I have grown Big Cheef for over a decade and the first year it was outstanding. It was a fairly large black or purple tomato with very good flavor that was very juicy with a lot of seeds and a short shelf life. The plant is a potato leaf black which is not that common. Since then my success with it has been hit and miss. Due to my fusarium problems I now must have it grafted in order for it to live long enough to be productive and frequently that has not turned out so well. Grafted to the root stock I like for most of my plants it doesn't seem to produce nearly as large or as plentifully as it did that first year I planted it un-grafted. I just lucked up that year as it did well but until I started grafting years later I didn't get a single one to live long enough to get any fruit off of them. Hopefully I will get a good graft this year and can enjoy it again.
I think it is a like a lot of black tomatoes in that from year to year it can be so different depending upon the weather. Some years my black varieties all do outstandingly and other years they will all do poorly. Another thing I have experienced with all the black varieties that I have been successful with is that the flavor seems much better in dry hot times than in what would be ideal weather for most other types of tomatoes. Black varieties are more negatively impacted by too much rain more than any other types and not just in becoming quite tasteless and splitting terribly but by contracting gray mold far worse and more frequently than reds, pinks or yellows. Due to our long hot summers most of my late summer tomatoes are black varieties and hopefully this summer I will have some good Big Cheefs to compare to my other frequently grown black varieties like JD's Special C Tex, Spudakee, IS, ISPL, Berkley Tie Dye Pink, and Gary O' Sena. I have given up on Black Krim which I love due to the awful splitting that just ruins them so frequently but I haven't given up on Big Cheef.
Bill
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