Best tasting determinate
 

Opinions on the determinate tomato with the best flavour.
And go:

KarenO

"BEST" is difficult to qualify.
I may suggest SILETZ: It has a compact growth habit, about 4ft.
It is bred by OSU for PNW. It is pathenocarpic.
It is eary, has good fruit size bigger than all other early varieties that I have grown. I have picked ripe tomatoes from Siletz, in early July in north of Seattle, WA area.
The fruits taste good.

Karen, I have grown a bunch of them through the years. My favorites are Sasha's Altai, my customers love those too, and Mountain Fresh, which is semi determinate for me, they are very good tomatoes, market quality. Some of the Saraev collection are good too, o-33, and a bunch that I can't spell without finding the packages. LOL

I like Sophie's Choice and Siberski Skorospelyi (?sp )


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Some sites and people call this one a Determinate. Others call it a Semi Determinate. It grows/produces almost Indeterminate in our gardens - Bradley.

EM Champion is the best tasting determinate I have grown, unfortunately it is also the least productive. I think most determinate tomatoes where developed for market growers among whom taste was not the primary consideration. The very best tasting tomatoes I have eaten all are indeterminates that require a long season to develop their great flavor. I get two growing seasons each year, both end abruptly at about 100 to 110 days due to freezing or extreme heat. An 85 day tomato that ripens a few fruit at a time yields me 15 to 25 days of production amounting to about a dozen tomatoes in a good year. Most determinates produce loads of tomatoes and are finished by 100 to 110 days but lack the great flavor of those late indeterminates. The best balance of flavor and productivity for me are semi determinate varieties such as Break O' Day. I keep looking for those great tasting determinate tomatoes but I believe they are yet to be developed and will require a lot of effort for what is probably a small market.

Agree on all points. It's easy to see just from the lack of response here that there is a dearth of determinate tomatoes known for their good flavour. Agree that determinate breeding has generally focused on either earliness alone or commercial interests: mechanized harvest, disease resistance and concentrated fruit set which are all good qualities certainly but the breeders were not concerned with flavour.
I think it can be done though. Flavour needs to be the main focus of the breeding project which it generally isn't when commercial breeders are doing it. It is the primary focus of my own small projects.
KarenO
I should qualify that to say North American breeders because I agree there are some excellent flavoured Russian determinate heirlooms and even some commercial tomatoes. Chernomor (Black Sea man) is another good example.

For breeding I would recommend very old variety Olomoucké nízké (Olmovic), at least to me it tasted a lot. It is from the time when there was mainly about taste.
Vladimír

[QUOTE=MrBig46;625682]For breeding I would recommend very old variety Olomoucké nízké (Olmovic), at least to me it tasted a lot. It is from the time when there was mainly about taste.
Vladimír[/QUOTE]

Good to know, thank you Vladimir:yes:
KarenO

Karen, if you think of Bradly as a Determinate - it is one of our favorites. It's just difficult for me to think of as a determinate grown here.

I do agree that more emphasis needs to be given for flavor.

Hmm, some that I have loved.. Pearly Pink Orange (early, prolific, and tasty!!), Kluykve ve Sakhare (red, cherry/grape size), Dar Zavolzhya Rozovyi (pink slicer)..

Isn't Rutgers a determinate? Never grown them, but they carry a good name.

Some say that Paul Robeson is a determinate. I think that it is a great tasting tomato.

Maglia Rosa, Cole, and Sol Gold. They are compact determinates. I love the taste of Bradley as well. It's a much bigger plant, and possible semi-det. I have a det called Titan Red that is not too shabby as well.

Another vote for Cole! It's a very tasty determinate and very early as well! I'm just a bit south of you across the border, Karen, and it's always one of the first in my garden.

[QUOTE=Cole_Robbie;625797]Maglia Rosa, Cole, and Sol Gold. They are compact determinates. [/QUOTE]

Is Cole your own variety? I can't find it in Tatiana's list.

I've grown cole, got it in the Canadian swap a few years ago.
Annapolis seeds carries it but is sold out looks like. It's a lot like subarctic plenty or other small early Canadian reds. Flavour, for me, was not there. But I don't like most tomatoes like it.

KarenO

[QUOTE=LDiane;625875]Is Cole your own variety? I can't find it in Tatiana's list.[/QUOTE]

Cole is an heirloom from Saskatchewan, Canada. It is very compact plant and makes a red mini-beefsteak. Harvest window is fairly brief.

For my high tunnel, I like Aura and Agatha. Both of them are red. Aura is a saladette and usually one of my first varieties to ripen. Agatha is a bigger tomato, and comes on 10-14 days or so later. Both of them are fairly big plants.

Sladkij Ponchik is an excellent yellow variety. I think it is determinate. Flavor is very good. Normally, I grow Taxi as my high tunnel yellow, but mostly for its huge yield. Flavor isn't bad with Taxi, just very mild.

I second Maglia Rosa.

Early Wonder from TGS, and Mountain Fresh.

Danko, Sophie's Choice, and Hanky Red are all determinate, if I remember correctly. Clear Pink Early was another one I liked.

[FONT=&quot]One that several here have praised is [/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Altajskij[/FONT] [/FONT][FONT=&quot] ([/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]Altajskiy[/FONT]) Urozajnij. Here's Tatiana's description: [URL]http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Altajskij_Urozajnij[/URL][FONT=&quot] [/FONT] I'm going to grow it this season, and will let you know how it does.


Steve[/FONT]

The only 2 i can recommend are both green when ripes pit viper and lime green salad. The ladder tastes just like its name like a fresh green salad with lime juice on it

A number of great suggestions, thank you to all
KarenO

[QUOTE=charley;626062]The only 2 i can recommend are both green when ripes pit viper and lime green salad. The ladder tastes just like its name like a fresh green salad with lime juice on it[/QUOTE]


Interesting, my experience was neither that fresh nor green: I was almost underwhelmed. Compared to some other wonderful GWR varieties (Green Zebra, Esmeralda Golosina) LGS was just... tepid.
But I may try again.

This season I hope to grow Lucinda, isn't that determinate as well?

Whoops I missed this thread! Always interested in learning about tasty determinates.

Altajskij Urozajnij were amazingly delicious for me the year I grew them outside. They were not very early and not very productive (a miserable year) but super sweet and kept on producing small gems when I brought the plant in for the fall. In the greenhouse all season the following year AU was super productive with a bit larger fruit, but not as tasty. :bummer: Still on the sweet side though, they weren't bad.
I tried a cross between AU and a very sweet F2 the first year, and grew out two F1 siblings from the cross - one was meh, the other one sweet. :surprised:
I've also grown Siletz and Cold Set - they were not as early as I expected but larger than the general run of early reds. Both were decent tasting reds, fairly loaded on tiny plants, but both were also wicked splitters - about every fruit split. They also had really bad foliage disease.

Of a dozen or so early small reds, only two were outstanding for taste: Napoli a Fiaschetto which is a small pointy plum, and Alaska. These were not sweet nor tart but rich balanced taste, lots of umami intensity.

Are you looking for something for a breeding project?

You know me, always scheming.Yes, I am making some theoretical pairings in my mind to see about breeding something interesting and tasty and at least relatively early in a determinate. I know you have been working on some early determinates Bower, Maybe PM me what you have used so I don't duplicate anything you are working on. I have some vintage Canadian determinates to work with along with an unknown very, very early small red that was given to me by a retired plant virologist who used to work for Agriculture Canada and the University of Saskatchewan . He calls it Evans extra early it is early and prolific but the taste is typical early red. and meh... you know what I think of those.
Anyway mainly theoretical at this point for lack of space but I might make a couple of crosses this summer if the parents cooperate and bloom at the same time, that can be a bit of a trick with determinates.

KarenO

[QUOTE=bower;626136]Whoops I missed this thread! Always interested in learning about tasty determinates.

Altajskij Urozajnij were amazingly delicious for me the year I grew them outside. They were not very early and not very productive (a miserable year) but super sweet and kept on producing small gems when I brought the plant in for the fall. In the greenhouse all season the following year AU was super productive with a bit larger fruit, but not as tasty. :bummer: Still on the sweet side though, they weren't bad.
I tried a cross between AU and a very sweet F2 the first year, and grew out two F1 siblings from the cross - one was meh, the other one sweet. :surprised:
I've also grown Siletz and Cold Set - they were not as early as I expected but larger than the general run of early reds. Both were decent tasting reds, fairly loaded on tiny plants, but both were also wicked splitters - about every fruit split. They also had really bad foliage disease.

Of a dozen or so early small reds, only two were outstanding for taste: Napoli a Fiaschetto which is a small pointy plum, and Alaska. These were not sweet nor tart but rich balanced taste, lots of umami intensity.

Are you looking for something for a breeding project?[/QUOTE]

I didn't want to start a new thread so I am putting it here. I grow a couple of determinate tomatoes each year. This year I decided to try Taxi. I am just astounded.I can't believe how loaded down they are. I put them in the largest of the cheap cages sold at garden centers, thought it would be sufficient. Well the cages are collapsing so today I rigged up some extra support. I can't count all the tomatoes . The plants are vigorous and healthy.

I am very impressed. If they taste only half as well as they have produced I will be very happy!

Someone sent me some 0-33 seeds... not sure if they are determinete
but they have more tomatoes on them than Cole or Fireworks and will probably produce my first ripe tomatoes.

I have grown SILETZ ( OSU bred, specifically for PNW). It has pretty good taste .
I am growing it for my fall garden.I shall see how it does down here in the south.
It is also very early, DTM ~~ 65 .