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Old May 14, 2018   #8
bower
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Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
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Thanks for the encouragement, KarenO. I suspect the defects in those first 'megabloom' fruits may have slowed the Whiskeyjack down until they set a second one. I may yet have to remove them but will let them get big enough to see just how unevenly they set. I really do need tomatoes that will tolerate April extremes in my greenhouse, because the later plantout usually means temperatures are too high when it's time to set up a good crop. So I'm back to pushing the cold tolerance limits.

Rajun, you can tell that the sp/sp determinate condition is there, in any plant that has fewer than three leaves between flower clusters, and/or it sets a terminal cluster on the main stem. In the past I had crosses that took a long time to identify as determinates, because they had three leaves between clusters on the main stem until finally they ended that stem with fewer leaves between and a terminal cluster, or put out side shoots that had the determinate cluster/leaf pattern. It was very frustrating to wait so long for the key information.
So I'm pretty stoked to identify determinates early on this time, only a couple of weeks from planting out. Now if I could have known even earlier, I would have given the determinates their own pots instead of sticking them into the 'single stem' indeterminate plan. Oh well.... I'll take it!
The Skipper Brown has thrown one determinate in every generation so far. The first one, fruit quality was not up to par (not even close), while all the indeterminates were just great. Last year at the farm, another determinate looked really promising with loads of fruit.. I think they were good but I didn't actually taste them. But then some of the less virtuous OP's were stricken with foliage disease, and the determinate Skipper got it too and just as bad. Meanwhile all the indeterminate Skippers had awesome foliage health that remained outstanding all season. So that determinate didn't make the cut either.
Fingers crossed at least one or the other will make the grade this year.
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