Thread: Flavour
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Old July 25, 2018   #7
bower
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Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
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Don't discount the possibility that you'll find the flavor in those untasted plants!



By the time my tomatoes ripen I've already got favorites selected in my mind.. whether they were earlier, prettier, or a more bumptious crop. And I've already discounted certain plants - oh, that one is the latest to ripen and it's got fewer tomatoes, plenty of catfacing... not taking that one forward. Then going through the formality of tasting the "winners" and the "losers" you discover that the ugly little catface you tasted just because it's there, has a unique flavor out of this world! While your top pick for shape and production turns out to be the only one that isn't sweet at all.
Also, don't judge the flavor on the first fruits. There's just too much that can go wrong in those earliest fruit - the heat wasn't there, the root system was still developing, or any other reason they didn't get exactly the nutrients at some critical moment, to make them sweetest and best of the crop, or even representative of the taste of most of your crop. I know we can't resist eating them, and sometimes the first one is a really good one and it's delightful. You just can't count on it, IMO.

Other than that, I agree that the cure for a lost trait is to go back a generation - and a good reason to save seeds from more than one of the best plants in a given generation, if you have siblings that are equally good.


Meanwhile I hope you get lots more responses, as I'd love to hear what others have experienced on the subject of taste as you go down the generations to stability.
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