Kimberley DET or IND
 

I have seen seeds listed mostly as indeterminate, but got a package today in trade that says DET with a line through the IND that was originally printed? Now when I look it up I get both dependent o nthe site I go to? SO WHAT IS IT???

Tatiana says:

[B]History[/B] [LIST][*] Original, correct name should be [I]Kimberley[/I], and not 'Kimberly'. Unfortunately too many sources, seed savers and commercial vendors, adopted 'Kimberly' name.[*] Developed in the mid-1980's by John de Rocque of Kimberl[B]e[/B]y, BC, Canada, supposedly from a [URL="http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Siberia"]Siberia[/URL] x [URL="http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Tiny_Tim"]Tiny Tim[/URL] cross, selected for earliness, hardiness, and quality. It has not been confirmed that [URL="http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Siberia"]Siberia[/URL] and [URL="http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Tiny_Tim"]Tiny Tim[/URL] were the real parents of Kimberly, and genetically it does not make much sense, two regular leaf and dwarf/determinate varieties are unlikely to produce a potato leaf indeterminate.[/LIST]

This variety has been described by different folks as indet, compact indet and semi-det.

Determinate varieties produce terminal blossoms while indeterminates produce sub-terminal blossoms. So it isn't the length of the vines that determines whether a variety is det or indet.

I think semi-det or compact indet are the plant habits that come closest to describing it. When I grew it I never bothered to check the position of the blossoms so don't have a personal opinion. Tania calls it a compact indet.

The whole business of the spelling of this variety has been played out in many threads at several websites as to whether it should be Kimberley or Kimberly and there are strong opinions about the spelling, especially from those who actually live in British Columbia.

In her SSE listing Tania spells it Kimberley, BC in reference to where John de Rocque lived, perhaps an error on her part or a data entry error and the variety name as listed in the SSE YEarbook is Kimberly. I mention this only b'c of what she wrote at her data base about the spelling.

When Googling the name it appears that Kimberley is the correct spelling but the disagreement on the spelling I'm sure will continue since one person said that half the folks who live in Kimberley spell it that way and the other half spell it Kimberly.;)

A rose by any other name smells as sweet, as has been said.:)

Carolyn defines what, exactly, makes a tomato det or indet, but I suspect there is a complex set of interacting genetics: I suspect most det's have a genetic switch that "shuts them off" after they have set a load of blossoms; idets' do not, generally. But some indets might have at least some capacity to partly "shut off" when they have a lot of fruit...even though the growth points are not terminated by a flower stem.

I've grown Kim and a number of close cousins (Kotlas, Sprint, Stupice, and others): they all seems to exhibit a tendency to slow down or even stop growing late in the season...like a det.

My Stupice seems to be slowing down a lot, but it has 44 tomatoes on it now, some of which are pleated??? I will grow bloody butch, Kimberley, Soldacki, Nicko Pink, and Stupice next year. They seem to be the ones that do well here, although I have a [I]Azoychka with over 60 tomatoes on it all green.
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