Randy,


I have a small pack of Monte Verde. Am I allowed to save, but not sell, seed?

[QUOTE=Tormato;723551]Randy,


I have a small pack of Monte Verde. Am I allowed to save, but not sell, seed?[/QUOTE]

Monte Verde has a PVP certificate which expired in 2015. Anyone can now produce and sell seed. The USDA Plant Variety Database has a listing of all the tomatoes which have been issued PVP certificates. I quit doing PVP years ago because of the expense and work of doing so plus the fact that they expire. Since then all my breeding lines have been transferred through signed MTAs regulating their use in breeding. I have not done any PVPs for my hybrids and am happy if others can use them in breeding to develop other useful tomatoes. After all, I started breeding with varieties developed by others.

Thanks for the info Randy. I'll get some seed and give them a try.




I have had several requests for a tomato that is productive, red, about 1.5 pounds, determinate, and with rich flavor. I can see some of these traits in lines you have developed. Any chance you are working on a very large fruited determinate with significantly improved flavor?

Here are my Mountain Gem.
They are doing great and look awesome. No flaws.
Fruit are coming on. First truss has a few green that are baseball size.

All grown in 5 gallon plastic grow bags, Promix HP potting mix. Daily fertigation with the Hydro-gardens 3-part fert program.

I'll have to check exact day, but seeds were sown mid-March, transplanted into bags in the tunnel on april 15.

Plz update later on flavor PH.

Will do!

Ate the first Mountain Gem two nights ago. Fruit are ripening on plants I started from seed in mid February.
Taste was very good.
I’ll try to get pics at some point.
But overall very pleased.

Ate a second one tonight. This tomato is a keeper.
I love the taste.
Plants look like something out of a catalog. Flawless.
I’ll post pics in the morning.
Beautiful red, smooth, and uniform fruit.
A must grow.

Kudos to Dr. Gardner on this new release.
I have tried other, earlier Mt. Series varieties (mostly sold at the local farmer's market), and have been underwhelmed.


This one however is by far the best of those that I've tasted, and very impressive.
The plant is quite healthy and growing very well. Fruit set is very good, I'll have a better comparison at the end of the season to how it holds up.


The attached pictures show the first 13 oz. fruit picked in 68 days from set out next to a 10 oz. Summertime Gold, and the
cut version of Mt. Gem.


As for the taste, Dr. Gardner was holding back on us... this is in the very good to excellent taste category. A solid 8 in my book. Big Beef in comparison ranks from 7.5~8.5, so this is well in that range.
As a comparison, the Tasti-Lee that is growing right next to Mountain Gem was not as flavorful... 6.5 in my opinion.


That Summertime Gold in the picture was a solid 9, and Mountain Gem compared nicely along side it. (Wonderful dinner plate by the way! :) )


I grow very few hybrids, but this one will now be on my must grow list alongside Big Beef and Sungold. (Impressive company).


Thanks Dr. Gardner for this one!



Lee (NCSU '89/'97)

I just bought a packet of Mountain Gem for next season.

I was really overjoyed to find this old thread with all the discussion of Mountain Gem genetics and Randy's kind suggestion we should work with it. As it happens, my breeding efforts in recent seasons have been focused on stabilizing some determinate lines which are early, well adapted to our short cooler season, non-red and tasty.
Meanwhile, in the past couple of seasons the effects of climate change are becoming more clear, and in particular the combination of heat and high humidity is making Alternaria blight severe at my location. I've not found any unpatented tomatoes, at this point, which rated high resistance to Alternaria - I have seen Mountain Gem rated as intermediate in resistance, so this is at least a place to start and evaluate by comparison to my most resistant lines, I expect it will be at least as good and hopefully even better, so I'm looking forward to making some crosses to improve the disease resistance in my lines.

A lot of growers across Canada were downed by late blight in 2023. Nicky saved seed from Mountain Magic, one of the few to make a crop, and shared with me. It would be nice to work with some growers who regularly face late blight in order to select the heterozygous resistance genes in the Gem, and perhaps we can do that through our swap network. I expect our turn with LB will also come here. I've never seen so many fungal pathogens as 2023, what a year.. We are going to see more of them in a more humid world.

Anyway I wanted to express my thanks and admiration for the work bringing disease resistance together with the determinate challenges.



If anyone has any suggestions of heirlooms or other varieties with specific resistance to Alternaria alternata, I'd be grateful to hear about it.

Bower, do you have trouble with Alternaria solani also, or just Alternaria alternata? Down here in VA our main problem is A. solani. Have you seen this research paper about Alternaria? Lots of interesting information about both species, though more about A. solani than A. alternata.
[URL]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8451811/[/URL]

VirginiaClay, that's a great article alright! Yes I found it too. Lots of reading for next season.



It seems to me that Alternaria alternata is the mother species of many blights 'specific' to one thing or another. Alternaria solani, I believe this is the one which didn't give me serious trouble - partly because I wouldn't repeat any variety that was super susceptible - but otherwise, it only affected lower leaves when fruit were starting to ripen, and if I fed the plants at that point it would not recur.


The Alternaria blight I'm having now is only activated when the temperature goes above 25C with high humidity. It seems to blow into the greenhouse windows from the field and garden, and it affects the upper leaves of the plants first where it blows in. But if they are susceptible, they will start to get it on the stems after a while. It starts as a scorching on the leaf, red, purple or yellow, and takes a while to develop those classic ring spots. If the heat only lasts a few weeks they can recover when it cools off. But if it persists, then the susceptible plants will start getting it on stems and petioles, and pretty soon they're toast.

Since Alternaria alternata has 70+ hosts and is pretty well found everywhere (No tomatoes or potatoes in line of sight my garden surrounded by woods), I assume it's that and not A. solani. But I do think there's lots of confusion in the naming of subspecies or species, as we learn that species barriers are not what we once believed and a much more flexible and adaptible genome than we thought. Alternaria seems to specialize readily on different hosts, as much as it also lives on multiple hosts.

[QUOTE=Lee;740261]Kudos to Dr. Gardner on this new release.
I have tried other, earlier Mt. Series varieties (mostly sold at the local farmer's market), and have been underwhelmed.


This one however is by far the best of those that I've tasted, and very impressive.
The plant is quite healthy and growing very well. Fruit set is very good, I'll have a better comparison at the end of the season to how it holds up.


The attached pictures show the first 13 oz. fruit picked in 68 days from set out next to a 10 oz. Summertime Gold, and the
cut version of Mt. Gem.


As for the taste, Dr. Gardner was holding back on us... this is in the very good to excellent taste category. A solid 8 in my book. Big Beef in comparison ranks from 7.5~8.5, so this is well in that range.
As a comparison, the Tasti-Lee that is growing right next to Mountain Gem was not as flavorful... 6.5 in my opinion.


That Summertime Gold in the picture was a solid 9, and Mountain Gem compared nicely along side it. (Wonderful dinner plate by the way! :) )


I grow very few hybrids, but this one will now be on my must grow list alongside Big Beef and Sungold. (Impressive company).


Thanks Dr. Gardner for this one!



Lee (NCSU '89/'97)[/QUOTE]
Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is knowing not to put one in a fruit salad.

I just Love this Quote, Amen!

Happy Holidays