Quote:
Originally Posted by AKmark
Delicious and Chapman for large red beefsteaks, people gobble them up, Our own creation called Mat-Su Express is a favorite for medium size red beefsteaks. …
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I definitely think Chapman looks, tastes and feels like a very marketable tomato (as long as customers like the large size). I grew it this year and it was awesome. They're beautiful tomatoes. One of my favorites, this year, for both looks and taste.
A few others I think might be good to investigate, if you haven't already, are these:
* Thessaloniki (nice, firm, round, decently large, red, productive, very-round, easy-to-find-and-pick, fruits with consistent fruit size and shape)
* Creole (fruit quality is very similar to Thessaloniki, but it was earlier for me; not sure on productivity, since it got smothered)
Anyway, out of the 100 or so varieties I grew this year those were the two (in addition to Chapman) that stuck out to me a lot as having great qualities for market.
I also think Matina is a great one, although the fruits can be a little on the soft side (so, that's the only reason I don't include it with the others)—the earliest fruits weren't soft at all, though (but they didn't have as much taste as the softer, larger fruits that came later; although the tomatoes did change after the initial first ones, they stayed pretty consistent after that). People do like it a lot, and notwithstanding the softness, it might keep just fine (as in, about average or so); so, it might be okay there. Anyway, it's very productive, early, and tangy. It's not large (maybe about the size of Early Girl F1, if not a little bigger). A lot of people who visited seemed drawn to Matina for some reason (more than my other tomatoes), and more people favored it most than any other variety they tried.
I'm not sure how any of these do in a greenhouse.
I would personally love to see a cross between Thessaloniki and Matina. Chapman, Creole, Cuostralee and George Detsikas Italian Red might be good ones to cross with Matina, too.
Because some sources that sell Thessaloniki seem to have different sizes, I'll note that
this is where I got mine. They were maybe softball sized for me, and later than the stated DTM. I got Creole and Matina there, too.