Source for Dr. Carolyn Pink: small cherries?

[swampr]

I grew four Dr. Carolyn Pink plants from seed this year. The fruits were delicious with more acidity than most of the small pink fruits I've grown. They had a good tomatoey flavors with sweetness too: oustanding overall. They did tend to be more prone to splitting than most.

The fruits I, and a friend who I shared the seed with, got were all larger than typical cherries, and I've heard that the smaller ones were even better. Does anyone have seed, or a source that will yield the smaller cherries?

For the record, the Dr. Carolyn yellow I got had no flavor whatosoever, the plant came from White Flower Farm. I have to believe that is not typical of D.C.

[carolyn137]

Oct 3, 2010 10:57:24 GMT -5 swampr said:

I grew four Dr. Carolyn Pink plants from seed this year. The fruits were delicious with more acidity than most of the small pink fruits I've grown. They had a good tomatoey flavors with sweetness too: oustanding overall. They did tend to be more prone to splitting than most.

The fruits I, and a friend who I shared the seed with, got were all larger than typical cherries, and I've heard that the smaller ones were even better. Does anyone have seed, or a source that will yield the smaller cherries?

For the record, the Dr. Carolyn yellow I got had no flavor whatosoever, the plant came from White Flower Farm. I have to believe that is not typical of D.C.

I have no idea what Dr. Carolyn Yellow is but in past years I have e-mailed White Flower Farm with corrections about their tomato blurbs AND pictures, but just kinda gave up.

tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Dr._Carolyn_Pink

Here are some seed sources for you and I'll mention again that the pink Dr. C cherries come in two sizes, one larger than the other, on different plants. I tried and tried to get one of the two stabilized, but no luck. Save seeds from the large ones, get both large and small. Save seeds from the small ones, get plants with either large or small.

So you aren't going to find any source that has seed for just the smaller sized fruits OR the larger sized fruits as far as that goes. I'm surprised that all four plants gave you the larger cherries, quite frankly.

I don't detect any huge taste difference between the small and larger sized ones, but perhaps some folks do.

I know Dr. Carolyn Pink is a fave of Darrel Jones and quite a few other folks, regardless of the fruit size.

So you can chose one of the seed sources from the link To Tania's site or you can e-mail me at [e-mail] with your home address and I can send you some seeds of Dr. Carolyn Pink when I get my seeds organized late this Fall. Now mind you that they are older seeds, perhaps 2005 or so, but I've got a boatload of them and can send you enough so you'll get all the plants you want.

Not a general offer folks, sorry.

Carolyn

[jcm05]

I think the problem stems from the instability in the variety. The question is WHO has the stable source. Darrel sent me a DC Pink plant last year and it turned out to be red and not pink.

[carolyn137]

Oct 4, 2010 8:11:59 GMT -5 jcm05 said:

I think the problem stems from the instability in the variety. The question is WHO has the stable source. Darrel sent me a DC Pink plant last year and it turned out to be red and not pink.

JOhn, there's no question at all that there's genetic instability going back to when I first discovered what Steve Draper named Dr. Carolyn, and I've outlined that before but will do it again for anyone interested.

I had saved seeds from Galina, a PL dark gold cherry, pplanted out the nest year and got plants with either pink, or red, or salmon or yellow cherries, all RL, not PL, and then one I initially caleld ivroy mutant.

I didn't know what was going on and it didn't make sense to be genetically but at the same time Steve Draper in Utah had also been seeing instability with his saved seeds from Galina. Steve and I had both gotten Galina and the other varieties that McDorman brought back from Siberia the first time he listed them.

Steve asked me to send him the best of what I got which was the ivory one and he liked it a lot and named it.

For the first few years when I grew it it would throw some red fruited plants, but that quieted down and I never heard of anyone getting red fruited plants after that.

THen an SSE member sent me seeds for what he had named Dr. Carolyn Pink and I grew those out and that's when I got plants with either larger or smaller cherries. And noted that in my SSE blurb for the variety.

But that was quite a few years ago and I never heard of anyone getting red cherries from Dr. Carolyn Pink until you mentioned it just now and I've offered the variety Dr. Carolyn in the4 YEarbook for several years and have also offered seeds for it in my free seed offer elsewhere and still no mention af anything from Dr. Carolyn Pink that was red.

In the meantime Amy Goldman got the green when ripe cherry from Dr. Carolyn and named it Green Doctors and then Neil Lockahrt and Jeff Casey both got a clear skinned version that the three of us named GD Frosted. And now others have also found some GDFrosted ones, including Adam Gleckler, who called me this AM, but not specifically about GD Frosted.

So there's no question that there was initial instability with Galina, going to Dr. Carolyn with at one time some red fruited plants but none lately that I know about, but the Dr. Carolyn Pink that the SSE member sent me has not shown instability other than fruit size, until you mentioned that today.

Have you asked Darrel about that.

And now that I think of it I think I wrote all of this here last week in the thread titled Green Doctors. ;D

Ah well, it loosened up my fingers anyway.

Carolyn

[swampr]

I guess if the large cherries taste as good to you as the small ones, I actually prefer the larger size, but havent had a small version, so will send my address so I can try for myself. Thanks for the offer!

[tomato]

It is easy enough to say what happened with Jt's plant. Dr. Carolyn Pink is promiscuous in the extreme. I get up to 10% crossed seed. The level of crossing is well above most other varieties I've grown.

The Dr. Carolyn Pink I grow is from seed sent out about 6 years ago. I grew 4 plants in my garden. One of them was far and away the best flavored tomato I grew that year. I saved seed from that single plant. The fruit were large pink cherries about an inch diameter with slight indentations instead of a blossom scar.

I've read repeatedly that the small fruited type is better, but this is not my experience. Grow the larger one, it is outstanding.

DarJones

[sgtdraven]

I grew dr carolyn pink this year and it was a favorite for sure