2020 Top Performers
 

I didnt see the usual "year in review" thread where folks listed their best performers from last year, so I started this thread.

For me the standouts were as follows:

Brandywine Sudduth - grow if every year, but the production this year was amazingly good.

Not Lucky Cross - I planted 6 or 8 Lucky Cross seeds and one of the seedlings came out as regular leaf. I grew it out anyway and it was a largish pink which was very productive and great tflavor. I saved seed, so well see what happens this year.

Red Barn - very productive

Lillian's Yellow Heirloom - more productive than typical for me, flavor was great, as usual.

Romovaya Baba - New to me, green when ripe; very productive and great flavor. Will grow again this year.

Well, my top performers were not really the tastiest ones with the highest yield or an exotic color.

My top performers were those varieties that survived the fierce attack of late blight that came as early as at the end of August here. My award goes to Mountain Magic, Crimson Crush and Cocktail Crush. If it hadn't been for them, my season would have been a disaster. Moreover, they are excellent in taste, 8 to 10 on a scale from 0 to 10.
I started the season with optimism and lots of attractive cultivars. But apart from the above mentioned ones they perished very fast and ingloriously. :(
The survivors are the staple of the 2021 season again.
Milan HP
P.S. I like your nick: it sort of describes my last year season.;)

Well, for 2020 the best producer has been Em Champion. At somewhere above 12 kg (27lb) in a 6 gal pot, which is quite a bit more than previous years for any variety. Shame that it was the worst tasting of the year, it's not coming back. I kept hoping that the second wave in the autumn would taste better, but nope.

My best performer was Estiva (Johnny's Seeds). Not the first year it has held that honor. It's a wonderful tomato, tasty and consistent with top-notch fruit quality.

(I also got a lot of fruit off my two Tasmanian Chocolates. They, as they say, punched well above their weight class.)

[QUOTE=zipcode;761279]Well, for 2020 the best producer has been Em Champion. At somewhere above 12 kg (27lb) in a 6 gal pot, which is quite a bit more than previous years for any variety. Shame that it was the worst tasting of the year, it's not coming back. I kept hoping that the second wave in the autumn would taste better, but nope.[/QUOTE]

I read that EM Champion is a very tasty tomato. Isn't the deteriorating taste at the expense of the high harvest? I have experienced that when a plant grows a lot, it has enough nutrients, water and sun, so it affects my taste. It is generally said that the best-tasting tomatoes are from growing in dry conditions (for example, Stekovics, which you certainly know). I will grow EM Champion in the cold bed this year - I already have seedlings with eight real leaves.

Indeed, production absolutely affects the taste. But towards the autumn, the production was much less, and still no taste.
The biggest problem was the lack of acidity, which made it kinda bland to me, so depends what you are looking for. I know you grew a tomato called Ramallet Pequenito a while back, from Mallorca, that tomato had exactly the same problem, almost no trace of acidity. If you liked that one, you might like this one.

of the standard varieties,


pervaya lyubov was tasty and productive.


same for blackfoot, new to me


relikvia iz ussurikia ??? was productive, and good tasting. this one was from
shawns last offer of carolyns seeds. spread sheet said old red russian heirloom.
mine were golden orange in color. no one has been able to confirm color type.


jds special c-tex gave me a lot of large good tasting chocolate tomatoes.
i have grown this one before. don't remember them being so big.


anna russian cherry cross grow out
most plants were very productive. flavor varied.


lempi line was rampant cherry tomato growth. 5 plants gave 5 different shapes
of tomatoes, some pink, some red. 4 were good enough to go to f5, but need to wait
a bit.


aili line were saladette size heart shaped red tomatoes. two plants had decent flavor,
two had little flavor. very productive, but was hoping for better flavor.


mama helen line
three plants, one large saladette, two different sized plum shape tomatoes.
all were productive and good tasting pink tomatoes. the large saladette, and
the smaller plum will be growing in this years garden at f5.




keith

I prefer sweet tomatoes and Little Lucky is one of my favourites (just to give an example).

Last year, I grew EM Champion for the first time, and I was amazed at how well it did. It was as early as the cherry tomatoes that I grew, and it was very productive. I thought it tasted sweet and full-bodied with an acid kick.

Linda

It was a bit of a later season for me here in Utah, zone 7. Of the approximately 20 varieties I grew, some were real standouts. For the small sizes, we loved Brad's atomic grape, and pink bumblebee as well as our old go-to, sun sugar. For the black tomatoes, black from tula was the big winner for production. For the reds, 1884 as always won on taste but could be more productive. But hands down, my overall winner due to earliness for size, flavor, and productivity is the yellow tomato, azoychka. I got well over 100 good sized tomatoes from one plant of azoychka. It can be variable in size, but it's crazy productive, and really quite early for a good size tomato.

[URL="https://photos.app.goo.gl/uabPBYGEeukfE3mf9"]https://photos.app.goo.gl/uabPBYGEeukfE3mf9[/URL]

For a number of years my best in the greenhouse has been Indian Stripe PL, and the best outdoors has been EM-Champion. Both have been most productive and among the best tasting.


Steve