Topic: Blight resistant tomato varieties

[amphibian]

Remember people resistance is not immunity.

So far I'm still fine, I have a tiny patch of LB on a leaf, which I would normally have removed but left for experimentation.


As to the tomatoes, after the disappointing taste in the first flush they've improved no end. If you let them ripen fully they become very rich and savoury.

I noted earlier in the season that I had very consistent fruit set, now I have discovered that many of the fruits are parthenocarpic. Parthenocarpy is not common so if Crimson Crush is an F1 both its parent carried the gene. Parthenocarpy is a very desirable gene in outdoor cool weather growing.

[Ellen K]

Remember people resistance is not immunity.

Yes, I've wondered about what blight resistance is exactly.  Is it just vigour?

My CC plants never really took off (I got pot bound plants) but they are producing mini-beefsteak tomatoes with good flavour.  But in terms of vigour and yield, my Orkado plants are leaving 'em for dead.  Both have a bit of early blight but no late blight yet.

[sparrow]

I have sideshoots in water and I'm impatiently looking for roots. Am determined to get them through winter for a second flush. They do taste good.

[squeezyjohn]

Just tried the first ripe fruit from the Crimson Crush trial plants sent me (kindly) by T&M.

Not a massive success - the fruits are nicely large and with a fairly standard flesh to seed ratio like you'd get from the average shop-bought tomato.  The skin was particularly tough and took a knife-sharpening session to slice properly!  Flavour was not impressive at all - it tasted like a generic Dutch greenhouse-raised tomato that you can buy from the supermarkets all winter-long - quite sharp without a great deal of aroma or sweetness.  The tomato was definitely ripe being both red and starting to go squidgey.  The heritage variety Purple Ukraine harvested at a similar level of ripeness beat it for flavour hands down and had far thinner and more digestible skins.

I have no idea about it's blight tolerance yet as I haven't had any other plants go down with it this year.  But if the rest of the fruit taste as bland as this one did then growing them is not worth the bother!

[johhnyco15]

tasted my t&m 2016 experimental tomato i have to say the flavour is pretty unremarkable bland even we have no blight at the moment so cant compare but the flavour is poor

[earlypea]

Don't know if anyone's seen this.  Received the latest T&M brochure in the post yesterday.  They've got a new competitor to Crimson Crush which claims to have the same blight-resistant genes and tastes better than Brandywine ? 

Mountain Magic F1

Not only does it have good resistance to early blight, it carries the late blight-busting Ph-2 and Ph-3 genes, giving it full protection against all current British strains including Pink6 and Blue13, the most virulent to hit UK crops. It also has in built genetic resistance to both verticillium and fusarium wilt and cracking.

To top it off you will be hard pushed to find better flavour from such a disease resistant variety. Mountain Magic F1 takes on a high sugar level from its grape tomato parentage. The smooth, uniform, evenly-coloured fruits, each weighing around 56g, have consistently been rated high in flavour compared to heritage varieties such as Brandywine.

http://www.thompson-morgan.com/vegetables/vegetable-seeds/tomato-seeds/tomato-mountain-magic/tm54735TM

My Crimson Crush continue to crop steadily and tastes good.  I've seen no obvious blight on the plots yet, though my sister's tomatoes not far away have already been demolished.

I compared with my mother's ones for taste (as a post above which I can't scroll back to).  They weren't as good.  I was saying that might be because she picked hers out and I let mine bush, but actually all of mine taste better than hers:  More sun, good soil.  Hers get less sun and cheap compost so not really comparable.

Also, a lot of my tomatoes this year were relatively leafless compared to previous seasons because of the drought and me not being there to water them properly and some of my most extraordinary tasting ones came from virtually leafless, seriously shabby-looking plants. 

[gray1720]

I wouldn't go quite so far as Johnnyco15 with the T&M experimentals - certainly they were better than what our local shop sells - but I've had tastier tomatoes. Pleasant rather than great, and similar with Ferline.

Yes, we've had one  ripe tom of each variety!

Adrian
 

[johhnyco15]

 these are the T & M 2016 blight res tomato

[gray1720]

Are they under glass? Mine are outdoors on quite an exposed spot, very thick knee-high bushes as I let them get on with it.

Adrian

[johhnyco15]

Are they under glass? Mine are outdoors on quite an exposed spot, very thick knee-high bushes as I let them get on with it.

Adrian

   no i grow all my toms outdoors

[gray1720]

You're in Australia?

Adrian

[johhnyco15]

since i got my new iphone 5s and windows 10 on my laptop all my pics come out anyway they like lol

[tricia]

The 3 Crimson Crush plants are still blight-free with lots of good sized fruit slowly ripening, but the five other varieties I was growing outdoors - still loaded with green toms - had to be binned after showing first signs of blight yesterday.

Since I don't fancy paying 4p per seed, I'm going to save a few seeds and hope for the best next year. I also have 3 good sized C.C. plants from side shoots that I have been cosseting all summer which I hope will survive the winter in my mini greenhouse. Once the night temperatures drop below 8-9C the plants will be protected with bubble wrap and as we don't usually get much frost here on the south west coast I think they should be okay.

I have to say that I have been disappointed with the flavour of most of my tomatoes this year - which I put down to lack of sunshine and long periods of low light levels. They have also been very slow to ripen.

Tricia

[Silverleaf]

I though they were 10 seeds for £3.99? That's 40p per seed!

[tricia]

Whoops . Typo getting old!

Tricia

[johhnyco15]

another trugg full

[BAK]

Removed Crimson Crush plants yesterday. My thoughts ..

no blight this year on any of my tomatoes, so the jury is still out on its resistance capabilities as far as I am concerned

plants produced lots of foliage, more than my other varieties (Tamina and Sungold)

in general, larger fruits than I was expecting. Overall crop weight significantly less than Tamina.

fruits are quite solid, i.e. little liquid.

taste is relatively bland, certainly in comparison to my other varieties.

However, I will probably give them another go next year.

Brian

[Jayb]

Dobies have Crimson Crush £3.49 for 15 seeds = 23p each, a bit better than Suttons 40p.

[Headgardener22]

I had two lots of Crimson Crush, free ones from Dobies and a special deal from Suttons. I've had no blight this year on any tomatoes so I've no comment on their blight resistance but I do think that their flavour isn't as good as most of the other varieties I've grown. They haven't cropped particularly well either, no better than Moneymaker (which I've only grown because I was given the plants) and not as well as Alicante.

I think that the seeds are too expensive (as are all F1 hybrids in my opinion) so I'm going to try and overwinter some sideshoots on an east facing windowsill see if I can get some plants to try again next year.

Seems strange, Dobies and Suttons are the same company, why would they charge differently for seeds probably from the same source?

[sparrow]

Same parent company, but they are run as individual companies so compete with each other.

My sideshoots have roots now, so I can pot them up and hope my sporadic care is sufficient to get plants for next year.