New Variety - Ben Gantz - Seed for Trial

[tomatoguy]

Here is my mom's plant, located in Nashville, TN, Zone 6B. It is twice the size of mine. Aside from the nice cluster of three on the bottom of the plant, it is forming about a dozen more near the top.

mater

[nctomatoman]

Ben got some lower foliage disease, which I pruned off. Fruit set is excellent, they are sizing up nicely. Cluster of fruit as of June 25 in the pic.

[tomatoguy]

My Ben Gantz plant gets the first blush award here. Will post again with DTM in a few days. It is coming in ahead of the other early varieties in the same area: Gregori's Altai, Dokhodny and Early Large Red.

mater

[tomatoguy]

Here it is. This year's first ripe tomato: Ben Gantz. May was a horrible month for tomatoes here so everything is about 2-3 weeks behind. The first fruit weighs 4.7 ounces. Days to maturity is 66. I will let it ripen just a touch more and will probably get to taste it on Friday. Will report back on that experience. BG is still the smallest of my early varieties but that's just fine if it is going to be the earliest. I had guessed Gregori's Altai would come in first but that didn't turn out to be the case. Not even a blush on GA, yet.

mater

[nctomatoman]

Nice! Mine are around that size, and I expect ripening in a week or so. Hard to tell from the pic - is it a red or a pink?

[tomatoguy]

Hard to tell just yet, Craig. I think it is going to ripen to red.

mater

[Lee]

Here's my harvest from BG along with Anna Russian and a small Shannons. It is definitely pink. The first one I tasted
was mild leaning toward the sweet side. Came in at 1/2 lb in
58 days! It varies in shape from oblate to round. I
suspect the cool fruit setting early this spring is the cause of
the more oblate shaped fruit.
Looking forward to more from this plant as it is quite loaded.

Lee

[dice]

Looks like it is going to produce some doubles here. There is
an occasional big, marigold type flower on it, and I saw a
doubled pistil when I was trimming a bud on it for a cross.

(Paul mentioned possible issues with inconsistent texture,
so I thought I would see what a couple of crosses with
cultivars with consistent texture from one fruit to another
might produce. It is also very early, running neck and
neck with Kimberly and Bloody Butcher, with possibly
bigger fruit, and that makes it potentially useful for
bringing some of the traits of mid-late and late season
cultivars into an earlier DTM range, too.)

A lot of times one sees fused pistils when trimming buds,
where the pistils are wider than average for the plant,
but they are joined all the way from the ovaries to the tip
of the pistil. This one was different, with two independent
pistils inside the anthers of one flower, protruding side-by-side
from the ovaries. (I cut one off, as it was unnecessary for
trying a cross.)

Very earlies: Kimberly, Bloody Butcher, Ben Gantz, a Stupice (x ?) F2
from Grunt, "Cowberian" (PL Not Siberian), and "Sweet, Pointy
Little Red Golf Balls" (an off type from a commercial packet
that beat Stupice by 2 weeks in 2007, very hard fruit when
first ripe). These look like they are all going to ripen first
fruit at the same time. If I had to guess a first to blush,
it would be Cowberian (in a fairly dim spot in the garden at that;
it may ripen the very first fruit with 2-4 hours less sun per day
than the others).

So far, Kimberly is the most productive of these (looks like it
set around 10 fruit on the first cluster). Ben Gantz could be
the biggest, depending on how big the fruit on the Stupice X ? F2
get.

Csikos Botermo and Costa Rica are about a week behind
(same sun exposure in same row as Kimberly, Bloody Butcher,
and Ben Gantz).

("Saladettes, anyone?")

[tomatoguy]

Yup. Mine turned out to be pink, too. Tomorrow it is going to turn out to be gone.

mater

[tomatoguy]

I will rate the Ben Gantz I had this morning 8 on taste. It is a mild, sweet tomato. I like the taste better than either of the parent varieties. I would probably grow it again on earliness alone.

mater

[akgardengirl]

Here are photos of the 2 Ben Gantz plants I have. Plant #2 had the first tomato on before any others but I bumped it off when transplanting it to the permanent pot. I am comparing it to "Melfort" this year, which is the first time to grown it. Melfort is really the first to put on a bunch of fruit besides the one early wayward fruit of BG. I can't wait to taste it because just judging it on earliness alone...it will be back next season.
Sue

[nctomatoman]

They are coming in! I've picked 3 Ben Gantz, very uniform oblate pink tomatoes at 4 ounces. Pics and tasting notes to follow - my first non-cherry tomato.

[paul2101]

I'm glad to hear that the earliness is holding up for some of you; mine aren't that early his year. I don't know why. It's just one of those gardening mysteries.

I just picked my first today.

Size is variable on this variety and it's not rare to get tomatoes above 8 ounces. The majority of fruit should weigh in between 5 and 8 ounces. My largest last year was 10.7 ounces. The largest I got off a first truss was 8.7 ounces. Usually the largest ones are cat-faced or have radial cracks or stitching.

If you can keep notes on the sizes, that would be very helpful.

Paul

[Lee]

Paul,

Here's my collection of fruit all in one photo. This has been
quite the prolific variety. And good tasting too, especially
for how early it came in. It was ripe in 58 days, which was
only beat by Sungold at 49 days and Anna Russian at 55 days.

My fruit are coming in closer to 4 oz average, with only one
at 8 oz. I wonder if growing it in the pot has effected the
size.

Lee

[pacmanJohn]

Picked my first today (68 days). I've picked 6 tomatoes so far off of two 'black' tomato plants so Ben Gantz wasn't 'early', but I have a Fourth of July that ALWAYS produces by second week of July that doesn't have any turning yet so go figure...