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Old November 19, 2010   #1
Bama mater
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Default Ramapo Tomato

Has anyone grown this one before? It is a hybrid from Rutgers U.
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Old November 19, 2010   #2
carolyn137
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Has anyone grown this one before? It is a hybrid from Rutgers U.
Good heavens YES. It was one of the earliest hybnds bred and has stood the test of time as far as I'm concerned. A few years back it went out of seed production and that's when I got my hands on some F1 plants and F1 seeds, from Rutgers, and made some selections and ended up with an OP derivative.

I thought the OP was darn close to the F1 and if Barkeater comes long I think he'll say the same thing.

There are several threads here about Rutgers bringing back Ramapo F1 and when you find them I think you'll find lots of folks who think it's a great variety.

Actually I think that the F1 varieties bred early on by the Harris breeders are still some of THE best in terms of taste and production, and those include Supersonic, Moreton Hybrid and Jet Star.

And there was another one I loved called Star Pak, or something like that and when Harris sold out to Moran to become Harris Moran the tomato breeders went from Rochester, NY to CA and I ALMOST had someone convinced to send me seeds for the two parents. But alas, someone didn't think that would be a good idea and they never brought back my Star pak F1.



Yes, Rutger's brought it bac, along with Moreton Hybrid, which is another one of the earliest hybrids around and I think both Ramapo and Moreton F1 are now sold by Harris Seeds.

Grow it, you'll like it.
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Old November 19, 2010   #3
guruofgardens
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Now you've piqued my curiosity. Two years ago, I was given 3 'New Jersey' tomato plants that grew and produced very well. Not knowing anything about this plant, I bagged and saved a few seeds. I grew them again this year and got an OK yield since most of my plants got early blight.

I talked with the person donating the plants and he thought the ones he gave me were either Ramapo or derived from this variety or had been renamed New Jersey. He does not remember where he got the seed since he 'purchases from too many catalogs'.

So could the New Jersey indeed be Ramapo or something similar? The fruits are great tasting and about the same size as the Ramapo.
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Old November 19, 2010   #4
Bama mater
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Well being from Jersey I think I'll give it a go, But me thinks I'll order seed directly from Rutgers.
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Old November 19, 2010   #5
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Now you've piqued my curiosity. Two years ago, I was given 3 'New Jersey' tomato plants that grew and produced very well. Not knowing anything about this plant, I bagged and saved a few seeds. I grew them again this year and got an OK yield since most of my plants got early blight.

I talked with the person donating the plants and he thought the ones he gave me were either Ramapo or derived from this variety or had been renamed New Jersey. He does not remember where he got the seed since he 'purchases from too many catalogs'.

So could the New Jersey indeed be Ramapo or something similar? The fruits are great tasting and about the same size as the Ramapo.
Many of the vaarieties grown in NJ these days are just referred to generically as New Jersey tomatoes and that reflect the long ago history of NJ being the main source of tomatoes and other veggies to NYC and Philadephia. And most of those are sold at roadside stands and famer's markets as NJtomatoes without saying which hybrid they are.

Now don't get me wrong. There's been a concerted effort on the part of many in NJ to encourage farmers to grow more op heirloom types and if you go to the Rutgers home page you'll see where field tests have been hed the past several years, some open to the public, to assess such varieties.

I know of no variety that has been derived from Ramapo F1 other than a couple of OP ones, one of which I described above. And I don't know of any seed catalog recently that has sold Ramapo F1 except for Harris Seeds.

How many plants did you grow this past season from saved seed and were they all identical in every way?
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Old November 19, 2010   #6
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Well being from Jersey I think I'll give it a go, But me thinks I'll order seed directly from Rutgers.
Not a problem and makes sense, but if Harris is offering it for 2011, and I didn't look, all F1 seed would have come from Rutgers anyway, b'c they're theones who arranged for F1 seed production. It was either Ramapo or Moreton Hybrid where F1 seed was produced in Israel, as I remember, and I've forgotten the other place they subcontracted to for seed production.
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Old November 20, 2010   #7
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Tim, I grew Ramapo and Moreton last year in my garden for the first time. I liked Ramapo a lot but it was susceptible to Fusarium wilt and was moderately productive. It has a strange to me growth habit making it hard to prune. The foliage was very heavy and bushy. The nice shaped red tomatoes were from 7 to 13 ounces and very good.
Moreton was far more productive with a more open growth habit. The tomatoes off my plant were between 4 and 7 ounces. I found the taste slightly above average but no better than Big Beef to me. The Moreton showed a little more disease tolerance for me than Ramapo so that may account for the greater production.
I will probably grow Ramapo again next year.
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Old November 20, 2010   #8
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Not a problem and makes sense, but if Harris is offering it for 2011, and I didn't look, all F1 seed would have come from Rutgers anyway, b'c they're theones who arranged for F1 seed production. It was either Ramapo or Moreton Hybrid where F1 seed was produced in Israel, as I remember, and I've forgotten the other place they subcontracted to for seed production.
Why did they have to produce the seed in Israel?
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Old November 20, 2010   #9
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...if Harris is offering it for 2011, and I didn't look...
I didn't see it among Harris's online listings - I remember looking Spring 2010 and it wasn't included at that time either.
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Old November 20, 2010   #10
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How many plants did you grow this past season from saved seed and were they all identical in every way?[/quote]

With limited space, I only grew 2 of each variety I had. The 'New Jersey' plants were more resistant to the early blight than others, the fruits were about 6-8 oz., and the plants were tall and hardy, producing less than last year. Because of the blight, I plan on planting 2009's seeds - not 2010's.
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Old November 20, 2010   #11
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How many plants did you grow this past season from saved seed and were they all identical in every way?
With limited space, I only grew 2 of each variety I had. The 'New Jersey' plants were more resistant to the early blight than others, the fruits were about 6-8 oz., and the plants were tall and hardy, producing less than last year. Because of the blight, I plan on planting 2009's seeds - not 2010's.[/quote]

http://www.njfarmfresh.rutgers.edu/d...8-4-08_001.pdf

Here's a link that some of you nmight find interesting. IT says a lot about Ramapo, what the parents were and so much more, lots of it from the original bredder of Ramapo F1.

I'm glad your NJ plants were more tolerant of Early blight, but if they were Ramapo they would be b'c the new F1 has no genes for such tolerances, which is true for almost all other hybrids.

And I'd asked about how many plants b'c if it was Ramapo F1 and you'd put out enough plants you might have seen the gene segregation that I saw when I made selections from it to get it to the OP state.

So if it were me and I liked it, I'd continue to grow it and as long as you processed the seeds from 2010, and for that matter from 2009 there should be not be an issue of seedborne Early Blight.

It's too bad you couldn't get more info but when the person said that he couldn't remember which seed catalog they came from that says to me that it isn't Ramapo F1 since other than possibly Harris Seeds, and I'd have to check that, the only place to get the new F1 was via Rutgers.

About seed production in Israel. Almost ALL F1 seed is produced elsewhere these days. If not ISrael, then the Netherlands, India, China, Taiwan, and more.

In the link I gave above, well maybe not, it IDed the firm that was doing the seed production....OK, I give up. I was trying to find an e-mail in my faves that I got from the man who was overseeing seed production for Ramapo in Israel, but I can't find it.

And right now without doing a lot of searching I can't remember where the Moreton F1 seeds were done , maybe Israel for them and I have the two confused?

Could be, but the point is that there's practically no F1 seed production being done in the US these days, that I do know.
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Old November 20, 2010   #12
Ken
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Default Ramapo-Harris

I just received my New Harris catalog yesterday,Ramapo is not in it.
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Old November 20, 2010   #13
Ken
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Default Moreton Hybrid F1

I checked Harris's new catalog and they do carry this one.-Moreton F1

Last edited by Ken; November 20, 2010 at 12:44 PM. Reason: name
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Old November 20, 2010   #14
carolyn137
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I just received my New Harris catalog yesterday,Ramapo is not in it.
THanks for the update Ken.

Harris and TGS were two of the last places that listed Ramapo F1 and I know there was some kind of cooperation there between Harris and Rutgers, but I guess it was limited to Moreton Hybrid which was bred by Harris Seeds.

So where's my Harris catalog?

Gone are the days when the Harris "man" came right to the house to take my father's order for the next season. Harris doesn't list as many varieties of vegetables and fruits as many other places, but over the years I've found their prices and seeds and service to be outstanding.

Another good point is that after Harris went back to being just Harris, not a part of Harris Moran, Harris gets first dibs on almost anything that Harris/Moran breeds, which makes sense since all the squash and tomato breeders who used to be in Rochester, NY with Harris moved to CA after the initial merger.

Now to go pack some tomato seeds owed.
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Old November 20, 2010   #15
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Pinetree seeds has Moreton listed on their site and their 2011 catalog.
I grew Moreton this past summer and enjoyed! the flavor,good production.
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