Is One of These Reif Red Heart???
 

I've learned from reading posts here that I'm growing the infamous "Nopalka" (purchased 2 yrs ago from Sandhill). Now I'm wondering about another one. I have two varieties (growing one plant each) with wispy foliage - Reif Red Heart and Marissa's Italian Paste (both also from Sandhill). Reif Red Heart is described as "large perfect hearts around one pound" and Marissa's as a "very large paste tomato." I've attached a picture of the fruits of these two plants; the one on the left is supposed to be Marissa's (fruits ca 1 lb and 5 inches long) and the one on the right supposedly Reif Red Heart (fruits ca 3 oz and 2.5 inches long). Do either of these look like Reif RH? That little knob on the Reif RHs looks odd.

(The second picture, today's harvest, is for scale, with Cherokee Purple in the bottom right hand corner and Rief Red Heart in the middle).

It looks kinda like the ones I had this year except yours are bigger. I won't be growing Reif Red Heart next year. Mine were way smaller than I thought they should be and not all that productive. Kosovo blew it away in production and taste so why waste the space. Linnies and Wes were also much more productive and bigger.

In 2009, I had 18 fruits on RRH with a total weight of approximately 15 lbs. The largest one was over 20 oz. Great flavor.

I don'tknow the Marissa one but do know Reif Red Heart, actually introduced by Craig ( nctomatoman) and I can't tell much b'c you've got the stem ends up so I can't see the blossom ends. I see one that's a heart but can't see the ends of the others to know if they're hearts.

[URL]http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&source=imghp&q=reif+red+heart&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai[/URL]=

You can see from the above Google IMAGES pictures that the hearts are usually blunt ones and that fruit shape is variable as seen from the various pictures as well.

Some heart varieties always seem to give perfect hearts with acute tips and others don't. So I wouldn't a priori assume that what you have is wrong for the variety.

Not that I can see- Reif Red Heart is similar in size, color and shape to German Red Strawberry - perhaps a bit smaller....but it is a true heart. And I don't see that anywhere in your pics.

I must have gotten some bad seed or something because my Reif Red Hearts were smaller than a small roma type. I planted 3 plants. My German Red Strawberry were a little bigger but still not much bigger than a common plum tomato. My other hearts have been very large. Even my Wes which has TSWV produced one over a pound while Donskoi whas only an ounce shy of 2 pounds.

[quote=b54red;177497]I must have gotten some bad seed or something because my Reif Red Hearts were smaller than a small roma type. I planted 3 plants. My German Red Strawberry were a little bigger but still not much bigger than a common plum tomato. My other hearts have been very large. Even my Wes which has TSWV produced one over a pound while Donskoi whas only an ounce shy of 2 pounds.[/quote]

Now I know why I've kept every seed I've ever saved from about 1990 to date.

When I see so many wrong varieties, and hearts are of one of my faves, turning out to be wrong it really saddens me.

I don't know where all of you are getting your seeds from, traded or purchased, but I do know that there's a much higher probablility of getting wrong seeds with traded seeds than from purchased ones and there's not ONE place selling OP seed that hasn't had problems.

I can't say that about Gleckler's b'c Adam has only been back in business for a couple of years, but a grandfather who started the business back in the 40's, followerd by Adams father who grew bulk amounts for TGS and several others, I would expect most of his varieties to be pure, barring the wandering occasional bee that got lost that no one could predict.;)

OK, thanks, here's a picture showing the blossom ends (and cross-sections of the little fruits).

The small-fruited variety doesn't remind me of German Red Strawberry at all. The large-fruited variety (that's supposed to be Marissa's) seems more like German Red Strawberry. I wondered if I had somehow accidentally mislabeled the two seedlings. But in that case, calling the little guys "very large paste tomatoes" is a bit of a stretch.

-Barbara

That does not look like Reif at all. I grew it last year and it was a monster. Most likely you received the wrong seed from Sandhill. I have received a number of off types from them in the last couple of years. They are good about remedying the problem, but it is still disappointing when you don't get what you expected.

Alex

I don't really mind too much if I get a wrong seed type so much as when the wrong seed is just a sorry excuse for a tomato. It does seem that more often than not when you do get a wrong seed type it is one of those sorry ones but every once in a while you get a pleasant surprise. The Andrew Rahart's Jumbo Red that is obviously a wrong plant has still produced a very good crop of 4 to 8 ounce delicious tomatoes. The plant was a disappointment but not the tomatoes or the disease resistance so I am saving the seed for next year.