2016 Midwest Tomato Trials

[Scooty]

Sorry to those who tried to contact me. I was unavailable for a while, and then got caught up in non-tomato aspects of life. Then by the time I got back to tomatoes, I had a lot to catch up on. This thread is meant as way for me to share my 2016 results.

We're growing something on the order of 70-80 ish varieties in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, a lot of them are things I have not tried before. As such, I want to see how well they taste, yield, and aesthetics. Understandably many variables will affect taste (weather, original seed strain, hours of sun, soil quality, fertilizer frequency), and my results may greatly differ from yours. That said, as they say in the lab "ceteris paribus".... These results should at least be valid relative to one another given all the tomatoes share the same environment.

I don't have everything compiled yet, so I'll update as I have data available and time.

TY to Tormato, Cole_Robbie, Deb_FL, and ginger2778 for providing most if not all of the seeds used for the year!

[Scooty]

Taste

I have a lab quality ph meter and digital refractometer with temperature compensation (Brix). I'm using these two things to quantitively determine taste. There's still going to be discrepancies with results from other people. As Cole_Robbie pointed out, people often overripe tomatoes they don't like initially. The first Pink Bumblebees were quite acidic, but mellowed out after a day. Everything I'm testing was picked with the vine and rested for a day before testing.

Sadly a great many tomatoes were destroyed in this process of testing. Which makes be also mad cause I wanted to eat them.

These are results from the first fruits of the season.

Dwarf Tomato Project/other dwarfs

Purple Heart:
4.8 Brix
4.14 PH

So far Purple Heart is one of the more disappointing tomatoes of the year. It started crazy producing so many suckers with so many blossoms. The fruit is huge too (300g each roughly), but there is very little juice. In order to extract a sample for testing, I pretty much had to destroy about half a tomato.

Wild Fred:
7.7 Brix
4.33 PH

Choc Champion:
4.44 PH
5.4 Brix

Rosella Crimson:
6.8 Brix
4.2 PH

Sophie's Choice:
4.3 PH
4.6 Brix

Black Krim:
4.12 PH
8.0 Brix

Bushy Chabarovsky:
7.8 Brix
4.12 PH

Cherries

Pink Bumble Bee:
8.0 Brix
4.13 PH

Ron's Carbon Copy F7:
4.45 PH
7.1 Brix

So far RCC is probably the favorite of those cherries I'm growing. It not quite sweet, but it is less acidic and there's something very subtle about its smokey tomatey taste.

[Scooty]

For those with hard soil or a lot of clay. I trialed different tomatoes separately in an area with particularly hard soil. There was no tilling, instead we just threw black plastic mulch over the grass and dug a 12" diameter hole about 1' deep for each tomato. At 1', we hit pretty hard yellow clay.

Esmeralda Golosina
Gail X Everett's Rusty Oxheart
Girl Girl Wild Thing
Sweet Ozark Orange
Russian 117
Garden Peach
Wapsipinicon Peach
Sweet Sue
Russian Swirl
Rosella Crimson
Noire De Crimee
George Detsikas Italian Red

It's been over 30 days now, and GGWT + Esmerelda are the only two that really took off and look similar if not the same as their equals grow in an area with deep soft soil with tilling. Everything else is quite stunted.

[Scooty]

Polish Dwarf:
6.5 Brix
4.22 PH

Taz Chocolate:
5.7 Brix
4.33 PH

London Lass:
5.3 Brix
4.09 PH

Interestingly, the Taz Chocolate came out at a lower Brix than my Polish Dwarf, but it's still much tastier. More complex like a Black Krim. Much more tomatoey flavor. The first London Lass was surprisingly tart.

[Gardeneer]

Looks nice , Scooty.
What is interesting to me that all those tested have pH over 4.0. That means not very acidic. And that is combined with high brix translates to a fairly sweet tasting.

[Scooty]

Originally Posted by Gardeneer

Looks nice , Scooty.
What is interesting to me that all those tested have pH over 4.0. That means not very acidic. And that is combined with high brix translates to a fairly sweet tasting.

Carolyn mentioned in a post that there's no such thing as a low-acid tomato, just degrees of sugar. So maybe that's what I'm finding....

In any case, Brix and PH only touch a bit on taste. Pink Bumblebee and Black Krim came at at the same levels, but the Black Krim tastes less acidic to me. There's less nuance to the PBB flavor and maybe that's why it tastes more tart.

-------

All the dwarf tomatoes pretty much stopped growing and these were the some quick measurements out in the field. Everything required a garden stake to steady the plants simply because without them the fruit would tip them over with the windy corridor that is the midwest.

I didn't need cages for any of these minus the Purple Heart and Sarandipity. PH grew way too many suckers and heavy fruit that there was no other way to steady it. Sarandipity was too vine-ish and there wasn't enough thick tree like stem to keep it to one stake.

Russian Swirl 36"
Purple Heart 39"
Choc Champ 32"
Wild Fred 30"
Rosella Crimson 34"
Taz Chocolate 33"
Arctic Rose 27"
Sweet Adele 37"
Sarandipity 32"
Sleeping Lady 36"
Summertime Gold 43"
Pink Passion 28"
Summertime Gold 43"
London Lass 27"
Sweet Scarlet 39"
Wherokowhai 26"
Costal Pride Orange 26"
Blazing Beauty 36"
Summer Sunrise 47"
Sweet Sue 49"
Kangaroo Paw Yellow 32"
Kangaroo Pay Brown 26"
Golden Gypsy 40"
Jade Beauty 39"
Kangaroo Paw Green 32"
Uluru 50"
Banskia Queen 44"


other dwarfs
Polish Dwarf 26" (container)
Polish Dwarf 37" (field)
Sophie's Choice 16" (field and container)
Mano 20"

[Gardeneer]

On Low Acid Tomato:
Most tomatoes have an average pH of. 3.8. That is about on the border line for canning. so for any variety with a pH greater than that you have to acidify them and they are called low acid.
So in my opinion any tomato with pH of 4.1 and higher is relatively low acid even among most of fruits.
Yeah, sure. Sugar can hide the acidity but the pH meter cannot be fooled. You think Coke Classic is sweet ? It has a pH of about 2.5. Household vinegar ( 5 - 6% acidity) has a pH of 2.4.

[bower]

Originally Posted by Scooty

For those with hard soil or a lot of clay. I trialed different tomatoes separately in an area with particularly hard soil. There was no tilling, instead we just threw black plastic mulch over the grass and dug a 12" diameter hole about 1' deep for each tomato. At 1', we hit pretty hard yellow clay.

Esmeralda Golosina
Gail X Everett's Rusty Oxheart
Girl Girl Wild Thing
Sweet Ozark Orange
Russian 117
Garden Peach
Wapsipinicon Peach
Sweet Sue
Russian Swirl
Rosella Crimson
Noire De Crimee
George Detsikas Italian Red

It's been over 30 days now, and GGWT + Esmerelda are the only two that really took off and look similar if not the same as their equals grow in an area with deep soft soil with tilling. Everything else is quite stunted.

Thanks for posting this as well as all your test results, Scooty!
My plants got a nasty compacted soil surprise this year, and the ones that are standouts with great production in spite of it are duly being noted!
In the OP's - Altajskij Urozajnij, Mazarini, Desyatku and Oaxaca Jewel PL are pumping out the fruit and evidently were able to power their roots through it and get what they needed in spite of the stress.
Your post is the second reference I've noticed to GGWT making good in difficult soil.

Also very interested in your taste test results.
So much to learn... thanks for giving up some fruit to get the figures!

[jmsieglaff]

Originally Posted by Gardeneer

Looks nice , Scooty.
What is interesting to me that all those tested have pH over 4.0. That means not very acidic. And that is combined with high brix translates to a fairly sweet tasting.

http://foodsafety.wisc.edu/business_...oximate_ph.pdf

This would suggest his pH numbers are in the average range (4.3 - 4.9), and trending toward the acidic side.

[jmsieglaff]

I look forward to your further results, thanks for posting! Black Krim is one of my favorite tomatoes.

[jmsieglaff]

I'll be interested to see how the numbers for Black Krim and Noire de Crimee compare.

[Scooty]

Peach Blow Sutton:
6.7 Brix
4.15 PH

Polish C:
11.2 Brix
4.05 PH

I know there are multiple Polish strains, but I'm pretty sure what I have is Polish C, from Sand Hill Preservation Center due to the location of where I bought the original plant. In either case, this is something we've grown for quite sometime now, and I know this can get a tad sweeter than the sample I took. Not sure if that also corresponds to a less acidic PH, so I'm waiting for later season fruit to find out.

[Lindalana]

Originally Posted by Scooty

Peach Blow Sutton:
6.7 Brix
4.15 PH

Polish C:
11.2 Brix
4.05 PH

I know there are multiple Polish strains, but I'm pretty sure what I have is Polish C, from Sand Hill Preservation Center due to the location of where I bought the original plant. In either case, this is something we've grown for quite sometime now, and I know this can get a tad sweeter than the sample I took. Not sure if that also corresponds to a less acidic PH, so I'm waiting for later season fruit to find out.

wow, 11.2 Brix? Would love to get my hands on those seeds...
Thanks for posting your research! I have regular refractometer and tape to measure pH so very interesting to follow your results.

[Scooty]

Originally Posted by Lindalana

wow, 11.2 Brix? Would love to get my hands on those seeds...
Thanks for posting your research! I have regular refractometer and tape to measure pH so very interesting to follow your results.

Polish C is mentioned in Carolyn's book if I'm not mistaken. I've seen it mentioned a few times on the forum, and I'm a bit surprised this variety hasn't been discussed more often. Then again, I have no reference point to know if mine is the prototypical Polish C PL. It's a nice big pink tomato. Average fruit size is probably around 5oz-ish. For many years now, we've been primarily been selecting for sweetness and taste, and to a minor lesser degree productivity. I should have some seed later once they all ripen up. Is your garden full already?

[Scooty]

Kangaroo Paw Yellow:
7.0 Brix
4.04 PH
Reminds me a bit of a meyer lemon. Tart lemony/citrus flavor.

Summer Sunrise:
8.5 Brix
4.14 PH