Types of Dwarves

[darthslater]

Hey peeps, I was just thinking if more people knew about the dwarves they may want to grow them, It would make sense for those with limited space. I chose to grow some in the Arctic Experiment..only I dont know if any new ones came out that are earlier and tastier...and perhaps larger fruited. It seems they dont come in many colors, but that is just from observation and I am sure that is flawed, I would like to find a real nice striped one that is a dwarf with medium size fruit. Hearts would be nice also.
So if any of you have knowledge, please dont make me get out the pry bar!!! I am pretty sure I will get striped dwarves from Paps cool Cherokee Tiger, but not sure what colors as they are F2. 4 out of 12 seem to be dwarf, not bad so far!!

Hey Pap, I took this in low light so you could see the chartreuse coloring on some of the plants, it only seems like its on a couple though.



Here are the same plants in better light, note the smaller ones..I believe these are dwarves. They were all planted at the same time.

[jcm05]

I have grown dozens of dwarf varieties and have found only a few that taste better then average. Seems I have read of a few decent ones coming out of Craig's dwarf project. This is one of the focuses of my personal breeding goals.

[carolyn137]

Oct 31, 2010 7:39:09 GMT -5 jcm05 said:

I have grown dozens of dwarf varieties and have found only a few that taste better then average. Seems I have read of a few decent ones coming out of Craig's dwarf project. This is one of the focuses of my personal breeding goals.

There many great tasting varieties coming out of that Dwarf Project headed by Craig here in the US and Patrina in Australia.

All different colors, all different shapes, some stripes, etc. I
m not part of the project b'c I don't have the room to do growouts but Craig did send me plants for:

Summertime Green
Summertime Gold
Sweet Sue
Wild Fred, black

and I can't remember the 5th one.

I liked all of those very much, as to taste, especially the two Summertime ones.

Yesterday at another message site someone wanted seeds for Summertime Green and I had to tell him that seeds are not available for ANY of them until they'll be released. I do know a few folks who have not honored that. When they joined the Project they agreed to that but, well, fair play isn't always a trait that all folks have.

It looks like some of them will be made available next year or the year after, all F7 and now stable. Craig sent seeds of several of them for growout and seed production to two folks who are good growers and not even part of the Dwarf Project, but both of those folks, both in the midwest, lost all of their plants to the heavy rains and disease this past summer. So that means seeds probably not next year but the year after that.

When released they'll be available to everyone through some commercial seed sites.

And I've also seen several who have asked what the definition of a Dwarf really is as compared to a determinate b/c there is a significant difference, and I and others have given them some links for that.

John, I'm glad to see that you also will be working with Dwarfs b'c more and more folks are going to container growing and they work wonderfully for that.

Carolyn, who didn't know there were actually dozens of Dwarf varieties out there, quite a few, yes, but dozens? Ah well.

[amideutch]

I grew out two dwarfs for a grower in Alaska this year and was very impressed with the size of the stems and fruit production. Varieties were Yukon Quest F5 and Grumpy F5. Here is a picture of Yukon Quest. Ami

Attachments:

[jcm05]

After this past year I have grown 51 different dwarf varieties. Ask Michael V (MDVPC). He has probably grown twice as many or more then I have.

[amideutch]

Well aware of Michaels exploits. We exchange seed on occasion. I'm taking a closer look at dwarfs for indoor growing as well as out when my garden begins to shrink. Ami

[carolyn137]

Oct 31, 2010 14:05:02 GMT -5 jcm05 said:

After this past year I have grown 51 different dwarf varieties. Ask Michael V (MDVPC). He has probably grown twice as many or more then I have.

Yes, I know Michael well and he does grow a lot of determinates, but I don't know how many of those are Dwarfs.

Fact is, I don't even like to grow determinates. So I sure don't keep track of the number of Dwarf varieties out there.

When Andrey would send seeds to me I'd keep and grow the indeterminates, with few exceptions, and send the determinant ones to someone else to grow. ;D

Andrey and I have had some recent chats via e-mail and he's the one who said he'd try to get some indet ones for me for next year, and he knows I especally like hearts.

Ami, just noting that he will be sending me the Admiral one.

And just for the heck of it I looked at Tania site to see how many Dwarf varieties she lists and it's about 60.

tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Category:Dwarf_Tomatoes

Carolyn, who notes that probably her preference for indet goes back to the early 80's when she first started growing heirloom varieties and the like and at that time there were very few Dwarf varieties available. And of those available , and I did grow a few, there was nowheres near the number available today, and I think a lot of that is due to Andrey and Tania, bless them both and their contributions.

[PVP]

I've grown maybe 2 dozen different dwarf tomato varieties. Best I've grown to date is Red House Free Standing.


pv

[jcm05]

Oct 31, 2010 22:40:52 GMT -5 PVP said:

Best I've grown to date is Red House Free Standing.

Agree, but the flavor needs improving.

Also, its interesting why most people associate dwarfs with being determinates.


Carolyn, if you could shoot Michael a note, I would love to have him join the discussion. Thanks.

[lee]

Check out the following link for more information about the Dwarf Tomato Project.
www.dwarftomatoproject.net/index.php

While it's not complete, it does give a good bit of background and
listings of the varieties actively being worked on.

Also you can check out tomatopalooza.org for some photos
of what's coming out of the dwarf lines. (Sorry, but you'll have to do
some hunting due to my lack of organization! But, it's easy. Start with the variety listings for TP5, 6, and 7. Then you can go find the
photos of those varieties. I did at least group all of the dwarf fruits together.)

Also, there are heart shaped and striped varieties that are being
worked on in this project. And of course quite a few potato leaf
dwarves, like Summertime Gold, which rival the best tasting varieties around!

Lee

[carolyn137]

Carolyn, if you could shoot Michael a note, I would love to have him join the discussion. Thanks.

*****

I did John and he answered this afternoon and I just sent him back the link to TTG.

Carolyn

[PVP]

I found a red heart shaped dwarf in the Long Island Seed Project Dwarf Champion Mix in 2006, and sent seeds for it back to Ken Ettlinger who's offered it since under the name Little Red Bullet. Of course I was told there were no heart shaped dwarves by the leader of the Dwarf Project at Tomatoville, who now apparently has heart shaped dwarves of his own, finally.

Also, I've grown Tigerette for the past 3 years and it's a striped, egg shaped dwarf with light green (chartreuse) foliage. I've selected both red with deep yellow stripes and red flesh, yellow with dark yellow stripes and yellow flesh, and dark yellow with sparse red stripes on yellow flesh from the original increase.

I also crossed the yellow/dark yellow striped Tigerette to Cherokee Purple and now Darth has F2 dwarf examples of that cross growing in his greenhouse. That particular cross should give expressions all over the place including dwarf with chartruese foliage, dwarf with regular green foliage, stripes, solids, purple, orange, red, maroon, yellows and maybe a white or a green when ripe. Time will certainly tell the tale.

The F1 Tigerette x Cherokee Purple was surprisingly tasty and I'm hoping Darth will find F2s with superior (for dwarf) flavors.


pv

[mdvpc]

Hi Folks:

Just registered, and forum looks good. Carolyn let me know about the forum.

John-thanks for thinking of me.

Good to see all of you.

I have grown a lot of dwarves, dont know how many.

I have a few in my fall greenhouse-I think about 15. Al-Khuffa is one that is
impressing me. Lots of fruit set, early, rugose, no disease, first 3 fruits were very good.. Karat, the same, but no ripe fruit yet.

I am going to spend some going through the threads in the next few days.

All the best.

[darthslater]

welcome md!! Make sure to check out The Arctic experiment, that is what I am working on with Rev, winter growing in soil.
I thought using Dwarf stock might work ok.

Darth

[jcm05]

Thanks Carolyn. Good to see you Michael. Welcome!

Lee, I have heard and read good things about the "summertime" varieties. Is seed available for them?

Here is a pic of Red House Free Standing from 2007 that PV and I spoke of. This plant is not necessarily unique in that it produces large quantities of large fruit but that it does so on a very compact dwarf plant. It gets no taller then 2 feet whereas most dwarves I've grown get to over 4 feet by the end of each season. It produces mostly 7-11 oz fruit with the largest being 13.6oz back in 2009. Like I said though, flavor is just average. Texture is good. Fruit doesn't crack, but they are susceptible to BER (Which ruined a couple good crosses this past season). I did however, cross it with black cherry this year.