/SunGold taste test.

Taste test tomorrow or Thursday. There are 3 tomatoes that are totally orange now. I will get pictures for comparison. It seems my SunGold were larger this year than past years.

Sowed on 3/2 - first fruit set 38 days, first ripe fruit (5/9 or 5/10) = 68 / 69 days. If I knew it was going to be so speedy, I would have sown more seeds.

BTW - The Sun Lemon plant looks really good now.

[Greatgardens]

Great posts, Barb! Hoping for the best with your SO taste tests.
-GG

[ginger2778]

Barb,they look great,I suspect your windy and more coastal position keeps you cooler. Our overnight low was 74, daytime highs have been around 84, mine are winding down. My Sun Golds were still producing but TRMs are doing their thing, and it's late, I don't feel like spraying.
A very kind Tviller sent me several seeds of the entire Sun series, he bought in bulk, so I am especially enjoying this thread with an eye toward late August.
Your Sun Lemon has 2 more beautiful laterals,will you clone them?

[Barb_FL]

Originally Posted by ginger2778

Barb,they look great,I suspect your windy and more coastal position keeps you cooler. Our overnight low was 74, daytime highs have been around 84, mine are winding down. My Sun Golds were still producing but TRMs are doing their thing, and it's late, I don't feel like spraying.
A very kind Tviller sent me several seeds of the entire Sun series, he bought in bulk, so I am especially enjoying this thread with an eye toward late August.
Your Sun Lemon has 2 more beautiful laterals,will you clone them?

That's so cool; You will love them. And I was going to surprise you with SunOrange. Did you get Golden Cherry F1 from the stash? That is one that has eluded RGlew and myself. We found it but not from a reliable vender so his germination was zero.

Our over night lows are now in the 70s also. I think we've hit 74 already too.

I have TRMs for awhile now and just spray them up with water 2-3 times a day to keep them at bay. I did this last year too. I'm also using my mister (this is it:
https://www.amazon.com/Fogg-It-Nozzl...=foggit+nozzle

[Barb_FL]

I picked 2 along with some SunGolds and SunChocola. I left the 3rd SO on the plant. I didn't think these were the best SunGolds as I picked a lot from the plants the day before.

My husband and I each got to eat one; He thought the SO tasted better; I thought they were comparable. Skin was not thick - I hate chewy skin.

Once there are a lot more ripe ones and a larger sample size the comparison will be better.

My young SunGold plant (from cutting - planted out earlier than SO) fruit is starting to blush and with this warm weather, ripening will occur quickly.

Here's what they look like next to each other - SO on left (only 2). The brown ones are SunChocola which my husband thought tasted the best and the single red one is Sukara.

[RJGlew]

Thanks Barb, Here is a short vidro on optimal cherry ripening which may be of interest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW079zJnglw

[Barb_FL]

Thanks for the video; hmmm - I've been doing it right all along; I alway pick from the cluster and never pick the entire cluster at one time; I thought it was b/c of how fast everything ripens in FL so some can be ripe while others are totally green. Never knew there was a pattern to it.

[RJGlew]

Originally Posted by Barb_FL

Thanks for the video; hmmm - I've been doing it right all along; I alway pick from the cluster and never pick the entire cluster at one time; I thought it was b/c of how fast everything ripens in FL so some can be ripe while others are totally green. Never knew there was a pattern to it.

I have always found it hard to wait for 7 to look ripe before I begin picking - especially at the start of the season - but it is a pretty reliable yardstick. Any time I do taste tests I try to ensure the tomatoes are at the exact same point of ripeness by using this count. Wayne has a very interesting webpage as well, with lots of topics.

[Barb_FL]

We did another taste test yesterday with SO, SG from the younger plant, and SG from a mature plant (since October), and SO was the clear winner. It was sweeter than the SG from the young plant (early fruits) and just larger/better than the SG from the mature plant.

It started raining A LOT around 5 PM yesterday, throughout the night and has only stopped for a few minutes today. Went out about 7AM and 90% of the SGs from all 3 plants were split, but none of the SO were split.

To be fair, most of my ripe tomatoes on the vines were split.

[Barb_FL]

It rained A LOT and none of my SO tomatoes split.

Here's some updated pictures of my SO clone and my SunGreen/SO plant duo.

The Sun Green tomatoes are way larger than I expected.

The Sun Lemon Plant

The Sun Orange clone flowering

[Barb_FL]

Over the past week, we have had more rain than I ever remember, even counting hurricanes. Today really didn't rain much and was mostly just cloudy.

I haven't watered or fed any plants (tomatoes, peppers, beans) in over a week.

Tomatoes are still ripening and I have to report that NONE of the SO have split. A slightly older SunGold (whose fruit started ripening AFTER SO) had about 50% of the ripe tomatoes split.

My SO clone has set fruit now.

Tomorrow I will do a more thorough check on the SunLemon.

---
For fruit splitting, the Brad Atomic Grape was the WORST followed by Rebel Alliance.

SunChocola had so many ripe fruits that never had a chance.

[Barb_FL]

Huge storm started in the wee hours. Tons of wind and rain projected for several days.

Reporting in that I have several Sun Lemon fruits now.

I have picked a few Sun Green tomatoes just on lighter base and softness. Will report back once I taste them.

Picking many Sun Orange regularly now; None have split and our conditions have given that a true test. Over all it is larger than SunGold but still not as large as I expected. I would say it is only slightly larger than the largest SunGolds.

The fruits on the SunOrange clone continue to grow.

The SunOrange and SunGreen plants look really good. Hopefully this wind doesn't beat up the plants too much.

We are at the end of the season with our night time lows sticking around 75. There is maybe a 5 degree difference between the hottest and lowest part of the day. I don't think it has been over 82 during the day.

[ginger2778]

This i s some fearsome weather. I hope they are OK.

[RJGlew]

I planted my main garden this past weekend, a full week ahead of schedule. Here is a picture of some of the Tokita Sundee series showing plant sizes. All seeds were planted on the same date, and consistent with Barb’s findings, the Sunorange F1 (“improved Sungold”) is already well ahead of the standard Sungold F1. Other Sundees shown to the left are also much bigger. All of the plants shown except the Sungold F1 have flowers which should open soon, with Sunorange F1 and Sunpeach F1 being the most developed. I had doubles of Sungreen F1, Sunchocola F1 & Sunpeach F1 which were slightly bigger than those shown here, but had been planted in another garden last weekend.

Not shown are Tokita varieties SunLemon F1, Suncherry Extra Sweet F1 FT, Suncherry RB F1 FT and Goldencherry F1 since they took so long to germinate.

Germination:
Sungold F1 - 3 days (Halifax Seeds) 100% germ.
Sungreen F1 - 4 days (Osborne Seeds & Seeds n' Such) 100% germ.
Sunpeach F1 - 4 days (Seeds n' Such) 100% germ.
Sunorange F1 - 5 days (Osborne Seeds) 100% germ.
Sunchocola F1 - 7 days (Harris Seeds) 100% germ.
Suncherry RB F1 FT - 10 days (Seeds n' Such) 75% germ.
Suncherry Extra Sweet F1 FT - 18 days (Seeds n' Such) 75% germ.
Sunlemon F1 - 22 days (unknown) 20% germ.
Goldencherry F1 23 days (Vesey's Seeds) 100% germ.

https://www.tokitasementi.it/wp-cont...ato-cherry.pdf

[Greatgardens]

Wow! there is sure a size difference between Sungold and the rest, and they germinated the quickest. I've got SunChocola planted this summer for the first time.