MKX_ tomato project

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MKX_ is a tomato breeding project of mine.

MKX_A F1 was a cross between Medovaya Kaplya and an unknown tomato. The Snacker_ project was born from a child of MKX_A. MKX_A F1 was just as sweet as Medovaya Kaplya (but it was red, ovate, and regular leaf, instead of yellow, pear-shaped, and potato leaf like Medovaya Kaplya). The F1 had simple sweet taste like Medovaya Kaplya, but the Snacker_ line has had more complex, less sweet (but still sweet) taste.

I'm growing some more F2 MKX_ tomatoes, this year (MKX_B PL, MKX_B0 RL, and MKX_B1 RL). They're doing excellently, with the first two being larger than third.

MKX_B has eleven flowers per truss. Here's a picture of its first truss (which currently has 10 fruits, and one flower on it); it has other trusses with fruit (but these are the oldest and currently largest). I'm excited to see how they taste and what color they ripen to. They're already the size of large cherry tomatoes (I'm not sure how big they'll get; the F1 was about the same size as Medovaya Kaplya).

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Here's the whole plant for MKX_B:

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The first fruit is starting to ripen on MKX_B. See this post for details, but here's a picture of the ripening fruit, followed by a picture of the plant from today (the fruit looks less green and more other colors in person; my camera doesn't seem to put enough red and yellow in the picture):

Additionally, MKX_B has set plenty of fruit in the heat. It was 54 days from the transplant before it started changing color (see the link above for more details).

The smaller plant to its right in the picture is Snacker_C.

If you click on the pictures, you can see higher resolution.



requiem robert louis stevenson

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I picked the first fruit of MKX_B, today (it was yellow), and we ate it. I saved the seeds (there were 80 developed seeds, each with gel, and they were kind of big seeds; there were a few undeveloped seeds, too). I ate the gel around the seeds, and accidentally swallowed 20 seeds in the process.

My conclusion is this: It tastes and smells quite a bit different than Snacker_, but it wasn't ripe (especially the seed gel). So, I'm going to wait until I get a riper one before I tell you what I think. However, It has some of the fruity/honey type smell that Medovaya Kaplya has that Snacker lacks.

The calyx removed quite easily from the fruit without damaging it (I'm very grateful for that, since deep-rooted calyces seem to be a recessive genetic trait). The fruit also plucked easily from the plant.

The fruit had two locules.

About 8 to 10 minutes after I ate it, I noticed a fresh cilantro aftertaste in my mouth. It's a good thing I like cilantro! I haven't always liked it, however.

Here are some pictures:

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I'm realizing now that the fruit looks just like Snacker_'s.

Edit: Except bigger.

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I think I'm going to start a new project with MKX_B. I'm going to call the new project Cilantrovaya_ (and MKX_B is now Cilantrovaya_A). So, it's out of the MKX_ project, and into its own.

The MKX_ project now has two living tomato plants left in it (and more possible from previously saved seed): MKX_B0 and MKX_B1.

MKX_B1 is genetically the largest of the three siblings, but a good part of the plant died back at one point, giving Cilantrovaya_A. Nevertheless, it's catching up quickly (growing wider than tall), and is invading the space allotted for Aunt Ginny's Purple and Snacker_B2. It's a really vigorous tomato. The fruits are not the same shape as that of Cilantrovaya_A.

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So, the next two Cilantrovaya_A F2 tomatoes we ate were different (I've harvested three total, so far (and only saved seeds from the first one), but there are more ripe ones on the plant that have been there for a while; I've just been letting them ripen extra long).

The second one, I described on my growlog. A lot of the flavor was actually smell, but it seems like flavor when you eat it. It was like a mix between Esterina F1 and Coyote. If you don't pay attention to the smell, it wasn't that sweet, however. No cilantro aftertaste.

The third fruit had ripened even longer. It was actually sweet, and tasted a lot like a well-ripened Coyote tomato, with a little Esterina F1. So, a lot of that smell translated into flavor after further ripening. It still had some smell. The overall taste was quite a bit different than either of the other two stages of ripening, however. No cilantro aftertaste. The fruits are about golfball-sized (bigger than Esterina F1 and way bigger than Coyote).

I'm still mystified as to the father of MKX_B F1. Whatever it was, I grew it in 2016, it was red, regular leaf, and possibly anywhere from round to beefsteak. I hadn't grown Coyote, nor Esterina F1 until well beyond that. So, it's interesting that it bear's some resemblance to Coyote in multiple regards (flavor, and how it takes longer to ripen after it colors than most tomatoes; it doesn't take as long as Coyote, though! Coyote seems to take forever to ripen after it changes color.) I didn't have any tomatoes with delayed ripening after coloring like that in 2016, despite growing over 100 varieties. So, maybe it took the combination of two tomatoes to produce. However, the father may have been an unstable tomato (such as an RL tomato that was supposed to be Kimberley, or an F3 cherry I was growing).

Snacker_ (in previous years; I haven't tasted it this year, yet) doesn't taste anything like Coyote, but it does have some resemblance to Esterina F1 (not as sweet). It doesn't have the smells/aftertastes that CIlantrovaya F1 has (it's pretty much flavor). No unusual delay in ripening after coloring, either.

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. . . (I posted in the wrong thread. Sorry: there's no delete option.)

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Cilantrovaya_A and at least one of the Snacker_ tomatoes are overflowing their cages into the area I had prepared for them (and Cilantrovaya_A is has branches going toward the path, too).

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I ate two more Cilantrovaya_A tomatoes, today. They tasted different than the previous ones. They were definitely sweet, and they tasted a whole lot like Medovaya Kaplya (rather than Coyote or Esterina F1). However, I think they had a bit more acid than Medovaya Kaplya (I didn't detect any acid in Medovaya Kaplya when I grew it in 2016, nor in MKX_A F1 in 2017). I like it, a lot. Very tasty. These Cilantrovaya_A fruits weren't as ripe as the previous one I mentioned.

So far, I've harvested 9 fruits from Cilantrovaya_A F2 (all from the same truss). Another taster ate the ones I didn't mention eating.

The first fruit was the only one I noticed had a cilantro aftertaste (that's the only one I've saved seeds from, yet).

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I'm going to keep talking about Snacker_ and Cilantrovaya_ here, too, since they're descended from MKX_A.

I harvested 4 Snacker_C0 fruits, seeded, and ate them. They tasted different than their ancestors. While they have cool, refreshing, sweet flavor, it was also considerably more tomatoey than its ancestors. It was about the same sweetness as its parent (sweet, but not super sweet). Usually, tomatoey flavors tend to be warm, savory, and heavy rather than cool and refreshing, but it's good (kind of like fruity tomatoes are good). I ate a small number of the seeds afterward (I intend to save the rest). The gel was tangy. The flavor was consistent among all four tomatoes (its parent was consistent).

One fruit (the ripest one) had a deeply-rooted calyx, while the others didn't. I thought it was an all or nothing trait: I guess not.

Snacker_BO has the largest plant, among the Snacker_'s, this year.

I like it quite a bit.