Gold Medal hearts

[heirloomdaddy]

My Gold medal is throwing some heart shaped fruit...any experience with this? They're not super pointy but they are definitely hearts and they are meatier.

I understand that saving seed from one of the heart shaped fruits will not result in different offspring than seed saved from the beefsteaks...however it would sure be great if this gene could be exploited for breeding purposes, as I think this is much tastier than orange russian 117.

I'm assuming nothing can be done to encourage heart shaped Gold Medals other than breeding it to a heart shaped variety?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by heirloomdaddy

My Gold medal is throwing some heart shaped fruit...any experience with this? They're not super pointy but they are definitely hearts and they are meatier.

I understand that saving seed from one of the heart shaped fruits will not result in different offspring than seed saved from the beefsteaks...however it would sure be great if this gene could be exploited for breeding purposes, as I think this is much tastier than orange russian 117.

I'm assuming nothing can be done to encourage heart shaped Gold Medals other than breeding it to a heart shaped variety?

The onjly observation I can make is that when temps are high fpor a long time some fruits on varieties can assume a heart shape, kinda a blunt pseudo heart, not a pointy one. but seed saved from those false hearts give normal shaped fruit when seed is sown in a different year.

I'm not saying that's what happened in your situation, I can't, but I'm am saying that I have had it happen.

What was your seed source and did you have any other varieties from that same seed source that were a bit off and did all of the fruits on a plant morph into hearts?.

Lastly, how many plants of Gold Medal did you plant out b'c it would possibly make a difference if only one of several were affected?

[heirloomdaddy]

Well, about 1 per every 5 of the fruits on my only Gold Medal plant are putting out those 'blunt pseudo hearts' that you describe. The strange thing is, that it has been a bizarrely cool summer here. We had a period of about 2 weeks with heat and the rest of the time has been hovering around 80 degrees....it's been a summer full of june gloom as far as my tomato and pepper plants are concerned.

I do not believe it to be untrue seed, as the size, taste, color, and production of the plant have been spot-on, with the exception of about 4 or 5 tomatoes.

That being said, I did purchase these seeds from a certain 'tomato man' near carmel, california...and yes, he did skunk me on bad opalka seed this year. He did however send 3 packs of seeds to make up for it. Good guy.

what do you think Carolyn?