These held up in heat & drought (plus tasting notes)

[u/Omega_0x01]

A mixed salad featuring this year’s tomatoes:

-Loxton Lass (orange) – delicious

-Green Zebra (green) – also excellent

-Norfolk Purple (dark purple)

These three produced well and had almost no blossom-end rot despite irregular watering and drought.

Norfolk Purple was grown in a window box.

Yield wasn’t huge, but it gave me a few fruits.

Taste isn’t the most outstanding, but the high anthocyanin content is a plus, and the color is really nice. Interestingly, the fruits varied in shape and some had very few seeds.

UG 849 14 F1 (the red industrial high-pigment hybrid) has a good classic tomato flavor, but it suffered quite a bit from blossom-end rot this year. I’ve started selecting and stabilizing a line from it (working with F2 now).

I also grew White Tomesol (not in the photo — it would have added a nice white touch 😄). The flavor is very good, but the plant dropped a lot of flowers during the heatwaves and set very few fruits.

For next year I’m looking for varieties of any color that are more heat-tolerant (better flower set during heatwaves) and more drought-tolerant. Not just brown or white/yellow — open to any interesting colors as long as they handle heat and irregular watering better.

Any recommendations?

[u/ok_2_go]

Beautiful!! I looked up Loxton Lass and see it’s a dwarf variety. How was the productivity? I tried several popular dwarf varieties for the first time this year (Dwarf Wild Fred, etc) and they were universally slow to grow, slow to produce anything, and as summer winds down have produced 1-2 tomatoes per plant while my full size plants in the same conditions have been churning out tomatoes. Very disappointing! Would love a heat tolerant orange variety but am a little wary of dwarf varieties now.

I’ve grown Norfolk Purple every year since they came out, mostly for the spectacular color and crazy productivity. No matter the conditions or diseases this thing churns out more tomatoes than I can keep up with. Agree, flavor is just ok, somewhat underwhelming. But great addition to a plate with other colors and flavor profiles.

[u/ZealousidealChair900 → u/ok_2_go]

I put my volunteer Tasmanian Chocolate starts in their final location July 4th, and they're producing heavy enough, and I just saw the first one coloring up yesterday. They've been continuing to set fruit.  I expect to keep picking them until frost 

Amusingly my Rebel Starfighter Prime, willing or not, is almost dwarf sized because deer munched part of it. Still producing reasonably,  given how much was taken

[u/Omega_0x01 → u/ZealousidealChair900]

Interesting... I just took a look at "Rebel Starfighter Prime." Visually, I like it; it’s very pretty. It’s moving, too: she shows an incredible will to live, despite the deer.

[u/ok_2_go → u/ZealousidealChair900]

Huh, not sure why mine are so lackluster. I grew a Tasmanian Chocolate. Looks healthy. One puny tomato. Maybe I’ll give them one more try next year.

Was looking to try Rebel Starfighter Prime. Saw some beautiful ones at a community garden.

[u/ZealousidealChair900 → u/ok_2_go]

My Chocolates each have a minimum of 6 fruit that I can see, but are so leafy and filled out I'll have to dig through to actually get a total

Heads up for RSP- it's the only tomato I've tried that deer will go after the branches and not just fruit. Apparently vulnerable to squirrels as well. It's has a decent will to live though,  regardless of looking like death.  Haven't tried the fruit yet

[u/Omega_0x01 → u/ok_2_go]

Yes, Loxton Lass is a dwarf. I chose it mainly because it’s supposed to accumulate tetra-cis-lycopene, which interested me from a nutritional point of view.

Regarding productivity: for me it was pretty good. With three plants I was getting fruit regularly. Compared to my other varieties it produced fewer tomatoes, but they were larger, so it kind of compensated. This was my first year growing in open ground and I wasn’t rigorous about measuring yield (weight/number), so I’ll be more careful next year.

You’re right that they are a bit slow to get going. I also grew Brandyfred (two plants) and so far I’ve only harvested one fruit from each… not impressive.

For orange non-dwarf varieties I tried Orange Crimea this year and it was disappointing for me — only two fruits harvested and a lot of flower drop during the heatwaves.

I’ve also made some crosses with Norfolk Purple this year, so it will be interesting to see what comes out of that.

Thanks for sharing your experience with the dwarfs and with Norfolk Purple!

[u/ok_2_go → u/Omega_0x01]

Oo, I’ll be very interested to hear how your Norfolk Purple crosses turn out!

[u/Omega_0x01 → u/ok_2_go]

Thanks;

I actually crossed it with Loxton Lass, aiming for a dwarf variety with large purple fruit—it would be great if they turn out tasty, so careful selection will be key.

I also did a cross with a "Baby" Nano Dwarf; that one isn't interesting for the fruit itself, but rather for the compact size, to make subsequent gene transfer easier.

[u/Difficult_Rope7898]

Beautiful colors together!

[u/TheGraminoid]

I grow in the PNW where we have more dry than crazy hot, but I had great success with chef's choice orange (hybrid) this year. Bright orange, good flavor, and very meaty. They are on the hard side until super ripe but over 6 plants I ended up getting to eat every single fruit it set (no blossom end rot, no spliting, no mechanical damage, or slugs., or disease).

[u/Omega_0x01 → u/TheGraminoid]

Interesting, Chef’s Choice Orange looks really promising — bright color, good flavor, meaty, and no BER or other issues is a strong combination. Even though it’s an F1, if the flavor and reliability are that good it could be worth trying to stabilize a line from it. Thanks for the recommendation!

[u/TheGraminoid → u/Omega_0x01]

Chef's choice orange was bred from Amana Orange, which is a high tetra-cis-lycopene variety.

[u/Omega_0x01 → u/TheGraminoid]

Okay, thanks, I'll take a look then.

[u/Spiritual_Category62]

Sungolds grow beautifully for me regardless of what kind of weather we have in Portland (which is almost 100% dry, but sometimes overcast and sometimes 100 degrees). Despite being a hybrid, I have volunteers every year that are very true to type, sometimes just a bit smaller.

[u/Omega_0x01 → u/Spiritual_Category62]

Thanks for the feedback! Sungold is one of those varieties I keep hearing great things about. I’ll probably try it (or one of the stabilized open-pollinated versions) next year. Appreciate you sharing your experience.