Requesting recommendations for reds that knock your socks off!

[nctomatoman]

Kosovo is a nice big pink.

[jennifer28]

One of my favorite red slicers (what I think of as a slicer anyway) is Pantano Romanesco. Sand Hill and Tomatofest are offering the seeds. Not sure if others are selling them but I haven't looked that hard since I love both of those seed suppliers. I just love the taste of this tomato - I think you could use it for sauce b/c it reminds me of some of the best home made italian tomato sauce that I ever had. I have heard the flavor is similar to Genovese Costoluto (that is what they say on the tomatofest site) but I don't know because I never grew out Genovese Costoluto. I grow these tomatoes in my personal garden because I just love them. They do get pretty tall and need good support tho, I used some old wood trim that was just over 6 feet and that was a good support for it. Come to think of it, I think I will use mine for sauce this year if they don't disappear first!

[RobinB]

Which of the truly great reds mentioned will come in at 75 days or less? That's my problem unfortunately. I just looked at the TomatoFest website, and Pantano Romanesco is 70, so that qualifies! I don't have a red selection that I REALLY like for 2012, either. I'm one of those people that has veered from red to other colors, but I always try to have something in every color that I can. I was pretty happy last year with Jeff Casey's Maya & Sions Airdrie Classic, but it didn't knock them off completely!

[jennifer28]

Well Robin,

I can say I grow Pantano in Zone 6 in Connecticut and for me it is usually 80 days until the first ripe tomato. But that could just be because of the weather, or something I did. But it is so worth the wait. I did order the heirloom short season collection from tomatofest:
http://www.tomatofest.com/heirloom-t...rt-season.html

And I have great hopes for Marmande. We'll see!

[Fusion_power]

The high crimson gene is a variant of B^og and its modifiers which results in much higher lycopene levels than normal tomatoes. It is widely used in tomato breeding because it increases the red color so dramatically. There are also purported health benefits from the increased lycopene. This gene has numerous variants that have been described. It is basically a toggle, turn it off and the tomato is orange, up regulate it and you get high crimson, vary it a few other ways and you get various colors of red, orange, and yellow. While Travis noted that it is linked to determinate growth, this is not necessarily true. I grew a wild species tomato S. Pimpinellifolium that clearly had the high crimson gene and was also indeterminate. The reason it is linked is more of a plant breeder syndrome. They all want it in a commercial package with determinate and intense red color as the desired outcome.

So in the controversy over whether a tomato is pink or red, why don't we just call them clear skin vs yellow skin? The answer lies in the nature of the gene variant that causes tomatoes to be pink vs red. Here is an article that explains some of the details. You can find more articles by searching for pink tomato gene on google.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0114103132.htm
The essence of the variant is that the gene that causes pink tomatoes does not just cause the skin to be clear. It affects numerous genetic traits mostly associated with flavonoids and pigments. The basic purpose of the yellow skin variant is a portion of the immune system in the tomato. When you turn it off via the pink gene, you are changing the way the tomato's immune system works. This is not necessarily a bad change as anyone who has grown various color tomatoes can show. So when we grow pink tomatoes, they routinely have dramatically different flavor compared to red tomatoes because of the changes in flavonoids. This helps explain why NCtomatoman is partial to pink tomatoes.

How do we taste tomatoes and what makes one exceptional compared to other tomatoes we've tried? We each have different tastebuds. Some of us can taste nuances that others don't experience. The best I can do to show how this works is to start with sugar. All green plants produce sugar. Tomatoes accumulate sugar as glucose, fructose, or sucrose with a few other minor sugars and alkyls. We all have genes to produce tastebud receptors that detect sugar. If you happen to be a cat lover, did you know that cats have all the genetic machinery to produce taste buds for sugar but they are tuned off so cats CANNOT detect sugar in their food.

When we eat a tomato, arguably the first thing we detect is whether or not it is sweet. Once we have that in hand, we next detect various savory traits which are described as "umami". This is the taste receptor that determines most how we perceive flavor in a tomato. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umami

When we have sweet and savory in hand, we look for bitter, sour, and salty. If a tomato has strong bitter or sour notes, I'm headed for the exit fast, it does NOT belong in my mouth. Ask Carolyn to describe Sandpoint and you will get an idea what it means to have an abundance of sour detecting tastebuds. Bitter is relatively rare in tomatoes. It is usually associated with metallic overtones I experience a small amount of bitter when I eat a Green Zebra, but if you want to hear from a real bitter detector, ask NCtomatoman to describe what he experiences when he eats the bitter layer from a pecan. If you want to see if you are a bitter/sour taster, try Jaune Flamme and see if you love it or think it is so-so or even nasty.

Salty is a special case. It seems to work as an intensifier. This is why we associate adding salt to food with improving the flavor. Tomatoes naturally have very low salt levels so we add table salt to boost the flavor sensation.

Trying to define taste in tomatoes is very subjective, but I divide people into 4 groups. Those who want sweet tomatoes, tart tomatoes, rich intense tomatoes, and balanced tomatoes. We all fall in this range somewhere. I prefer balanced. To me, too sweet is cloying, too sour or bitter is nasty, and too tart is like eating lemons. Yet I routinely sell plants to people that I refer to as "lemon suckers". This is NOT a derogatory term. My daughter is a lemon sucker. She loves to eat raw lemons. She also loves the flavor of Green Zebra, Jaune Flamme, and Aunt Ruby's German Green. When I get a call from somebody wanting that "old fashioned acid tomato taste", I direct them to Druzba, Box Car Willie, and Rutgers. If they want sweet candy tomatoes, I tell them to grow Sungold, Sweet 100, and any of the other sweet tomatoes. For people who want balanced flavor, I suggest Crnkovic Yugoslavian, Daniels, and a host of other pink tomatoes. Did you notice that the "rich intense" tomatoes are all red? or that the "balanced flavor" tomatoes tend to be pink? There are loads of exceptions, but that is what discussion boards and tomato lists are for!

DarJones

[jennifer28]

Dar,

I love the way you analyzed the different groups of people who prefer different tomato tastes. My husband likes everything balanced. It's a good thing, too, because I am a nut. Someone needs to keep order around here! One of my friends gave me these pink Siberian Oxheart seeds. I think I am going to try growing some of those for him. I will especially need to make up for the sunflower joke (see new years resolutions post) and the matt's wild cherry tomato joke i have planned for him this year! So I hope he likes the pink oxheart LOL.

[chalstonsc]

While I understand the Dwarf Project releases are still very new, I'd be interested to hear from those taste experts who have tasted them both, how any new dwarf releases compare to the above and others mentioned in other threads as "greats"....thanks!

[nctomatoman]

For the initial releases, I would rate the following as outstanding - Summertime Green, Summertime Gold (though we are going to do a re-selection this summer), Dwarf Mr. Snow and Rosella Purple. These all were as good as my best indeterminate varieties last year. Dwarf Beryl Beauty and Dwarf Jade Beauty and Dwarf Emerald Giant are excellent but perhaps a shade less outstanding (though some of the fruit picked during the summer from these were superb). Dwarf Wild Fred and Tasmanian Chocolate are very good but not up to the level of the others to my taste.

As for the new releases, I've yet to taste Iditarod Red or Yukon Quest (but will this summer)! - would rank Sleeping Lady as very good and Perth Pride as excellent.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

Yes, Carolyn, I know that 1884 and Crnkovic Yugoslavian are classed as pinks. It gets down to color perception. Most so called red tomatoes to me have orange over red color. Some clear skin tomatoes to me appear as cherry red. All pink tomatoes to me have pastel shades. Where it gets really confusing is when you combine clear skin with the high lycopene gene and the high pigment gene. That combination to me is fire engine red yet because it is clear skin, it should be classed as a pink.

I will say that I grew some outstandingly good red Crnkovic Yugoslavian tomatoes over the years and believe it or not, they were true reds. So while I agree with you that there are two that some call pink, I have to put them in the in-between group that are not quite red and not quite pink.

Hermit, you have your definition of hybrid. I don't accept it.

DarJones

I agree that some reds have an orange cast to them and there are also shades of red ranging from a pale red to a deep red. I also know that when a deep pink is grown that some see it as red, I did myself before I knew about checking for epidermis color and first listed Anna Russian as red in the SSE yearbook. I also have grown a variety with the high crimson gene.

But Yasha Yugoslavian and Crnkovic Yugoslavian seeds were given to me many years ago by Yasha Crnkovic who was the head of the Computer Dept where I last tauaght.

And both have always been pink to me with a clear epidermis. And are so listed as pink at quite a few seed sites as well as those who list those varieties in the SSE YEarbook. I have yet to see anyone list either of those varieties as red and you're the first, actually.

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/w...ic_Yugoslavian

Seven seed sources for 2011 and more to be updated for 2012 and while I didn't check every single source the ones I checked all said pink,

I know that color perception can be a problem for some and I know you've said in the past that you have a hard time sometimes distinguishing between the yellow/orange/gold colors, which indeed does suggest a possible color perception problem, at least to me it does.

And aside from any known genetic red/green colorblindness, etc., more common color perception problems aren't that rare.

[Fusion_power]

Lol Carolyn, I do indeed have a color perception problem, but it is in the red spectrum. I have trouble differentiating rust red from brown. It shows up in my work when I have to wire telephone cables that use red/brown and brown/red as two of the colors.

As for Crnkovic, what I was referring to is that the tomatoes I grew were indeed red because they had crossed with a red variety. I got the original seed from Glenn. They just happened to taste so outstandingly good that I kept growing them for several years after that even though they segregated with some pink and mostly red offspring.

DarJones

[kath]

Thanks to Travis and Fusion_power for addressing my question. All the information you shared was news to me and I find it fascinating. It goes a long way to explain why people love or hate the same tomato. Despite all the varieties I've tasted, I'm still not sure which category describes my taste best, but I am a bitter/sour taster and dislike Jaune Flamme. Sungold's my fave so I thought I liked sweet, but Momotaro and many others recommended as sweet have been mild duds for me. Could never salt a tomato- gross. Didn't like Crnkovic Yugoslavian much and am trying Daniels this year. Most that I've liked so far have been pinks, but I've still got a lot to try. Thanks again for all the input- fun stuff!

kath

[Close enuf]

Originally Posted by nctomatoman

Kosovo is a nice big pink.

I'll take your word for it. I know that when cut open, they seem rather dark, they are definitely kind of pinkish from the outside, though.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

Lol Carolyn, I do indeed have a color perception problem, but it is in the red spectrum. I have trouble differentiating rust red from brown. It shows up in my work when I have to wire telephone cables that use red/brown and brown/red as two of the colors.

As for Crnkovic, what I was referring to is that the tomatoes I grew were indeed red because they had crossed with a red variety. I got the original seed from Glenn. They just happened to taste so outstandingly good that I kept growing them for several years after that even though they segregated with some pink and mostly red offspring.

DarJones

Aha, so your original pink crossed with a red, so why didn't you say that in the first place?

I try to keep track of my tomato kids so please don't send out any red fruited Crnkovic Yugoslavian b'c if it was the result of a cross who knows how many of the original genes are left and I wouldn't even call it Crnkovic Yugoslavian at this point.

I'm not one who says Amana Orange is the same as Amana pink except for color, for the same reason and I'm not one who says that a PL variant of an original RL is the same except for leaf form. Because there's more than one genetic mechanism that can allow for leaf form changes and MORE than one gene can be involved.

But we've been though this before and it's time for me to decide what I want to fix for supper. Peanuts sound food at this point seeing how late it is.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by RobinB

Which of the truly great reds mentioned will come in at 75 days or less? That's my problem unfortunately. I just looked at the TomatoFest website, and Pantano Romanesco is 70, so that qualifies! I don't have a red selection that I REALLY like for 2012, either. I'm one of those people that has veered from red to other colors, but I always try to have something in every color that I can. I was pretty happy last year with Jeff Casey's Maya & Sions Airdrie Classic, but it didn't knock them off completely!

The earliest of the good reds for me was Fish Lake Oxheart. One plant made in 55 days and another in 59 days. It was the earliest of all my full sized tomatoes last year. Some others that are relatively early:
Lumpy Red - 64 days
Red Barn - 67 days
Zogola - 68 days
Franks Large Red - 70 days

As to the question of great tasting large reds it is hard to beat Neves Azorean Red. I had another that was even bigger and just as good if not better that was misnamed but it was a 90 day tomato that looked a lot like Red Barn but it was tastier and much later. Lescana is a tasty but seedy tomato. Lumpy Red is a good red that is very productive and it is med/large. Druzba, Old Virginia, and Andrew Raharts all are tasty but not as large. Big Beef is the best of the hybrid reds that I have tried so far; but Bella Rosa is also good.

[RobinB]

This IS an interesting discussion. I had never thought of categorizing people's tastes in regards to tomatoes either. I definitely like them balanced. I have given up so many of the "earlies" because they are too acidic for me and not even a little bit sweet. I've also tried tomatoes with a high brix (sp?)index and thought they were too one-dimensional. I like a little bit of zip, but also some sweet. I didn't like Jaune Flamme 5 years ago when I first grew it, but tried it again in 2011 and liked it better. That doesn't make me a lemon sucker does it? <grin> I DO dislike green zebra though.