KBX or Sweet Ozark Orange?

[Vanman]

Making my list for next year now. We grow ten varieties every year and I have one through eight already chosen. Cherokee Carbon, GGWT, and Daniel Burson are on the list and are our favorites. That said which orange variety should we grow, KBX or SOO?

[PlainJane]

I’m a KBX fan myself but have never tried Sweet Ozark Orange.
Also happen to think Daniel Burson one of the finest tomatoes of all and grow it every year.

[JRinPA]

Both? Best way to compare. We haven't been impressed by KB but never tried KBX. SOO has been good and firm.
I had grown SOO in years I also grew OR117 and KB. Those, plus Lithium Sunset may be all the orange tomatoes I have tried. Lithium Sunset, was orange with red stripes, it was grown with many other varieties Fla weaved, and was pretty but was the first that year to get totally slapped by foliage diseases. All three of those seem to want to collapse to a high degree.
KB - tried it 3 or 4 years, never tasted like much. Everybody thought the name was cool.
OR117 - grew 4 times, very good at times, sort of sparse foliage, long internode length may be what they call it. I had a plant do practically nothing in a full sun CRW cage, fruit turned to mush in the sun.
Lithium Sunset - grew once, tasty, pretty, plant died in early August after a few trusses, and the fruit collapsed to mush on the counter.

[mama_lor]

KBX has been a fairly sour tomato for me, much more than GGWT for example (which is quite sweet). I like it sour-ish so this is not a problem for me, but the intensity of taste wasn't really quite there. Color is amazing and intensive though, also the texture.

[Gardadore]

Love KBX. Having a tough summer with high humidity and many varieties succumbing to some kind of blight but KBX is producing very large tasty tomatoes. Grow this one every year. Some years better than others. Have grown SOO and loved it but again some years better than others. Have not grown it for a couple of years due to space and trying other varieties. Best suggestion is to try both and see how they grow in your climate!

[Cole_Robbie]

Kbx yielded more for me. Soo probably edges it out on flavor.

[Vanman]

We usually plant six plants of each variety, but three of each sounds like a good plan.

[Mark_Thompson]

KBX is my favorite and the favorite of everyone I share it with. Very split resistant which is important here. Haven’t tried SOO but will next year.

[JosephineRose]

I tried Sweet Ozark Orange in an EB a few years and got absolutely no fruit, while 20 other varieties produced heavily. The plant then went down hard to disease. It was odd. I keep thinking I will try it again, but don't have the space to spare in my new garden for a repeat of that performance. I would love to try the fruit though! I am toying with the idea of growing it in a 5 gallon bucket on the patio along with a few other varieties that are "in detention" on my grow list, before dismissing them outright.

KBX produces well in my garden, and stands up to disease pressure here in our odd cool foggy night/warm sunny day climate (unlike its RL sister).

If you have space for a one-off, I would like to suggest you trial Apricot Brandywine. It knocked it out of the park for me and kept on producing monsters right through to November. It is the only BW I grow and my must grow orange/yellow variety.

[Paulf]

I have grown KB or KBX almost every year that I have been growing heirloom/OP tomatoes which began in 1999. Several different oranges have been tried but I keep going back to KB/KBX. I will try SOO soon.

Carolyn sent me KB seeds early on and the KBX seeds came to me from Martha Hufford a year or two after she discovered it. Many years of growing them side-by-side (not that close but in the same garden the same years) most years they were statistically the same with taste so similar they couldn't be told apart. In actual numbers, for me, KBX produced more and larger tomatoes and in blind taste tests KBX got the nod most years. Now I plant one or the other whichever seedling looks the healthiest.

As a bragging side note, Darrell Kellogg called me several years back after I had listed KBX and asked me to send him some of my saved seeds. He wanted to know for himself what was up with KBX and how it compared to his signature variety. One of my tomato growing highlights.

[MissS]

@Paulf thank you. That is a great story.

[Shule]

In my garden, so far, I prefer Sweet Ozark Orange, but if I lived in the southeast, I imagine I might prefer KBX. In my garden Sweet Ozark Orange has been pretty reliable, decently productive, and gets huge fruit. I only grew KBX once, and it was pretty much stunted, for no apparent reason.

[Ginger2778]

KBX is my favorite of any tomato for a BLT. SOO was very good, but not as productive. SOO is very much worth a grow if you have space though. It's beautiful, large and tasty.
KBX is a must grow every year for both me, and my plant customers.

[Rockoe10]

@Ginger2778 , I've always wanted to get into selling and trading plants and seeds locally. I understand that a profit is unlikely, but the fun of it and maybe some side cash to keep my hobby going would be nice. Do you have any information you can share or previous posts you suggest?

[Shule]

@Ginger2778 I didn't know you sold plants! Awesome.

[Ginger2778]

@Ginger2778 , I've always wanted to get into selling and trading plants and seeds locally. I understand that a profit is unlikely, but the fun of it and maybe some side cash to keep my hobby going would be nice. Do you have any information you can share or previous posts you suggest?

Just pm me with what you want to know. I dont want to hijack this thread.

[Vanman]

I had such high hopes for KBX, but SOO was the clear winner in my garden this year. I am really glad that I planted both.

KBX was the last to ripen of all of my tomatoes this year and was not productive or very tasty, SOO on the other hand is still producing while all of the others have quit with just tomatoes rotting on the vine. This has been a very strange year weather wise.

SOO produced mainly tomatoes over a pound and lots of them. I picked four this morning and have over a dozen on the counter from only three plants. They make an excellent BLT just about every day.

So SOO is returning next year and KBX is not.

[MissS]

@Vanman I'm glad that you found yourself a winner. This just goes to show you how different plants perform in differently in different circumstances and also how one person's taste buds are different than another's. You have to grow things yourself and not rely on what something did for someone else.

[pepperhead212]

So @Vanman, was it relatively hot in your area this year, and wet, causing the "rotting on the vine" with many? If it's heat resistant, I'd might try SOO.

I had major problems with KB the only year I grew it, while other varieties on either side of them had no problems. Didn't have these problems with KBX, but it wasn't very heat resistant. I stopped growing them when the heat became a regular thing here, not an occasional problem. But I liked the flavor, and the largest tomato I ever grew (barely under 32 oz) was KBX.

[JRinPA]

As LD would say, SOO is pretty....pretty good...

This year SOO are throwing lots of them >/= 1lb 8 oz. The biggest I weighed was 1 lb 13 oz. Lots of them still on. It is not a musher. I have had probably a dozen this size and still some big ones on. The seed was from a 2020 2lber.
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And then this is what they look like on the inside...

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