OSU Blue observations

[frogsleap farm]

This is my first year growing OSU blue, and I've encountered a few surprizes. It was one of the first tomato plants to flower in my garden, though fruit development has lagged behind a few of the other "earlies". The anthocyanin accumulation in vegetative parts is very strong early, and then fades rapidly. The purple pigmentation now remains only in the base of the stem. Pigmentation in the fruit is very light dependent (see photo). This plant is on the west edge of a raised bed, with the top of the fruit getting exposed full sun for a couple hours late in the day. Where fruit is shaded all day by foliage, pigmentation is muted. I've made several crosses now with OSU Blue/P20 as both the male and female parent (other photo). The seedling "anthocyanin phenotype" is so strong, I think with OSU as the female I can segregate selfs from F1 crosses - plus I emasculated early. Most of the OSU male parent crosses are to PL females (e.g. PPPxPP "C"). One last observation, OSU Blue appears to be a Septoria magnet.