Originally Posted by b54red
I now grow only for taste so some varieties that will do spectacularly with the RST-04-106 root stock son't get a try from me. I have narrowed my list of varieties that I grow down every year for the past six or seven years. I have eliminated what I perceive as bland or mushy tasting tomatoes since I don't care to eat them when I can instead have juicy, well balanced tomatoes. My favorites are Brandywine Sudduth's, Brandywine Cowlick's, Dester, ISPL, Gary O' Sena, 1884, Kentucky Wonder, Arkansas Traveler, Henderson's Winsal, Coulis de Tareau, Granny Cantrell, Giant Belgium, Delicious, Limbaugh's Legacy, Neves Azorean Red, German Johnson, Pruden's Purple, Spudakee, Red Barn, and Marianna's Peace. Last season the most successful varieties were Limbaugh's Legacy, German Johnson, Delicious, Brandywine Sudduth's and Cowlick's, Neves Azorean Red, Dester, JD's Special C Tex and Arkansas Traveler. Usually Indian Stripe PL is my most prolific tomato but I had bad luck with grafting it last year so it didn't even get planted until August so it didn't have time to produce the usual massive numbers I have had in the past. I have had real success with heart varieties in the past but have dropped most of them because of the bland taste most have but if you want a lot of meaty fruits for canning you might want to try Donskoi, Wes, and a few others.
There are some varieties that produce more and larger fruits with some of the other root stocks I have tried but my overall success rate with RST-04-106 makes it by far my preferred root stock. I have not had a single case of Bacterial Wilt with any plants grafted to it while every other root stock seems to have little or no resistance to BW. I find that I don't get so much over vegetative growth with it and it seems to have less effect on the growth habit of the different varieties. Since I do the single stem drop and lower method it really works well for me. I still have some seed from last year and hope that NE seeds gets some more in before I run out. The 105 is not as good an alternative for me since I have all three races of fusarium to deal with so if they don't resume sale of RST-04-106 I will be using Estamino and Multifort. Both are good root stock for my garden and though they don't work as well on some varieties they generally produce somewhat larger fruit on many varieties and they do seem to produce larger more robust plants that last a long time unless BW hits them.
Bill
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