2012 Septoria / Early Blight / Late Blight / High Flavor breeding thread

[Fusion_power]

I'm going to add some information to this thread because it is relevant to the overall disease tolerance theme.

We have had 10 consecutive hot humid overcast days with almost daily rain. This has made septoria run rampant in my garden. No varieties are totally unaffected. About 10% have relatively low levels of damage. The other 90% are basically doomed. Of the 10% with low damage, the very best is R.G. Bold Red which is a selection I've been stabilizing from one of Randy Gardner's crosses. The second best is an F1 line Randy made by crossing with my Big Beef X Eva Purple Ball

Randy sent me seed of 3 F1 crosses with my Big Beef X Eva Purple Ball. I started seed this spring and put plants in the garden. The crosses were (disease tolerant pink X (BB X EPB)), (disease tolerant red X (BB X EPB)), and (disease tolerant bicolor X (BB X EPB)). Of the 3, the cross with the disease tolerant red has proven to be exceptional. The disease tolerance would rate #2 after Bold Red at #1. Production is fantastic with typically 30 to 50 fruits set per plant. Average fruit size is about 10 to 12 ounces which is a really nice size slicing tomato. The fruits are deep oblate and very smooth. Flesh density is high. Flavor is about 8.0 to 8.5. I tried these on a BLT and they are superb because the taste does not get lost in the other flavors. Long story short, this would qualify as one of the best F1's I've yet grown. They are in the same range of production as Big Beef. Potential as a commercial tomato is very high. I have saved about 10,000 F2 seed to grow out next year and see what segregates. Note that the parents combine early blight, late blight, septoria, and nematode tolerance.

DarJones

[barryla61]

Where can one get some of these seeds?

[Diriel]

Sounds interesting.

[barryla61]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

Randy sent me seed of 3 F1 crosses with my Big Beef X Eva Purple Ball. I started seed this spring and put plants in the garden. The crosses were (disease tolerant pink X (BB X EPB)), (disease tolerant red X (BB X EPB)), and (disease tolerant bicolor X (BB X EPB)). Of the 3, the cross with the disease tolerant red has proven to be exceptional. The disease tolerance would rate #2 after Bold Red at #1. Production is fantastic with typically 30 to 50 fruits set per plant. Average fruit size is about 10 to 12 ounces which is a really nice size slicing tomato.
DarJones

Now I'm confused.
In another thread you stated the following about this same BB X EPB cross..."In field conditions, I got an average of 85 pounds per plant in my garden."

[Fusion_power]

Look at the date of the post and the phrase "set per plant". That was before I harvested the first ripe tomato. The post about 85 pounds is after I had harvested fruit for about 2 months. The plants continually set fruit even through the heat of the summer. The result was outstandingly good production. BTW, the fruit were a bit heavier than I expected, several of them hit a pound each.

If you want a simple way of measuring tomato production, get a 5 gallon bucket. Fill it up and mound it up on top as much as it will hold. It will weigh just about 43 pounds. Take off about a pound for the bucket and you have 42 pounds of tomatoes. From each of the 3 plants I grew of this cross, I harvested 2 full buckets of tomatoes plus a few odds and ends that I picked when I walked by the plants. No other plant in my garden came even close to this level of production.

DarJones

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

Look at the date of the post and the phrase "set per plant". That was before I harvested the first ripe tomato. The post about 85 pounds is after I had harvested fruit for about 2 months. The plants continually set fruit even through the heat of the summer. The result was outstandingly good production. BTW, the fruit were a bit heavier than I expected, several of them hit a pound each.

If you want a simple way of measuring tomato production, get a 5 gallon bucket. Fill it up and mound it up on top as much as it will hold. It will weigh just about 43 pounds. Take off about a pound for the bucket and you have 42 pounds of tomatoes. From each of the 3 plants I grew of this cross, I harvested 2 full buckets of tomatoes plus a few odds and ends that I picked when I walked by the plants. No other plant in my garden came even close to this level of production.

DarJones

The question I have is where do we buy these seeds?

[barryla61]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

Look at the date of the post and the phrase "set per plant". That was before I harvested the first ripe tomato. The post about 85 pounds is after I had harvested fruit for about 2 months. The plants continually set fruit even through the heat of the summer. The result was outstandingly good production. BTW, the fruit were a bit heavier than I expected, several of them hit a pound each.

If you want a simple way of measuring tomato production, get a 5 gallon bucket. Fill it up and mound it up on top as much as it will hold. It will weigh just about 43 pounds. Take off about a pound for the bucket and you have 42 pounds of tomatoes. From each of the 3 plants I grew of this cross, I harvested 2 full buckets of tomatoes plus a few odds and ends that I picked when I walked by the plants. No other plant in my garden came even close to this level of production.

DarJones

Ooops my fault. Did not look at the date of post. Would love to try these, where can we purchase seeds?

[salix]

Nice tries, Scott and Barry - you're behind me in the lineup. I asked a LOOONG time ago!

[Fusion_power]

I will have to see if Randy has some more seed he can send. When I contacted him about this cross a few months ago, he said he might have it tested commercially just to see how it compares with other releases. At this time, I have about 15 seed left.

I can make some of the F2 seed available if you would like to give them a try, but be forewarned, they will segregate quite a bit.

DarJones