TOW - Lucky Cross

[jcm05]

OK, here's this week's tomato of the week. Number 1 on my all-time favorites list.

[swampr]

Having never tried it, and not yet been wowed by a bicolor either, I'm wondering whether little lucky or it's heart segregate, has the same flavor. And, how about striped sweetheart, another related line, how does it taste in comparison? Sorry if I'm getting off topic.

[tomc]

I have grown out Lucky cross and am watching new seedlings erupt out of germinating pans as I write. Its been a longish layover since my last grow out ('06).

As my feeble recollection remembers it Lucky Cross is the bigger of the two cousins I've tried. Little lucky is an even smaller fruited reduced internode length semi-determinate bi-color tomato. Oh, they have potato-leaves as I recall.

Fruit taste is good. Where and when this tomato got up and hunted for me was when fruit had a true "flame" pattern (which it does only part of the time :-( ) On those years I can sell as many tomatoes as it'll produce. On off years it has yellow shoulders fading into a red blossom end. Good but a lot less WOW factor.

On this fan-boys applause meter I'd give it a 7 or 8 out of 10.

I am very prone to growing out a new cultivar more than once. A single shot sometimes misses.

This IS a smaller plant and has semi determinate habit. So if you want a long picking season this model does not provide. On a per-plant basis if yield to can for a growing family is the engine that drives your garden try something else.

If a successful tomato for your garden is a medley of good taste-perfume and handsomeness, this cultivar succeeds IMO.

I could'a sold four times as many tomatoes as I got the last year it made good "flame" bi-color stripes.

[stratcat]

Grew Lucky Cross in 2006. It does taste great.

[darthslater]

I grow alot of bi-colors, and havent had the misfortune of anything being mealy or tasteless, and for those of you who think my taster is off i can supply loyal customer numbers to prove you wrong!! Maybe its my soil, maybe its the weather but the ones I have had the pleasure to grow have been excellent. Which is why I am looking forward to growing Lucky Cross.
Because if it taste good in a bad region, I can't wait!!

[sorellina]

Lucky Cross is my favourite large bicolour for flavour, but as others have stated, I also get very low production from it. If you have the space, it might be an idea to grow a couple plants instead of just one like a lot of us do.

[jcm05]

Lucky Cross is easily the best tasting tomato I've grown. I feel like I owe Craig Lehoullier a debt for finding it in his garden in 97. Each year I grow a minimum of two plants and still usually only end up getting 2 or 3 fruit off each. Its worth it to me. I've seen fruit from 5 oz all the way to well over a pound.

[grapenut]

Mar 23, 2010 0:53:03 GMT -5 @darthslater said:

I grow alot of bi-colors, and havent had the misfortune of anything being mealy or tasteless, and for those of you who think my taster is off i can supply loyal customer numbers to prove you wrong!! Maybe its my soil, maybe its the weather but the ones I have had the pleasure to grow have been excellent. Which is why I am looking forward to growing Lucky Cross.
Because if it taste good in a bad region, I can't wait!!

Well, one things for sure, soil and weather sure do play a big part.

[amideutch]

Grew in 07 and 08. Production was low and it does not like being grown in containers. Ami

[frogsleapfarm]

I tried it last year for the first time and with our coolish summer, it was just too late. I think I only got a couple fruit prior to frost. I'll try crossing to some earlier, more prolific types this summer (using LC as the pollen parent).

[carolyn137]

Just a bit of background for those who might be interested.

Lucky Cross resulted from an accidental X pollination between Brandywine and the variety Tad. Probably most of you don't know what Tad is, so I'll explain that one.

Tad Smith has a Ph.D in plant breeding, worked for many years in the peanut fields in the South, but tired of bending over in the heat and moved back North and for many years headed up the division at a place near Philly that I can't remember now, where he was head of the section working on Late Blight of potatoes.

He also bred a few tomato varieties, one is Pale Perfect Purple which was an initial cross between Purple Price, which he also introduced, and Ozark Pink. Another one was Snowstorm.

I can't remember how Craig and I first got to know him, but over the years he sent to both of us F1 seeds of some crosses he made and they were wonderful.

He then sent me a 3 way cross he'd done and asked if I would grow it out b/c at that time I had lots of room to grow stuff and look for a particular plant/fruit, which was a small yellow/gold with red stripes. He said I had a 1/64 chance of getting it, and luckily I did with the first 12 plants.

I sent seeds to Craig. Tad asked us not to share seeds with anyone b'c he wanted to upsize it, but that never happened.

When Craig found the initial cross between Brandywine and Tad he sent F2 seeds to a local friend who had more room than he did to take a look and make some selections. Ultimately Lucky Cross and Little Lucky came out of those first selections.

Several folks are still working with selections from the initial F1 and one that I'm growing this year is Striped Sweetheart, which is a heart with very distinct red stripes according to the picture I saw posted by Lee, who is the co-organizer of Tomatopalooza with Craig and has been one of those still working with that initial cross.

Swampr, you asked about Striped Sweetheart in your post above and if it's a decent summer here in the tundra and I actually get some fruits ( last year it was COLD and rainy and Late Blight was hovering and 1/2 of my plants had no fruits) I'll let you know what I think. I have grown both Lucky Cross and Little Lucky so can compare with those two as well as many other bicolors I've grown in the past.

My problem with most gold/red bicolors that I've grown is that a variety can be sweet and delicious in one season and the same variety in another season can be mealy and bland.

So that's the initial parentage of Lucky Cross and Little Lucky and there are some not well known varieties that have come out of it. Craig has another one I'll be growing maybe next year that he developed. All I remember is that the name of his one daughter is part of the variety name.

[PVP]

Mar 29, 2010 8:41:37 GMT -5 carolyn137 said:

(Tad Smith) sent me a 3 way cross he'd done and asked if I would grow it out ... and look for a particular plant/fruit, which was a small yellow/gold with red stripes. He said I had a 1/64 chance of getting it, and luckily I did with the first 12 plants. I sent seeds to Craig.

So, the variety "Tad" is the result of a 3-way cross and is one parent of Lucky Cross and Little Lucky? The other parent is Brandywine?

[peppereater]

I heard that the history of Lucky Cross involved a bee crossing of Brandywine with another specimen in Craig's garden, which Craig had narrowed down to only one possible donor, Marianna's Peace. Also, that this was only suppostion, as would be the case in bee crossed varieties.

[jcm05]

Carolyn, thanks for the info. Nice to see you here.

Mar 29, 2010 11:58:18 GMT -5 peppereater said:

I heard that the history of Lucky Cross involved a bee crossing of Brandywine with another specimen in Craig's garden, which Craig had narrowed down to only one possible donor, Marianna's Peace. Also, that this was only suppostion, as would be the case in bee crossed varieties.

Pepp, I've never heard anything about MP in it's history. My understand was similar to what Carolyn posted.

[carolyn137]

Mar 29, 2010 10:54:03 GMT -5 PVP said:

Mar 29, 2010 8:41:37 GMT -5 carolyn137 said:

(Tad Smith) sent me a 3 way cross he'd done and asked if I would grow it out ... and look for a particular plant/fruit, which was a small yellow/gold with red stripes. He said I had a 1/64 chance of getting it, and luckily I did with the first 12 plants. I sent seeds to Craig.

So, the variety "Tad" is the result of a 3-way cross and is one parent of Lucky Cross and Little Lucky? The other parent is Brandywine?

Correct.

Pepper, it wasn't until some selections turned out to have the stripes of Tad that Craig changed his mind about the other parent possibly being MP and from the get go in chats with him he had also been considering Tad as well, but one look at Striped Sweetheart and there's no questioing that Tad genes are there.

I just checked Craig's recent e-mail and he says that the one he stabilized is " a distinctly striped version of Little Lucky" and he says it's small, maybe 3-4 oz. Maybe? What has happened to my short term memory.

And I just realized I didn't put much info in my avatar place that has no avatar, so later I've got to figure out how to do that; not an avatar, the zone stuff. I was in a hurry this AM and I'm in a hurry now and Papa knows exactly WHY I'm in a hurry, the time now being one hour past 1 PM. ;D

And when I have more time I've got to get more accustomed to this format, which is new to me.