Productive Large Pinks

[steve ok]

I have seeds for the following midseason, indet., large, good tasting pinks. I have room for three or four of them. I have never grown any of them.
Which of these are consistently very productive?
1884
Aunt Ginny's Purple
Barlow Jap
Biyskaya Rosa
Blue Ridge Mountain
Blue River
Brandywine, Cowlicks
Brandywine, Sudduth
Daniels
Dester
Dutka's Pink
German Johnson, Benton
Mikado Rozovyi
Malinovyi Charodei
Mortgage Lifter, Estler's
Polish
Polish C
Polish Ellis
Rozovyi Kilogrammovyi

Thanks, Steve

[Tormahto]

First, I do not recommend picking Brandywine Sudduth until you understand this cruel master. About one in five years, it is the most intense flavored tomato that I've ever trialed. In the other 4 years, almost any large pink will easily beat it. I hear that some people get zero production, so they don't even get a taste. 2021 was the single wettest year in all my years of gardening. I don't expect back-to-back years like that, so BS is getting a spot this year.

I don't know of any large pink that is consistently productive. One can hope for increased size and production, like 40 plus tomatoes weighing 40 plus pounds on a plant. This is achieved by watering the plant for maximize size and health. What that amount of watering achieves is 40 plus pounds of bland tomatoes. I'll take two raggedy, near death plants, each with 20 tomatoes weighing 15 pounds, having fantastic flavor, any day.

I've trialed most on your list, each rating about an 8 to 9, with Brandywine Sudduth in the rare 5th year at 9.5, and the one and only Aunt Ginny's at 9.9 in near perfect weather.

Shaking plants and flicking a finger on flower trusses also may help in production. In the end, we're at the mercy of the weather.

[Yak54]

I have seeds for the following midseason, indet., large, good tasting pinks. I have room for three or four of them. I have never grown any of them.
Which of these are consistently very productive?
1884
Aunt Ginny's Purple
Barlow Jap
Biyskaya Rosa
Blue Ridge Mountain
Blue River
Brandywine, Cowlicks
Brandywine, Sudduth
Daniels
Dester
Dutka's Pink
German Johnson, Benton
Mikado Rozovyi
Malinovyi Charodei
Mortgage Lifter, Estler's
Polish
Polish C
Polish Ellis
Rozovyi Kilogrammovyi

Thanks, Steve

I can comment about two on your list that I have a very positive personal experience with.
My 2021 growing season produced 42 tomatoes on my Polish plant and 80 tomatoes on my
Dester plant. Most people would say these fall into the very productive category. Just my
2 cents.

[Tormahto]

I have seeds for the following midseason, indet., large, good tasting pinks. I have room for three or four of them. I have never grown any of them.
Which of these are consistently very productive?
1884
Aunt Ginny's Purple
Barlow Jap
Biyskaya Rosa
Blue Ridge Mountain
Blue River
Brandywine, Cowlicks
Brandywine, Sudduth
Daniels
Dester
Dutka's Pink
German Johnson, Benton
Mikado Rozovyi
Malinovyi Charodei
Mortgage Lifter, Estler's
Polish
Polish C
Polish Ellis
Rozovyi Kilogrammovyi

Thanks, Steve

I can comment about two on your list that I have a very positive personal experience with.
My 2021 growing season produced 42 tomatoes on my Polish plant and 80 tomatoes on my
Dester plant. Most people would say these fall into the very productive category. Just my
2 cents.

Many would likely say unimaginable, as from what I read, about 15 to 20 tomatoes weighing about 12 to 15 pounds is considered an overall average.

[Yak54]

It was my first year for Dester but my third year for Polish. And in 2020 Polish produced 39 tomatoes. But in 2019 it went nuts pumping out 72 tomatoes with the largest fruit weighing 29.8 oz.. I was impressed.

[zendog]

Of those on your list I've grown 1884, Aunt Ginny's Purple and Biyskaya Rosa would be my recommendations based on production and they also taste great.

1884 has probably been the most productive pink for me. I've grown it for the last 2 year and will grow it again this year. You didn't ask about it, but 1884 purple (not pink), was similarly productive although it had slightly smaller fruit. 1884 pink also had less cracking than some and is a vigorous plant. My tomatoes are all grafted and then grown as single stem plants, so it is hard to compare with other growth habits, but I think I had a minimum of 15 nice tomatoes on that one plant. I would imagine I would have gotten at least 30 if I had grown it as a big multi-stem plant.

Aunt Ginny's Purple is very productive as well and makes some very large tomatoes (think a bigger, sweet Prudens Pruple).

Biyskaya Rosa (I've also seen it as Biskaya Rosa, so maybe a misspelling or bad translation on one of them), is a tasty large pink that is also one of the earlier ones to ripen in my garden. Not quite as productive as 1884, but still very productive and it is nice to get some early fruit.

German Johnson, Benton strain, was only average production for me and I didn't find them particularly delicious compared to others. Only grown one year though, and I've certainly read glowing reports from others.

Estler's Mortgage Lifter was fairly productive, but not a stand-out. Again, I only grew one plant one year. I'll probably grow this one again, but it wasn't super productive in the first grow.

I'd concur with @Tormato regarding any of the main strains of BW. I've grown Cowlick and Joyce for pinks and BW yellow as well, and all were delicious but stingy with their fruit.

Mat-Su (or Matsu) Express, not on your list, is worth considering if you want a Brandywine type with good production. I think one of the parents was BW Suddath. Mine was very good, although tomatoes were smaller than a BW Cowlick beside it. Of course, I only got 4 tomatoes off the Cowlick the whole season...

Also not on your list, Stump of the World, is an above-average production pink for me with great flavor.

[steve ok]

I did grow Mat-Su Express last year. It's not in the same category, as it's a red. It produced 33 tomatoes before I stopped counting on Aug 23. They were about 2 - 2 1/2 inches and tasted good. I will grow it again this year. I also grew Stump of the World. It only produced 7 tomatoes, but they were fine tasting. I'll try it again some other year.

[Tormahto]

What's your summer weather like in Tacoma?

[root_grow]

Mikado Rozovyi is one of my few must-grows every year. It's delicious, sweet without being boring, and productive whether it's in a prime spot or stuck in a cool, shaded corner. Usually one of the first larger tomatoes to ripen and keeps going until frost.

[steve ok]

Last year Tacoma's weather was warm-hot and dry, but it is just as likely to be cool and damp.

[steve ok]

@root_grow Since we are both in Western Washington, your posts are especially meaningful to me. I will be growing Mikado Rozovyi and several others you sent to MMMM this year.

[Tormahto]

@root_grow Since we are both in Western Washington, your posts are especially meaningful to me. I will be growing Mikado Rozovyi and several others you sent to MMMM this year.

If you think I made a connection of two close geographical locations for sending tomato varieties, I'm just finding out, here and now, that it was pure luck. That's how the swap works.

[MissS]

Those all are some very good tomatoes that produce pretty well. From your list, I have not grown Mikado Rozovyi, Malinovyi Charodei, Polish or Rozovyi Kilogrammovyi. German Johnson Benton produced just fine but I found the flavor just so so. If it's production that you want then I would advise you to stay away from the Brandywine's. In cool weather you will get a good crop but if it's hot you will be lucky to get even one tomato. Daniels was a bit late for me but produced well once it got going.

[root_grow]

Hm... I didn't realize that was why people complain about Brandywine not being productive... maybe I should trial a Brandywine one of these days after all. Or maybe if @steve ok does this year he can let us PNW folks know how it goes. Persistent heat is just not something I worry about

[Tormahto]

Hm... I didn't realize that was why people complain about Brandywine not being productive... maybe I should trial a Brandywine one of these days after all. Or maybe if @steve ok does this year he can let us PNW folks know how it goes. Persistent heat is just not something I worry about

Other than it being too hot, too cool, too sunny, too cloudy, or too wet, Brandywine Sudduth does fine if you get the pollen moving every day. Growing it about 15 times in the past 20 years, the three years with flavor success had lots of hazy sunshine, warm (not hot) weather of about the low to mid-eighties in the day, and little rain.

The seeds I keep are a line from a single tomato that set on a single truss of about 14 flowers. I don't know if that has helped for relatively good production. I put more trust in getting that pollen moving.

It's too early in the year for me to start thinking about yellow stem joints.

[root_grow]

Oh dear, if low-mid 80s is "warm (not hot)" then our scales are not aligned. Summers here are 70s in a good year... and usually very dry July-August, but rains return in September, which is when not-cool-tolerant mid-late season varieties finally start to ripen here when grown outside unprotected.

Thank goodness there are so many varieties to choose from, no need to tolerate the finicky ones

[MissS]

Hm... I didn't realize that was why people complain about Brandywine not being productive... maybe I should trial a Brandywine one of these days after all. Or maybe if @steve ok does this year he can let us PNW folks know how it goes. Persistent heat is just not something I worry about

Reading what your temps are, they sound pretty good for a BW. For me, Brandywine Cowlick's has always done best and has been productive for me every time that I grow it. It was the first heirloom tomato that I grew oh so many years ago and my seed is from my first plants.

[Julianna]

Not a pink, but i tried Black Brandywine and it did really, really well in our weather. It was productive and it wasn't mealy in the cold.

[Nan6b]

Stump of the World has been a big producer of very tasty large pink tomatoes for me.

[Tormahto]

Oh dear, if low-mid 80s is "warm (not hot)" then our scales are not aligned. Summers here are 70s in a good year... and usually very dry July-August, but rains return in September, which is when not-cool-tolerant mid-late season varieties finally start to ripen here when grown outside unprotected.

Thank goodness there are so many varieties to choose from, no need to tolerate the finicky ones

Even Craig L wrote in his book that Brandywine Sudduth is the most finicky tomato that he knows. I have no experience with 70 degree summers, so I don't know if BS would do well, tastewise in those conditions. If it were me, I'd have to trial it no matter where I lived. One solution may be to mound up the soil so that you have a small hill outward from the main stem for about 2 feet, or more. When the rains come, cover the mound with plastic. Cut a large enough circle, with a cut from the outer edge to the center, slide the plastic to the stem, and overlap, so that rain runs off.