large black plum

[agamemnon]

I am new here. I am interested in working on a large black plum. I love the Opalka plum for size and meatiness, but I am looking for a truly black version, and all the black plums seem a bit on the small size. Would be happy to try this home breeding thing on my own, but looking for suggestions...

[Tom Wagner]

A large Black Plum

Hmmm....I have in my inventory of breeding lines many that might fit into what you want. Since you are not far from Luther Burbank's old breeding site near Santa Rosa....I might be interested in helping you find a segregating population which would touch the main key words;

1. Large
2. Black
3. Plum

It would take me a week to look into the pedigree info of about one hundred lines that may, or may not, fill your specs.

Santa Rosa, (Forestville) and I suppose you are about 10 miles away, should be a fairly mild climate compared to Bakersfield to grow tomatoes. What is you window of opportunity for sowing seed? Or better yet...direct seeding in the garden?

I am test marketing many blacks this year, but I need to add those to this list at http://newworldcrops.com/wp/tag/tomatoes/

Tom Wagner

[agamemnon]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your reply. Yes, in fact my girlfriend lives about 4 doors down from mr. Burbank's historic home and gardens.

Now is a good time to start seed here. last frost is about april 1, but many wait till the 15th to be safe. summers are typically warm days, and long cool nights - ideal for growing top quality pinot noir, but cabernet would rarely get ripe out this way.

Speaking of wine grapes, one of my goals, other than large black plum (and delicious) is "wine friendly". I'm not 100% certain on what I mean by that yet, but of course, it is subjective in the end, unlike large black or plum.

Any help is very much appreciated!


agamemnon

[Tom Wagner]

Agamemnon,

I wish I had gone to Burbank's historic gardens while I lived in California from 1988 to 2004. Perhaps I will some day.

I think you will have time to seed tomatoes if you find something of mine appealing. Funny you mention a 'wine friendly tomato' to accompany the wine.

When Green Zebra hit the trendy restaurants in California about 25 years ago, one of the things the chefs noticed was that Green Zebra's tangy zest would refresh the palate and make food and wine more immediately flavorful.
Something about the acidity would leave a clean tongue and palate whereas other varieties failed to do that. Green Zebra was a hit in leafy salads as a bite of Green Zebra and then a bite of the salad with the special vinaigrette would wow the customers at the famed Chez Panisse Restaurant.
Alice Waters of the renowned Chez Panisse restaurant chose 'Green Zebra' as one of her favorite varieties.

Therefore a Green Zebra derived large black plum may be in order...I have many combinations for this....allow me to look and peruse my writings.

Not a plum, but my Chadds Ford would be a nice black tomato to try that has a bit of Green Zebra in it but a whole lot of two strains of Black Brandywine in it.

But if I find a really good candidate that is stable enough for a large black plum tomato...I would like to call it Santa Rosa Black Plum.

Coming up next month will be the 162th birthday of Luther Burbank, ... The 'Santa Rosa' plum was one of the best-known of his creations and it is still grown today.

I may just offer Agamemnon the only seed of this new variety besides myself and if he can get his girlfriend to grow just one plant of it near the Burbank Garden....how seren·dipi·tous·ly apropo!

Tom Wagner

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by agamemnon

I am new here. I am interested in working on a large black plum. I love the Opalka plum for size and meatiness, but I am looking for a truly black version, and all the black plums seem a bit on the small size. Would be happy to try this home breeding thing on my own, but looking for suggestions...

Actually Opalka isn't plum shaped, it's a long red and it's one I introduced so I do know about it.

But if you're loooking for a similar shape in a black you might look at the Black Icicle one offered by Baker Creek;

http://rareseeds.com/vegetables-p-z/...le-tomato.html

And then look at tania's tomato base site to get some back ground on it:

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/Black_Icicle

Tania did almost all of the background info on these icicle ones,there are several, and I think there's a thread here at Tville about them , well, I know there is, and she graciously posted her information at idig, which is the Baker Creek message site.

From the picture at BC it looks kinda like, well, I don't know, call it a plum, call it a non plum, but it doesn't have the same shape as do Opalka and Sarnowski Polish Plum or Howard German or many that do look like Opalka.

For me a plum shape is much wider and doesn't taper down as much and Gianinni would be a good example or Tyborowski Polish Plum, pictures at Tania's site I think.

But there you go, a kind of maybe plum, maybe not, that's very dark colored but not true black but I don't even know of a variety that's ALL black all the time.

[travis]

Wessel's Purple Pride, aka Cherokee Sausage, is a very good, purple/brown (gf) tomato that is shaped like Opalka and tastes as good or better.


If you were to cross Wessel's Purple Pride with Romeo, you would get a very large "linguisa" tomato with some gf segregation in the F2 population.

[Mark0820]

Originally Posted by travis

Wessel's Purple Pride, aka Cherokee Sausage, is a very good, purple/brown (gf) tomato that is shaped like Opalka and tastes as good or better.


If you were to cross Wessel's Purple Pride with Romeo, you would get a very large "linguisa" tomato with some gf segregation in the F2 population.

Is Wessel's Purple Pride sold commercially? I did a google search and didn't find any sources.

[travis]

Originally Posted by Mark0820

Is Wessel's Purple Pride sold commercially? I did a google search and didn't find any sources.

I don't know. Maybe Adam Gleckler? Otherwise, there are several growers here who have seeds.

[agamemnon]

Tom,

Would very much appreciate your help on Santa Rosa Black Plum!

[agamemnon]

Carolyn,

I am stupid. I guess when i said "plum" I meant somewhat plum shaped, but especially good for paste, as many plums are good paste tomatoes. I adore Opalka (thank your for introducing it!) for its flavor, size, and excellence as a paste type, and that is what I am looking for: large, good flavor, good for paste/cooking, and black/purple but not too brown. And of course, wine friendly.

agamemnon

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by agamemnon

Carolyn,

I am stupid. I guess when i said "plum" I meant somewhat plum shaped, but especially good for paste, as many plums are good paste tomatoes. I adore Opalka (thank your for introducing it!) for its flavor, size, and excellence as a paste type, and that is what I am looking for: large, good flavor, good for paste/cooking, and black/purple but not too brown. And of course, wine friendly.

agamemnon

No, you aren't stupid at all, far from it. We all have our own ideas of what a plum shape is, what a heart is, what a long sausage type shape is, and that's fine. And many times it's darn hard to decide what shape we see. Someone will show a picture of what they call a heart and I'll say nope, not according to what my idea of a heart should be.

I did check Glecklers and the Wessel one isn't there and tania's site is loading slowly and I didn't want to wait, b'c I want to go to bed now, but there is one listing for it in the 2011 SSE yearbook, which doesn't help unless you're an SSE memeber.

[agamemnon]

i am, just joined last week, and will look into it!

[agamemnon]

here's a dangerous question for a newbie. how do i know what genes are in what lines? is there a specific list i can reference? for instance, i would be very interested in a tomato with anthocyanin (Af) in the skin (i think) as it is a major factor in wine grape color too, and this would be a "wine friendly" tomato. ideas?

[habitat_gardener]

Originally Posted by agamemnon

...for instance, i would be very interested in a tomato with anthocyanin (Af) in the skin (i think) as it is a major factor in wine grape color too, and this would be a "wine friendly" tomato. ideas?

Look at some of the threads on Tomatoville discussing Tom Wagner's new site, http://newworldcrops.com/wp/tag/tomatoes/
This page lists the seeds available this year, and to buy them go to the menus under Shop. Many of them have blue, but it sounds like they're selling fast. No one else I know of has such a big selection of blue tomatoes.


Oh, and here's a good list of plum-shaped tomatoes...
http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/w...:Plum_Tomatoes

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by agamemnon

here's a dangerous question for a newbie. how do i know what genes are in what lines? is there a specific list i can reference? for instance, i would be very interested in a tomato with anthocyanin (Af) in the skin (i think) as it is a major factor in wine grape color too, and this would be a "wine friendly" tomato. ideas?

In addition to the suggestions gvien I highly suggest that you read about OSU Blue and P20 b'c you seem to be asking somne genetic questions and thre are several here who have worked with those and many of them posted in this Crosstalk Forum in theis thread, which started two years ago:

http://tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=11677

There are other threads in this Forum wbout OSU Blue and I think some in the other Forum about Long Term Breeding projects.

And you chose Agamemnon as a user name because?

Yes, I know whi he was and he didn't have a very nice family. ''Just curious about your choice of that particular Grecian man.