Russian Cossack

[Minnesota Mato]

I just picked my first russian cossack today. It is more pretty then the picture shows, it looks like gold specks in it. I will taste it tomorrow!

[sicily]

I'm growing this one also. Mine looks similar, I did have some that were slicer size. Very nice tomato, I enjoyed the flavor.

[RobinB]

I've got two plants of Russian Cossack and one is producing stripey ruffled oblate beefsteaks. This one appears to be determinate. It put out an almost multiflora display on the top of the plant, and now quite a few tomatoes have formed and just keep getting bigger. One has ripened (due to BER) and the taste was awful. Hopefully it will get better. The other plant is producing fruit that looks like yours. Nothing ripe from this one at all, but it got started really late.

[Boutique Tomatoes]

Yes, mine were all over the place with regards to fruit size and taste, I selected one smaller round one like the picture above to grow out next year and another larger one with similar striping, but mine weren't ruffled. I'd love to see a picture of the stripy ruffled oblate one!

[RobinB]

Mark,
Here's a photo. The one tomato that ripened was a pretty ruby pink with green stripes. Redder than Pink BTD is but still pink... Hopefully more will ripen and then I can I'll take a photo!

Robin

[Boutique Tomatoes]

Interesting! That looks even bigger than the larger one I had, and mine was smooth. Hopefully the taste improves for you!

[Granite26]

My plants all grew out smooth round toms. Very attractive and fairly good producer but the plants all died off about two weeks ago.

[carolyn137]

It sounds to me like this variety is not gentically stable.

I checked Tania's qwbsite for it, not listed as Russian Cossack bu perhaps with a Russian name.

I'm curious to know if all of you got this variety from the same place, as in, what were the seed sources for each of you? Just looking for commonality, or not, in seed sources.

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/Cossack

The above from Tania's website but I also turned up references to Tom Wagner as well as an F1 Cossack.

If a new one from Tom I get the impression that all of his new ones aren't stable and genetic segregation is the norm, based on the threads and posts that I've seen. Somaybe that explains the variability/

[Granite26]

Yes mine were from Tom. I tried a bunch of new varieties from him and planted at least 5 plants of each. This was actually one of the few that all 5 plants produced alike. Most had two or three versions show up in the 5 plants. He did say most were not stable.

[RobinB]

Yes, I got mine from Tom's website too. I also got two others from him, "Shadow Boxing" and "Searching for the Blue Zebra", and there were some differences between my plants of each type.

I think the not knowing what you're going to get is kind of fun, just as long as there's not too much of it! This year, I did lots of plants for the Dwarf Tomato Project as well as these from Tom, and it was almost too much to handle. I think I'll scale back on the "unknowns" next year a bit. Or not. Now is not the time to be making these kinds of decisions. I'm sure the tomato fever will have me firmly in its grasp just as soon as January rolls around and I'll forget all this nonsense talk!

[Boutique Tomatoes]

Yes, I think these were F3 if my memory is correct. Tom was my seed source as well.

[delltraveller]

My Russian Cossack plant is yielding salad sized ovals that are red-orange with gold striping. And yes, the seeds are from Tom Wagner, purchased this year.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Granite26

Yes mine were from Tom. I tried a bunch of new varieties from him and planted at least 5 plants of each. This was actually one of the few that all 5 plants produced alike. Most had two or three versions show up in the 5 plants. He did say most were not stable.

Initially at his website he didn't say what he was offering of his new ones weren't stable but after many folks asked questions after starting seeds and seeing what they got and being confused he then added that most were not stable and has been helping folks by telling them what to select for, etc., which is good.

[RobinB]

Yes, I was one of those people. I assumed that they were stable if he was selling them. I didn't figure it out until people here on Tville started mentioning that they were each getting different results.

Does anybody know if we are supposed to be letting somebody know what we got? Charging $5 for a packet of unstable seeds and not telling people anything at all seems a strange way to do business.

[Boutique Tomatoes]

Tom frequently refers to it as open source vegetable breeding. Interested parties can buy early generations of interesting possibilities and grow them out, and if you find something stellar he hopes that you'll send it back to him. That wasn't explained too well on the web site though, and of course it can fall down if the growers aren't seed savers or don't know what they're supposed to be selecting for. You really have to dig around on various message boards to find information. Like I just found last night the story behind Santa Anna and no matter what you do you're never going to get more than 50% of the plants to be what you want due to the way the rin genes work in OP tomatoes.

I went in full bore this year because I got interested in tomato breeding and figured this would give me some interesting genetics to play with as well as some early generations of fun crosses to work with until I have my own. Add in some of Brad Gates varietes and the striped cherries Fred Hemple is releasing along with the best of all the unusual heirloom varieties I trialed this year and I've got a great garden of crossing possibilities next year.

One negative I see is that with lots of people starting with early generations of seeds there are likely going to be a dozen versions of them floating around on the seed trading groups.