Ada's Red Hope

[jwr6404]

I will be receiving seeds for this RARE variety and have been unable to find any specifications or info on it. Anyone out there have any experience with the Ada's Red Hope?

[Suze]

Most of what I'm seeing about it is on the Organic Gardening forums and the related seed bank forum that was created a year or two ago. Another name it might be going by is Ada's Red Gift.

From what I briefly skimmed through, it sounds like last year when a lot of these folks were growing it out, it wasn't completely stable yet, and they might still be at the point of rouging out off-types.

http://forums.organicgardening.com/e...1/m/3241040512

That would be Ada's Red Hope, or Ada's Red Gift (we haven't settled on a name yet). It's a red slicer, and by most reports a very decent tomato.
Ada was my Aunt, and this was the last tomato she bred before succumbing to cancer. The "Hope" in one of the names is in reference to her continual hope that one day no one would have to go hungry, and her hope and interest that the seeds she funneled through me could travel further, to distant lands, places she had never seen with her own eyes. "Gift" would refer to this variety being her last gift to me and our fledgling Seed Bank.
It's only had one grow-out, and there seems to be a few variables still sorting themselves out, notably some plants sport red stems, a feature we growers haven't decided to encourage or breed out through selection. It's an open-pollinated, indeterminate.
I have a few seeds myself, but if you're in the U.S., the safer way to get at them (and a county of other heirloom vareties), is to go over to www.ogseedbank.com and post what you want - those seeds are already in the States.

Also:
http://ogseedbank.★★★★★★★★★55.com/in...1752056&page=1

Since this is the first grow-out of the variety, it's hard to guess why there are colour differences. It could be some are leaning to one of the original parent's genectics over the other. Some are going to do that. It will be up to us to decide what Red Hope should look, taste and act like, then we start selecting those plants that meet the standards we set.

This does not sound like a stable variety (yet). My first question would be "what standards were set"?

[jwr6404]

Suze
Would you recommend I not grow this tomato and/or send the seeds to someone with the interest to work with the seeds? My interest in tomatoes is for consumption only.

[Suze]

Originally Posted by jwr6404

Suze
Would you recommend I not grow this tomato and/or send the seeds to someone with the interest to work with the seeds? My interest in tomatoes is for consumption only.

Hi, Jim -- I think that's totally your call, I mean if you want to grow it just to eat the tomatoes. But then there are plenty of stable, tasty varieties out there that you could grow with more predictable results. Part of the consideration might be how much gardening room do you have to play around with, and is it going to be a big deal to you if the variety is not all that good?

It seems to me that this is a "project" variety for those folks that are or were posting on the other forum. And to me, since they were talking in terms of it not being stable and perhaps selecting for certain characteristics, how do you know what you really have? From what I gathered, they may not have even decided on what those characteristics are that they were going to select for yet.

Personally, *if* I were going to participate in the growout, I would probably sign up over there at the OG seed bank (appears to be a free forum) and just post to one of the threads about it. Otherwise, how would you know what to select for, or be in the loop? At least, that's the way I see it.

I do think if you decide to grow it, you probably shouldn't redistribute any seeds under the name Ada's Red Hope without getting some input from one of those folks first.

A lot of unknowns on my part that maybe someone that's part of that project (perhaps the person that sent you the seeds and/or someone from the other forum) could better answer.

[jwr6404]

Suze,
Thanks for the info, I won't be growing it as I only have room for 10 Tomatoes this year.