Rhoades Heirloom, The rest of the story.

[amideutch]

As I said in the other thread I would e-mail Al Anderson and ask the question concerning the origin of Rhoades Heirloom. I just received a reply and are you ready for this. Rhoades Heirloom Is "Old German"!Here is the reply from Al.

Theodore -

Rhoades Heirloom is really Old German. About five years ago I thought it was something different and I named it RH. Another grower/farmer said it was Old German and I believe he is correct. I never sold any RH seeds. I did trade to Dan and Val McMurray and Neil Lockhart.

I should have delisted it last year and I will delist from SSE in their next yearbook. My fault, sorry for the mistake. I will try to get all of the egg, or perhaps yellow and red tomato, off my face! Sorry again.

Al

So, everybody who received seed from me identified as Rhoades Heirloom change that to Old German. I'm growing out a cross this year that is Wins All x Old German. If it turns out to be a good one maybe it can assume the Rhoades Heirloom name. Ami

[cleo88]

Thanks for the info. Old German looks tasty in the tomatobase pictures, so I'm still happy to be growing it. If it would just stop raining...

What inspired you to cross this with Wins All? What characteristics were you looking to achieve?

[ContainerTed]

This is good news. I thought I would have to go looking for Old German for next year.

Ami, like Mr. Magoo said,

"You've done it again !!!!"

Ted

[amideutch]

cleo, our own "ROB TWO HAWKS" did the cross and after the F1 growout ended up with 9 variations. I'm growing out #8 this year which was described as red with slightly orange streaks, oxheart and tasty. We will see. Ami

[dice]

Aha. So "Rhoades" was the correct spelling, but there was no
"Rhoades Heirloom". Thanks for getting a definitive answer
on that.

Just to complicate things a little more, what about this one?
Rhoades Pink German:
http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Rhoades_Pink_German

(The description is clearly different from Old German, so it
is not that same tomato by yet a third name. Maybe this was
the one Al did get from Rhoades.)

[amideutch]

I have sent Tania a PM to remove Rhoades Heirloom from her data base. Rhoades Pink German, maybe another query is in order. Have to look at the SSE yearbook. Ami

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by amideutch

I have sent Tania a PM to remove Rhoades Heirloom from her data base. Rhoades Pink German, maybe another query is in order. Have to look at the SSE yearbook. Ami

There is a Pink German, Rhoades, listed in the 2009 Yearbook by Neil Lockhart who got it from Bill Minkey in 2002.

I just pulled out my 2001 Yearbook and find that Bill said:

80 days, indet, RL, 8-16 oz pink red fruit, very seedy, very good flavor ( which isn't a superlative comeing from Bill), productive, from ( and gives an SSE member from Indiana as his source in 1997), via Susie Rhoades of Shelbyville, IN via a local farmer.

I didn't grab my 1997 Yearbook b'c the history is given above.

Just a sidenote, but Al has only started listing varieties in the Yearbook fairly recently and in great numbers and to some there have been some somewhat "questionable" entries, unfortunately. I don't know him personally, rather, only through his listings. Tania does know him re his listing for Black Pearl where he didn't know it was a Burpee hybrid and was offering F2 seeds and then I was the one who offered to share that info with Baker Creek who was offering it, seeds originally from Al, and they pulled the variety from the shelf.

And onward we go and I wish you would fly over here and help me keep all these Yearbooks to my left on the floor in some kind of order b'c as I search for one specific one I create another pile and then the piles get too high and they all fall down and then I have to, well, enough is enough.

[amideutch]

Tell you a secret Carolyn, I also keep my yearbooks on the floor to the left of my computer desk. But then again I only have 3. Ami

[amideutch]

I have edited Al Andersons e-mail to me to make a correction. He mentioned Dan and Val McDowell which should have been Dan and Val McMurray which it now reads. In case you didn't know, Dan and Val post here as "Grunt" and "Grungy". Ami

[Tania]

wow, what a story...

Ted, thank you so much for the thorough research (and drawing my attention to this topic)! I did not remove the article from TOMATObase (as this variety is still in circulation under this name, including SSE listings), but I made corrections in the 'History' section. Hopefully the folks who may have missed this thread would still have a chance to read the story at TOMATObase.

I wish I grew the 'Rhoades Heirloom' this year, side-by-side with the Old German that is extremely shy to set fruit in my garden, even in the nice weather we have been having here this year... Somehow, I still think there may be a small chance that this tomato is not 'Old German' (although of course I would not have any proof of this , my imagination goes wild picturing someone looking at this tomato in Al's field and saying that it may be ('is'?) 'Old German'... ). ...Unless Al is really saying he received the seed as 'Old German' but then decided it was something else and renamed it. Or, unless the original grower who shared the seeds with Al later confirmed it was 'Old German'... Of course, this is all speculation on my part, so I will now shut up!

Tania

[carolyn137]

Tania, your suspicions about it possibly not being Old German have been shared with Ted at another message site, not by me.

But Ted hasn't responded to those suspicions yet, probably b'c of the time lag.

The comments to Ted were made by someone who is an experienced tomato person and knows his varieties quite well and who also has a healthy suspicion about the kind of information that AL shared re today it's Rhoades Heirloom, tomorrow it becomes Old German based on really, what kind of information?.

There have to be way over 100 red/gold bicolors out there and listed in the SSE Yearbook and just b'c a farmer/grower friend 5 years later says it's Old German, how would he know for sure just seeing in front of him a gold/red bicolor?

How would any of us be able to tell the difference between many of the gold/red bicolors if they didn't come to us IDed specifically?

If Al had received it from his original source as Old German he would have listed it as Old German as I see it.

[Tania]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Tania, your suspicions about it possibly not being Old German have been shared with Ted at another message site, not by me.

Thank you Carolyn - I should check all the tomato message boards, it's been a very busy time for me and I probably missed many interesting posts...

I think it may be possible that the seeds were originally received as 'Old German' but then renamed later, if the grower thought the variety had different characteristics. Of course Al may no longer remember who he received the seeds from, as many years passed (unless he recorded the info - unfortunately his SSE listing does not have seed source information.) Growing so many varieties, it is so easy to forget the details (I know this very well myself! ), unless I keep notes.

I agree that there is no way ID'ing a bi-color beefsteak variety, as there are so many of them and they are very similar. In addition to that, the same bi-color variety may perform so differently in different years, they may even appear to the same grower as two different tomatoes!

Tania

[amideutch]

I am agreement with Tania as to leaving Rhoades Heirloom in her data base and updating the history. As I have not grown out OG as to make a comparison I can't say. Looks like next year I will be growing RH and OG side by side to compare. Here is what Dan McMurray (Grunt) had to say about my post at TLand on the same subject. Ami

e: Not Rhoades Heirloom
by GRUNT on Fri Jul 03, 2009 7:41 am

We tried to do a side by side grow out last year to determine if they were the same as Al had informed us that he was uncertain. Unfortunately, our Old German plants didn't make it through a couple of heater mishaps in the hoop house, so the comparison didn't get made. We have a couple of Rhoades in the ground this year, but didn't have Old German seeds to put any in beside them, and got a little forgetful about trading for some. We'll try to remember to find some in trade this year, and do the side by side next year.
A couple of points about Rhoade's Heirloom. Val remembers that Al had said he was told they had been grown by one family for a large number of years. If such is the case, there may well be a difference between them and Old German, even if they started out the same, just from regional adaption, and individual seed saving practices (which plants or fruit you decide to save seeds from). The other point is that, here at least, Rhoade's has a unique aftertaste. Does Old German have anything different for aftertaste?
In the case of Rhoades Heirloom, the aftertaste is similar to what you get with watermelon, when you start to get close to the rind.
I'll hold on trading or renaming Rhoade's until I can do a side by side comparison. To my eye, they had a unique coloration pattern that really isn't visible in the two best photos I have of them:


http://lh3.ggpht.com/_aKlVwuyZNvk/Rd...0%28001%29.jpg

[carolyn137]

Ted, I looked at that picture and while I've grown lots of gold/red bicolors there's only one that, for me, has had such coloration as seen in the picture, and that's Mary Robinson. I see it's listed as Mary Robinson's German Bicolor in the Yearbook but I first knew it as just Mary Robinson.

Different bicolors can have that second color go upwards on the exterior to one degree or another but Mary Robinson is the only one I've ever grown that has colored up all the way to the stem and actually looks red.

The interior has heavy pinkish red marbling, much more interior marbling than other varieties I've ever grown of the bicolors.

[amideutch]

Carolyn, what I would like to do is find a seed source for the real deal Old German and we can throw in Mary Robinson's which I have seed from Mariseeds and I'll do a grow out next year with a couple other folks and see what we come up with. Ami