2013 Project Photos - Page 3

Boutique Tomatoes · August 25, 2013

This one is a Great White x P20 cross I got from Reinhard Kraft. It's the first large fruited yellow with dark anthocyanin shoulders I've found in this years blue tomato trials.

I am developing a great understanding of the term "marketable yield." With our cool, somewhat wet summer just now starting to warm up into the 80's and 90's all of a sudden things are ripening like mad. Unfortunately the bulk of the larger tomatoes are cracked, checked and scarred from the environmental conditions, so I'm doing all of my canning with the rejects at the moment. However the current crop of culls from Thursday and Saturdays pickings is probably over 100 pounds and there will be more tomorrow. By contrast, some of the cherry varieties are yielding 80% marketable fruit.

They are more work to pick, but having something to sell a few weeks before the larger ones start coming in and being able to sell the majority of what we harvest has been eye opening.

Alfredo · August 25, 2013

That is one beautiful tomato indeed. Very eye catching.

Boutique Tomatoes · August 27, 2013

From my grow out of last years Blue Green Zebra find I have several plants throwing larger 6-10oz fruits like this one. Taste is very good, I really like the appearance but they have not had many full size seeds yet, probably due to our cool weather early on... I also have a nice salad sized selection just a little smaller than last years, a selection of each type will probably go on to next years grow list.

This little flamed cherry is type #8 I have found from Tom Wagner's Shadow Boxing.

I had 4 lines of anthocyanin GWR types from my grow out of Tom Wagner's lines last year, I planted an average of 8 plants of each of my selections this year. A couple of plants from Muddy Waters are throwing these small hearts.

This one I haven't figured out where it came from yet, they were in the GWR row near where the Blue Green Zebra plants are, but had the red stripes. I assumed they were just a GWR bicolor that had some red streaking in the flesh, right up until I tossed them whole into the juicer. When the spout started running red I sliced into the next one... After taking this picture I found a handful of fruits that had darker more even flesh while still having the nice thick walls (I think it helps them hold longer) that I assume came from just one of the plants. So that's the one I saved seeds from.

Boutique Tomatoes · August 27, 2013

I thought I'd post this. One of the fun things about doing some of these grow outs is taste testing all the variations that come out of a segregating line. Until you start that 'I've had too much' feeling from your tongue anyway.

This is a box containing a couple of fruit from each plant of Shadow Boxing (the one pictured above was not in this round) I cut each of them, checked them for wall thickness, size of core, appearance and taste.

A lot of them fell into the "Ok" category for me, but nothing I really want to dedicate space for next year just because they look neat. The dwarf line though knocked my socks off. Sweet, intense flavor, good appearance with light striping, thick flesh... the best tasting dwarf fruit I have ever had, and better than a lot of the standard varieties that I have grown as well. Not terribly productive, but I think it's going to be a winner as a breeding line for incorporating great fruit characteristics in compact plants.

11111

Boutique Tomatoes · September 7, 2013

Grow out enough unstable crosses and you find some interesting stuff...

This lemon yellow heart with antho shoulders was eye catching when I ran across it in the boxes when sorting tomatoes this week. Flavor is only average for a true yellow, but the look is pretty sharp.

This 2.5oz salad GRW will be coming back next year to see if something in this family will start to settle down.

I also like one of the small globe versions from this line.

This 4 inch segregate had me excited, but taste is lacking. I'm unsure if I will grow it out and try to cross it to something else to get better taste plus the anthocyanin expression in a larger tomato. I have too much green going on already.

I have managed to find yellow, red and green striped globe salad types all with anthocyanin and stripes that I want to keep working with.

This little plum type is just over an ounce. Only F2, so we'll have to see.

This red with gold stripes and anthocyanin shading is running 1-2oz. Also an F2.

I had about 30 plants out looking for small striped yellow fruits with anthocyanin in the stripes. All over the board, but here are 9 examples of the segregation just in the ones that had both stripes and anthocyanin. I do have one more possibility out in the field that may have ripe fruit tomorrow, right now the 4th from the left is my leading contender.

bower · September 8, 2013

Oh, Mark, what beautiful tomatoes!

Thanks so much for the photos, I feel the excitement alright. Hope the commercial concept works out as well.

Boutique Tomatoes · September 10, 2013

I am learning a lot, that's for sure.

My inner geek kicked in and I ordered a refractometer to help me make selections. What I have discovered after playing the 'taste this one' game with everyone I can is that most people like sweet tomatoes. I have a few interesting types that I was curious to test to see just how sweet they really were.

For comparison, I tested a Cowlick's Brandywine and the pictured Fahrenheit Blues segregant. Both of them tested around 5 brix for me. The little unnamed pink cherry beside it has been my surprise this year, it averaged 9 brix and doesn't really taste tomato like to me, it's that fruity. The Sun Sugar (?) derived cross next to that is a breeding line I got from another breeder, it averaged 7, as did the larger striped cherry beside it which is another one that seems to run on the high end of sweet tomatoes. I'm going to take my new toy out to the big field and test a few things out there tonight.

Now I feel like I need to salt and suck a lemon wedge to get the sugar coating off of my tongue. I burned out my sweet tooth during my first career as a pastry chef...

bower · September 10, 2013

I know what you mean about the sweetness... when a tomato tastes like watermelon or peach, I feel like there's something missing.
But what is it? I used to think 'lycopene' but hey that's in watermelon too. There's a savoury red tomato taste I really crave, but don't know what to call it.

Except, for example, Napoli a Fiaschetto. Will be back next year. Please invent the tomatometer, so I can find others like it.

Boutique Tomatoes · September 10, 2013

Yes, I have been shocked at the reaction to the sweet ones. What I think it is for one thing is the vast difference between any commercial tomato and the sweet ones that you pretty much only get from a gardener or a specialty grower.

I'm going to try layer rooting a branch of the pink cherry and cross it with one of the blue cherries so I can bring it inside to finish maturing. It's not a currant but it is a small sweet type so it may fit into my plans to come up with a small blue cherry that looks and tastes like a berry.

Mashman · September 11, 2013

The unnamed pink cherry might be Magic Trick... mine were very sweet and looked a lot like the one in your pic Mark.

Michael

Boutique Tomatoes · September 11, 2013

Just the one plant of it so I am hoping a mix up some where and not a F1 cross that just happened to be really good. I took a handful in with me to one of the restaurants and they were extremely well received, so seeds of that one have been saved for next year. ;-) I am hoping it is something moderately stable...

If my memory is right Magic Trick had the possibility of good late blight resistance too, have you had any problems this year and if so how is it doing?

Some more interesting ones:

This one is a F3 from a completely black antho fruit that measured about 1 ¼ inches last year. They've all been larger this year and I've figured out that completely black fruit are not going to be commercially viable because they're almost impossible to pick. So I've been picking them all myself and most have ended up as sauce. This one I just happened to notice the pattern under the antho before it got cored. I'm going to track down which plant it is tonight. It has decent flavor but thinner walls than I would like, but I may keep this one going for another year to see if the shadow appearance is inheritable or if I find a segregant with thicker flesh. It's about the size of a large egg this year.

This one is late to ripen, but the plants are loaded and the fruit has good hang/shelf time. It's from Sky Reacher, so it may also have some late blight resistance going for it.

This one is interesting, and I apologize for the bad pic; I'll replace it when I take a better one. It's a P20 x a greenhouse slicer variety. Early ones were not great in our cool wet summer, but the ones now that we're finally warmer are something I can see going on for another year.. They aren't cracking like lots of the other antho lines, so I am keeping an eye on this one.

Mashman · September 11, 2013

Mark:

Not sure how much late blight pressure there is in the area... but it has been reported in the area many times (by USA Blight.org) over the season. No problems at all with Magic Trick, Iron Lady, Skykomish and a few others that are supposed to have blight resistance. I've been pretty disciplined with spraying... so who knows for sure....

As always... thanks for the pics.

Michael

Boutique Tomatoes · September 16, 2013

This is a good picture of the fruit from the dwarf line from Shadow Boxing that I grew this year. Firm fruit, sweet (avg brix was 8), not overly juicy. On of my non-tomato loving sons said this one was good. If I could get a paste type that was sugary like one of the high brix cherries that would work well for him, he does not like all the juice and gel.

ChrisK · September 21, 2013

How'd those Sungold x Chocolate cherry do? You're going to send me some seed, right??

Boutique Tomatoes · September 23, 2013

They were somewhat variable, as is to be expected from a Sungold cross. Huge rambling vines that took over the walkways. The fruit tended to split a lot in our rains, so there will probably be 1000's of volunteers coming up next year.

I will get them out to you, but it may be a couple of weeks yet. I am deep in the middle of trying to finish up seed saving, get the field cleaned up and planted with a cover crop and a seemingly endless list of things to do for the fall.

August 25, 2013	#32
Alfredo Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Clifton, NJ Posts: 554	That is one beautiful tomato indeed. Very eye catching. __________________ ~Alfredo

August 27, 2013	#33
Boutique Tomatoes Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Northeast Wisconsin, Zone 5a Posts: 1,109	From my grow out of last years Blue Green Zebra find I have several plants throwing larger 6-10oz fruits like this one. Taste is very good, I really like the appearance but they have not had many full size seeds yet, probably due to our cool weather early on... I also have a nice salad sized selection just a little smaller than last years, a selection of each type will probably go on to next years grow list. This little flamed cherry is type #8 I have found from Tom Wagner's Shadow Boxing. I had 4 lines of anthocyanin GWR types from my grow out of Tom Wagner's lines last year, I planted an average of 8 plants of each of my selections this year. A couple of plants from Muddy Waters are throwing these small hearts. This one I haven't figured out where it came from yet, they were in the GWR row near where the Blue Green Zebra plants are, but had the red stripes. I assumed they were just a GWR bicolor that had some red streaking in the flesh, right up until I tossed them whole into the juicer. When the spout started running red I sliced into the next one... After taking this picture I found a handful of fruits that had darker more even flesh while still having the nice thick walls (I think it helps them hold longer) that I assume came from just one of the plants. So that's the one I saved seeds from. Last edited by Boutique Tomatoes; August 27, 2013 at 10:25 PM. Reason: Fixed my run on sentence...

September 10, 2013	#37
Boutique Tomatoes Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Northeast Wisconsin, Zone 5a Posts: 1,109	I am learning a lot, that's for sure. My inner geek kicked in and I ordered a refractometer to help me make selections. What I have discovered after playing the 'taste this one' game with everyone I can is that most people like sweet tomatoes. I have a few interesting types that I was curious to test to see just how sweet they really were. For comparison, I tested a Cowlick's Brandywine and the pictured Fahrenheit Blues segregant. Both of them tested around 5 brix for me. The little unnamed pink cherry beside it has been my surprise this year, it averaged 9 brix and doesn't really taste tomato like to me, it's that fruity. The Sun Sugar (?) derived cross next to that is a breeding line I got from another breeder, it averaged 7, as did the larger striped cherry beside it which is another one that seems to run on the high end of sweet tomatoes. I'm going to take my new toy out to the big field and test a few things out there tonight. Now I feel like I need to salt and suck a lemon wedge to get the sugar coating off of my tongue. I burned out my sweet tooth during my first career as a pastry chef... Last edited by Boutique Tomatoes; September 10, 2013 at 06:52 PM.

September 21, 2013	#44
ChrisK Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Raleigh, NC Posts: 1,448	How'd those Sungold x Chocolate cherry do? You're going to send me some seed, right?? __________________ Blog: chriskafer.wordpress.com Ignorance more frequently begets knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. --Charles Darwin

September 7, 2013	#35
Boutique Tomatoes Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Northeast Wisconsin, Zone 5a Posts: 1,109	Grow out enough unstable crosses and you find some interesting stuff... This lemon yellow heart with antho shoulders was eye catching when I ran across it in the boxes when sorting tomatoes this week. Flavor is only average for a true yellow, but the look is pretty sharp. This 2.5oz salad GRW will be coming back next year to see if something in this family will start to settle down. I also like one of the small globe versions from this line. This 4 inch segregate had me excited, but taste is lacking. I'm unsure if I will grow it out and try to cross it to something else to get better taste plus the anthocyanin expression in a larger tomato. I have too much green going on already. I have managed to find yellow, red and green striped globe salad types all with anthocyanin and stripes that I want to keep working with. This little plum type is just over an ounce. Only F2, so we'll have to see. This red with gold stripes and anthocyanin shading is running 1-2oz. Also an F2. I had about 30 plants out looking for small striped yellow fruits with anthocyanin in the stripes. All over the board, but here are 9 examples of the segregation just in the ones that had both stripes and anthocyanin. I do have one more possibility out in the field that may have ripe fruit tomorrow, right now the 4th from the left is my leading contender.

September 8, 2013	#36
bower Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2012 Location: Newfoundland, Canada Posts: 6,794	Oh, Mark, what beautiful tomatoes! Thanks so much for the photos, I feel the excitement alright. Hope the commercial concept works out as well.

September 11, 2013	#40
Mashman Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: MA Posts: 158	The unnamed pink cherry might be Magic Trick... mine were very sweet and looked a lot like the one in your pic Mark. Michael

September 16, 2013	#43
Boutique Tomatoes Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Northeast Wisconsin, Zone 5a Posts: 1,109	This is a good picture of the fruit from the dwarf line from Shadow Boxing that I grew this year. Firm fruit, sweet (avg brix was 8), not overly juicy. On of my non-tomato loving sons said this one was good. If I could get a paste type that was sugary like one of the high brix cherries that would work well for him, he does not like all the juice and gel.

September 23, 2013	#45
Boutique Tomatoes Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Northeast Wisconsin, Zone 5a Posts: 1,109	They were somewhat variable, as is to be expected from a Sungold cross. Huge rambling vines that took over the walkways. The fruit tended to split a lot in our rains, so there will probably be 1000's of volunteers coming up next year. I will get them out to you, but it may be a couple of weeks yet. I am deep in the middle of trying to finish up seed saving, get the field cleaned up and planted with a cover crop and a seemingly endless list of things to do for the fall.