Member discussion regarding the methods, varieties and merits of growing tomatoes.
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April 2, 2010 | #1 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Wisconsin
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Roughwood Golden Plum
I'm starting a new thread so as not to hijack a thread where this was brought up -- what should Roughwood Golden Plum look like ?
I commented that it is a potato leaf dwarf. I attached 3 pics that I took late in the season last year. Granted they don't look very dwarf by that time. But earlier in the season they were standing quite upright, very much like the rest of my dwarves. The leaf form seems to be not as puckered rugose as many dwarves, but it was not full and soft like a normal leafed plant. I don't know quite how to describe it. I just a few days ago potted up my plantings of it for this year and the tiny leaves are definately Potato leafed. The plants I grew last year were from seed purchased from Sandhill and I grew close to 100 plants and all looked the same. They were quite productive and made the nicest orange tomato juice. Are they right for the type ? I don't know but they are good whatever they are. Carol |
April 2, 2010 | #2 |
Buffalo-Niagara Tomato TasteFest™ Coordinator
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Hi,
Sorellina grew it in 2008. She brought it to the 2008 Buffalo-Niagara party. You could PM her. Here's a pic of her fruit.http://www.tomatoville.com/attachmen...2&d=1220852413 Remy
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April 2, 2010 | #3 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: WI, USA Zone4
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April 2, 2010 | #4 |
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Carol, as you know I also posted in the thread in the seeds wanted Forum where the poster said the thread had been hijacked ( with a smiley after that comment) but please note that the original poster said she/he was just joking in the last post in responding to what I had said about the hijacking of the thread. I think it's best to ignore all of that and just focus on what Roughwood Golden Plum should be/
Carol had said that she thought Roughwood was a dwarf and I hadn't remembered it that way even though I've never grown it. And I knew it had been introduced by Will Weaver, so I went to my back issues of the SSE Yearbooks to do some searching and found his original description of this variety and what it should be. I tried to cut and paste just my post here, but I couldn't do it, so here's a link to the complete thread and you can see the data I posted from my SSE searches; http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=13991 As I said at the end of my post it looks like this variety has gotten mixedup/crossed, since the original description of the person who introduced it. A couple of folks said it was det, most said indet as did Weaver, and a det doesn't mean the same as a dwarf, which no one mentioned. I hope this helps clarify what this variety is supposed to be.
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April 3, 2010 | #5 |
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It seems the picture dustdevil posted seems to fit the description given in Tatiana's TOMATObase as an elongated, Ind., PL plum. Wi-sunflower and remy's fruit are round and Wi's picture gives the impression of a Determinate with so many fruit ripening at the same time. Ami
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April 3, 2010 | #6 |
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I didn't do any Googling of this variety, just looked at WWW's original description of it in the SSE Yearbook.
But thank you Suze, who did Google it and sent me the following link: http://books.google.com/books?id=QHu...tomato&f=false ......where he describes a more complicated origin for it and says that he thinks the determinate "strain" is best. At the bottom of the first page click on the red area at the bottom to go to the next page. Also shown is fruit shape, which is not round. He first listed it in the Yearbook in 1996 and here are the results of those who got seeds from him in 1996 and listed it in the 1997 Yearbook: IL, det, no leaf form or fruit form stated IN, no info at all OK,Indet, PL UT, large fat roma VA, indet, PL, canning tomato And if I jump to the 2000 Yearbook I see the same pattern, that is some getting det, some indet : FRAN, det IA (SSE), indet IL, det PA (WWW), indet, PL TN, det, PL TX, indet, PL VA, indet, PL WI ( Jeff Nekola), orange paste tomatoes on small plants Since all of the folks who listed it in the 1997 Yearbook, above, got their seeds directly from WWW it looks like this was never a stable variety b/c the seeds he sent out gave variable results in terms of plant habit, from the get go. And that's hard to reconcile with the comment in his book that I linked to above where he says there is a det "strain". If there were a true det strain re plant habit it should come true from saved seed. The larger question being addressed is whether or not this variety is a dwarf and despite the fact that some get a det plant, that doesn't make it a dwarf, as is defined at the top of the Dwarf Project Forum as I recall, and none who listed it whose blurbs I read it described it as being a dwarf, and I know some of those folks well, and I'm pretty sure they'd know a dwarf from a determinate plant habit. I hope this helps. And you know, I'm one of several folks who really does enjoy tracking where a variety came from and what it should be according to what an original lister described as the variety traits. With every passing year I see varieties I know well, many that I first listed, being listed with traits that were never seen in the variety as I knew it. And it's one of the reasons I've never thrown out ANY seeds that I've saved since about 1990. Just this AM I got an e-mail from someone who wanted to know where he could get Break O Day as it appears in my book and he detailed the three sources he got seed from and what he got, which clearly wasn't Break O Day. I don't know what to tell him at this point as to where to go to get true seeds for that variety. All I can do is to maybe try to find my older seeds of this variety and tell him to soak the heck out them for about 18 hours adding a pinch of MG or Peters to the soak, or a few drops of liquid fish or seaweed to the soak if he prefers something organic. If anyone reading here knows for a FACT that seeds of this variety that are true are available somewhere please do share that with me so I can share with him. But it's one of many varieties that I know that have gotten mixed up over time and aren't what they should be. I guess there are a few perks in terms of knowing what a variety should be just b'c I'm an old lady now so have had more time than most to grow out varieties as well as reading the Yearbook tomato section every year which doesn't have a compelling plot line, but is still interesting to me nevertheless.
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April 3, 2010 | #7 |
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Well, whatever I have is, it's a good variety. I'll try to take more pics this summer that better define how it grows.
While there are a lot on the plant that makes it look determinate, it grew ALL season and had quite a few fruit on most of the time. It didn't die out early like most determinates do for me. It was one of the varieties that did produce well in a cool to cold summer. Reasonably early considering we didn't have hardly ANY ripe varieties last year til the end of Aug. Nearly a month later than normal for us. While the pics I took make the fruit look rather round, it really was more of a plump roma shape. Elongated like a roma but not as square as many. The color of the ripe fruit were more orangy than my pics look. Those may not have been very ripe or the pic may just be off color. I took a lot of variety pics rather fast near the end of Sept and I didn't do the best with many of them. While many dwarves are a determinate, there are also dwarves that are what are called ISI - Indeterminate Short Internode. The Huskies are of that type. I don't know if Roughwood Golden Plum is of that type or not. I'll try to watch it better this summer. If I have a chance I'll put a few in pots, as it seemed like a plant that would do OK that way too. Carol |
April 3, 2010 | #8 |
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Carol posted:
While many dwarves are a determinate **** Carol, dwarfs are not the same as determinates. In my post above I referred to the definition of a dwarf as distinguished from a determinate and said I knew it was in the dwarf Forum somewhere and I found it and cut and pasted it below. There are many differences and you'll note that Craig said that dwarfs do fruit all summer long as do indeterminates which was one of the issues you addressed. I also know of some determinates that don't have a concentrated set of fruits and also fruit all summer long and for me one that I remember clearly is Matina/Tamina and I think Stupice does that for me as well. So I hope this helps, as written by Craig, and this is just a small part of the first post in that thread that he also wrote: First, terminology and background. Dwarf varieties (also known as tree-type tomatoes) have been known since the 1800s, but little breeding work was put into them, resulting in very few named options. They are distinguished from Indeterminates and Determinates by having a very stout central stem, an upright growth habit with little branching near the bottom of the plant, and very dark green, crinkly (aka rugose) foliage. The heights of dwarfs tend to be between 2-4 feet by the end of the growing season, and they are fine for growing in a cage, or tied to a short stake. They are distinguished from Determinate varieties in foliage type (Determinates have regular looking foliage, not rugose, and have smaller central stems with great amount of branching, though they stay short), and in fruiting - Determinates tend to ripen their fruits over a short period of time and then quit. Dwarfs, like Indeterminates, fruit all season long. Also, since there is a greater ratio of foliage to fruit in dwarf varieties, the potential for better flavor is there when compared to Determinates (which have a very high fruit to foliage ratio). **** And Craig also did a video that illustrates many of the points he made above.
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April 3, 2010 | #9 |
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Yes Caroline,
I know that ALL determinates are NOT dwarf. I also know that not all dwarves are determinate. Maybe not even many of the Dwarves as per Craigs description. But last year I did grow several dwarves that were definately determinate and pooped out after just a couple of fruit sets and were dead by Labor Day. Catalogs list Tiny Tim and Red Robin as determinate. I've been growing tomatoes for about 30 years now and know the difference between a dwarf and a plain determinate. Carol |
April 3, 2010 | #10 |
Buffalo-Niagara Tomato TasteFest™ Co-Founder
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Indet. Potato Leaf. Orange fruits resemble 2 plum tomatoes grown together; was a stable F9 cross of Yellow Brandywine x San Marzano. 5oz. ● 2.5-3", meaty, orange paste tomatoes on small plants. IL LO N 97 - PA WE W 96, William Woys Weaver, Devon, PA 19333. |
April 3, 2010 | #11 |
Tomatovillian™
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The year I grew it -2008 - my fruit looked just like Korney's picture. And they all ripened at the same time. Can't say that the plant was a dwarf though. More like a determinate.
MikeInCypress
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April 3, 2010 | #12 |
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Heres a good picture from Mark Korney who I got seeds from. Looks like I will be growing Roughwood next year. Looks like Mark slipped his picture in while I was trying to link his picture. Ami
http://mysite.verizon.net/~korney19/...GoldenPlum.jpg
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April 3, 2010 | #13 | |
Buffalo-Niagara Tomato TasteFest™ Co-Founder
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Quote:
P.S. I posted some other dwarf & PL Dwarf pics in the other thread, Looking for dwarf potato leaf variety seeds |
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April 3, 2010 | #14 |
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Carolyn, couldn't seem to access WWW book reference, but here's a pic from Jeff's site for further comparison ....
http://sev.lternet.edu/~jnekola/Heirloom/tomatoesR.htm
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April 3, 2010 | #15 |
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This post is not relative to Roughwood Golden Plum but is relative to comments within the tread.
While many dwarf varieties are truly indeterminate, there also are those that are determinate - fully determinate - producing a concentrated set and terminating all shoots with flowers. I grow examples of both kinds every year. Two characteristics seem to be common to both indeterminate and determinate dwarf tomatoes - rugose foliage and short internodes. |
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