Your Favorite Slicing Tomato

Yes, calcium is important. You will probably need to lime your garden regularly, but measure its pH first so that you don’t get it too basic. I usually target pH 7+/-1. Once I started regular liming, I rarely see blossom end rot.

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A grafted tomato is a disease resistant heirloom. Exactly the same principle as any other grafted fruit.

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“A grafted tomato is a disease resistant heirloom” I have to call a qualified no on this. A grafted tomato can have resistance to diseases that primarily affect the roots but not to foliage diseases. This is still a huge advantage, especially in soils that are infested with nematodes or ralstonia. Grafting does not convey resistance to foliage diseases such as early blight, late blight, septoria, bacterial speck, bacterial spot, tomato spotted wilt, mosaic virus, mottle virus, and leaf curl virus.

There are very few heirloom tomatoes that have significant disease resistance. Cherokee Purple, Eva Purple Ball, Druzba, and Akers West Virginia tend to handle foliage diseases better than most.

There are several open pollinated tomatoes that have specific disease resistances. For example, Tropic has good resistance to gray mold. Burgundy Traveler has better than average resistance to nematodes and decent resistance to foliage disease. Red Mortgage Lifter has good resistance to verticillium and fusarium. West Virginia 63 has a gene for resistance to late blight.

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Great info, thanks.

Has anyone grown German Johnson?

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IMO, German Johnson is bland albeit very productive. I still sell a few plants every year because people know it by name. Box Car Willie is a much better tomato.

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I didnt care much about slicing tomatoes until I had Kellogg Breakfast. It is meaty, less acidic, sweet and juicy.
I also grow Aunt German Green, Mortgage Lifter, Cherokee Purple, Black Krim

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I’ve read a lot of published papers on the subject, and grafted tomatoes certainly do convey resistance to a wide variety of foliar diseases in addition to helping with root issues. The ​DRO141TX rootstock I’m using is very resistant to Fusarium wilt 1&2, Fusarium crown rot, leaf molds, tobacco mosaic virus, and verticillium wilt. For me, verticillium wilt is a particular problem and local growers using grated tomatoes have doubled and sometimes tripled their yields of susceptible heirloom varieties.

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A little late to the conversation, but Pink Berkeley Tie Dye is awesome. Flavor like an heirloom, but more productive like the hybrid it is. Kind of weird colors but simply delicious! Last year was a rough tomato season due to too much rain, and it did pretty well, especially compared to other slicers.

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Territorial Seed Co. has grafted Brandywine plants as well as grafted Sugar Baby watermelon plants. They are pricey, but I might try them out. I should be able to plant the grafted Brandywine right next to a regular one and compare.

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Do you realize that fusarium and verticillium are soil borne diseases, not foliar? Leaf mold is non-specific. Perhaps you mean Gray Leaf Mold which is a common foliage disease here in the SouthEast. If so, grafting does not convey resistance. Tobacco Mosaic Virus is another that grafting does not convey resistance, however, TMV has not been a significant problem in a lot of years. “Resistance” can be the ability to grow out of an infection. This can be conveyed by a vigorous rootstock which pushes a plant to grow much faster than if ungrafted. Unfortunately, most of the foliage and systemic diseases are able to take down even a vigorously growing plant if conditions are favorable for disease spread. It is the norm for a rootstock to have a lot of resistances, but they are not necessarily translocatable into the grafted variety on top.

There are a ton of good reasons to plant grafted tomatoes. I just don’t want people reading this thread to have unrealistic expectations. Good disease control practices are still required even with grafted tomato plants!

Also, since the topic is sure to come up, there are several varieties available that have been bred to be resistant to major diseases like late blight, early blight, etc. They are not heirlooms, but if specific diseases such as late blight are preventing growing tomatoes, then I highly recommend looking into plants with genetic resistance. Amelia, Mountain Merit, Iron Lady, and West Virginia 63 are a few that are decent tomatoes.

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I do realize that, yes. What you write is at odds with what I’ve read in the literature. I’ll find out for myself this summer- the proof is in the pudding.

I keep tons of buckets, they’re very good covers for a cold snap

My standard slicing tomato is Big Beef

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I prefer the taste of pink tomatoes . So Brandywine is a favorite . I like acid instead of low acid types . Good old tomato flavor .

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Nobody has mentioned my favorite yet so I have to chime in: Stump of the World. It makes odd shapes but the taste makes up for it.

I grew many blacks; I also didn’t get good results from Paul Robeson. Many other blacks seemed pretty similar to me: Carbon, Cherokee Purple, JDs C-Tex, etc all did very well.

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Does Stump of the World have some acid in it?

It has a bit more acid than average I would say.

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Sweet tomatoes aren’t popular here

Yes, definitely some acid as Scott notes. At its best it is also a really rich tasting tomato - not quite sweet, but just a great deep taste. Some say it is quite disease prone, but for me it has been a bit better than some of the big beefsteak types like Prudence Purple. Between Stump and a more acidic beefsteak I’ve been growing for a few years that showed up as a chance seedling in some Prudence Purple seeds, the two make a great companion. I’ve considered adding a big yellow like Kellogs just to round out the flavor varieties. I’m also growing Black from Tula this year which nobody here as mentioned yet, but I’m hoping it survives the heavy disease pressure we have here.

I have to say that I’ve also found Box Car Willie to be pretty disease resistant, at least as good as Druzba, although I don’t think the flavor is as good.

This year I’ll also be grafting some varieties to see if they do better throughout the season. While I don’t know anything about what diseases resistance will come from the rootsocks, I’m hoping the added vigor will help tomatoes survive and keep producing when they get hit. It has been my experience that in our humid hot area, the less vigorous plants are just more likely to get overwhelmed early while the more vigorous may produce until fall.

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I got my sample seeds from seeds now and they were really nice. Well packed with a free pack of basil lemon seeds and a personalized note. I sowed them up into a starter tray. I ordered a 6-band LED grow light from Amazon that should be here tomorrow.

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I can’t read the names of the varieties; would you please type them for us?

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