Perhaps a bad tomato year?

[MissS]

According to this article, it's going to be hot and a bad year to grow Brandywine's as well as many other tomatoes. A quick flip from El Niño to La Niña is coming soon and will bring us record heat.

https://www.livescience.com/planet-eart ... -on-record

[karstopography]

According to this article, it's going to be hot and a bad year to grow Brandywine's as well as many other tomatoes. A quick flip from El Niño to La Niña is coming soon and will bring us record heat.

https://www.livescience.com/planet-eart ... -on-record

Last summer was uncharted territory, can’t wait to top that .

My one Brandywine tomato plant, Cowlick’s strain, has set some tomatoes and the plant looks strong. Maybe it will set some more fruit before things really heat up. However, I’m pretty excited to finally get to try one of the famous Brandywine tomatoes, maybe around the first of June and before it gets really hot.

[AKgardener]

My forecast calls for a warmer summer.. I’m hoping for a good mater year even though I have to run to the greenhouse to buy starts since most of mine didn’t grow..it was 57 today not normal for april

[MissS]

My forecast calls for a warmer summer.. I’m hoping for a good mater year even though I have to run to the greenhouse to buy starts since most of mine didn’t grow..it was 57 today not normal for april

You were warmer than me today. I'm so sorry about your seedlings not growing. It happens to all of us at times.

[MissS]

According to this article, it's going to be hot and a bad year to grow Brandywine's as well as many other tomatoes. A quick flip from El Niño to La Niña is coming soon and will bring us record heat.

https://www.livescience.com/planet-eart ... -on-record

Last summer was uncharted territory, can’t wait to top that .

My one Brandywine tomato plant, Cowlick’s strain, has set some tomatoes and the plant looks strong. Maybe it will set some more fruit before things really heat up. However, I’m pretty excited to finally get to try one of the famous Brandywine tomatoes, maybe around the first of June and before it gets really hot.

If this is true, I'm really not looking forward to it.

I'm glad that you will be getting to try the elusive Brandywine. Let us know what you think of it. Cowlick's does best for me here. I haven't grown it in years and was wanting to revisit it. I'm starting my seedlings shortly, but with this news I think that BW will sit on the shelf for another year.

[Whwoz]

I wonder if this flip will make it a good year for me to grow Brandywine here Down Under as La Nina is typically a cooler, wetter summer for us. Maybe I had better track some seed down.

[crunch1224]

Shade cloth to the rescue!!!

[Tormato]

While I wouldn't put all of my faith into the climatologists, knowing what might be coming allows one to be flexible with their gardening plans.

If one has an excess of seedlings, where there is never enough space to plant them all (many of us have been there), perhaps it would be best to plant more of the smaller to medium-sized fruited varieties, and less of the very large ones. My overall experience is that the smallest fruited varieties handle the heat, in setting fruit, much better than the big ones.

I guess that I'll now have to research what may be in store for the northeast, this summer.

[GoDawgs]

Well, my tomatoes are getting planted Tuesday. Too late to change now! However I will heed @Tormato's advice and start more smaller fruited dwarf plants for the second round.

[Paulf]

Two weeks to plant out and my tomatoes in the basement are ready now but with near record cold snap the past few days I wonder if May will be chilly but NOAA and Weatherunderground says May above normal, June, July and August well above normal heat. Better get out and put down some extra mulch to keep the roots as cool as possible.

[bower]

After two summers in a row with periods of oppressive humid heat, I'm actually starting my plants very late - sprouts just potted up this morning. Thinking if heat kicks in to get most of the plants out of the greenhouse asap, which I can't do when I start early. No idea if this will reduce my blight issues but worth a try.
Also this year I'm growing more different varieties instead of pushing through bigger numbers of unstable growouts. I need to find resistance to the heat and the hot humid diseases, and stir it into the pot.
Mountain Gem and Plum Regal bred by Randy Gardiner, Golden Jubilee, Mini Rose, from Ottawa Research Station breeders, Favorie de Bretagne bred by Tom Wagner, EM Champion. So delighted to see the sprouts! All new to me.

[bower]

What are you growing this year @MissS ?

[Cornelius_Gotchberg]

What are you growing this year @MissS ?

The Gotch has an idea:

picture1_0.png

The Gotch

[rxkeith]

that must mean i will be having a good tomato year. last year, we did not have a
lot of warm days, not consecutive at any rate. lousy year it was for tomatoes.
i'll take the heat.



keith

[pepperhead212]

I got some varieties that mentioned they have possible heat resistance - something I always look for. Though I'm not down in the south, with extreme heat, some years there are many 90+ days, and often high 90s, which halt many varieties with their flowering. This is also why I grow so many cherry, and smaller varieties - though some still stop flowering, they recover quickly, compared to large ones, that need a much longer time to grow, and ripen to full size.

[MissS]

What are you growing this year @MissS ?

Good question Bower. I have spent my day with my spreadsheet trying to figure that one out. I like to grow beefsteak/slicer tomatoes that are little known but that have great flavor so that I can pass them on in the MMMM. Now I am looking for heat resistance too. I like pink and dark tomatoes the best but my list of possibilities is packed with reds. I guess that I will keep my head in the spreadsheet for another day until I pick them out. It is time for me to get sowing.

[karstopography]

“Coyote” can take almost any heat found on earth. However, the shelf life is best measured in seconds. And the individual fruit run one or two grams each. Other than that and the massive out of control vines, Coyote is a champ in hot weather.

[bower]

What are you growing this year @MissS ?

Good question Bower. I have spent my day with my spreadsheet trying to figure that one out. I like to grow beefsteak/slicer tomatoes that are little known but that have great flavor so that I can pass them on in the MMMM. Now I am looking for heat resistance too. I like pink and dark tomatoes the best but my list of possibilities is packed with reds. I guess that I will keep my head in the spreadsheet for another day until I pick them out. It is time for me to get sowing.

Aunt Ginny's Purple and Big Rainbow are reported to have resistance to the heat driven Alternaria blight. But it's hard to find heirlooms or anything non red that's been bred for disease resistance, especially in the larger fruit.
Verticillium and Fusarium genetics seem to be common but not into the non-red much.

I'm taking note of everybody's heat/humidity favorites. PlainJane mentioned Daniel Burson, which I know is one of your faves.

[pepperhead212]

Daniel Burson was one of the only two that did not germinate for me. I might try them again, and plant them later, if any sprout. That was one that had "heat resistance" in the description.

[Tormato]

According to this article, it's going to be hot and a bad year to grow Brandywine's as well as many other tomatoes. A quick flip from El Niño to La Niña is coming soon and will bring us record heat.

https://www.livescience.com/planet-eart ... -on-record

Last summer was uncharted territory, can’t wait to top that .

My one Brandywine tomato plant, Cowlick’s strain, has set some tomatoes and the plant looks strong. Maybe it will set some more fruit before things really heat up. However, I’m pretty excited to finally get to try one of the famous Brandywine tomatoes, maybe around the first of June and before it gets really hot.

A smart choice with Cowlick's, as I find that it produces good numbers and great taste in different weather conditions, from year to year. For me, it's the best of the "Brandywines" for consistency. Of course, I don't get your overnight temps, here.

If I remember correctly, but I could be wrong (now 11 days into having senior moments), it really doesn't have anything to do with the "Brandywine" region of PA, or any lineage to any "Brandywine" varieties. Like Brandywine from Croatia, a few people name tomatoes after that famous name.