white tomatoes

[gorbelly]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Let me try to get this straight before I make any comments.

You had some Early Girl F1 plants out,I don't know how many,and one or more?of those plants had one branch only with what you'recalling pure white fruits.

Is that correct?

Carolyn, who does know of an association between GWRipes throwing so called whites, but is surprised to see you say it was paper white since of all the so called whites I've grown,only one was closest to being pure white,and that's White Queen. But is still wondering since I've never heard of a red fruited variety throwing a white.

I get the impression that the white fruit that encore found is not yet ripening. Hard to tell, as the original post is very brief and a big vague.

I would assume the final fruit will just be red as usual, correct? As a carotenoid, I assume lycopene is not dependent on seeing light, since lots of root vegetables that are under the ground color up just fine. I suppose if it were a tomato dependent on chlorophyll to contribute to color, like the black tomatoes, "blanching" it would make a difference to final color, making it a pink or red tomato instead of a black?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by PureHarvest

This.
I have seen plenty of immature fruit completely covered by dense foliage that were almost pure white when discovered.

There are several factors that determine how white the fruits might be.

Yes, the degree of foliage cover is one factor.

Another factor is where,geographically, they are grown,UV being stronger in the south than in the north, so most in the north are apt to see more whiteness.

And another factor is the the genetics of specific varieties, and no,I don't know the specific genetics myself,but so called whites have been around for a long time and I doubt all are genetically the same,for sevealreasons.

Most folks find that most so called whites are ivory colored,shading to pale yellow,and some to a deeper yellow.

In my last post I was posting about the association of whites and GWRipes, and just an example now.I was growing 4 plants of Cherokee Green for seed production for an SSE listing and seed offers, my saved seeds,which are pretty darn good.Was I ever surpised when one plant had yes,white tomatoes.I let them ripen up and they were closest to THE worst tomatoes I'd ever tasted.

So where does mutations belong in this whole story?.

Then there's the cherry tomato variety Dr.Carolyn,which is a so called white,and from that Amy Goldman found a plant with green fruits. At one time I did know the genetics of that GWRipe/white association as explained to me by Keith Mueller.

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Green_Doctors

Carolyn

[ContainerTed]

Back in the 2011 season, I had a section of my garden do this "white" thing. It involved several varieties including Chapman, Rutgers, Bradley, Crimson Cushion, and a couple others. The tomatoes would grow to full size and would be as white as you see in the early stages of sunscald. It was the apparent absence of any red, pink, yellow, or green pigment. They were as white as "milk glass" - that is, they were like the color of slightly watered down milk. I first thought that somehow I was seeing Lutescent springing up everywhere. The area affected was about 35-40 feet of two rows right in the middle of my 100' by 50' tilled area.

There was a lot of dense foliage there that was thick enough that you couldn't easily walk between the two rows. I had to harvest from the west side of row 6 and the east side of row 5. The other areas in the garden were as normal as you would want and that included a few places that were also quite dense with foliage and weeds.

Now, here's the real mystery. The tomatoes eventually took on their normal colors. And it didn't matter if you let them stay on the vine or harvested and set on the kitchen counter. I haven't any explanation for it happening, and it hasn't happened again. For some time now, I have wondered (and I still wonder) whether I did something wrong, or was there something in the soil, or bad seeds, or bad fertilizer, or ..... it drives me crazy just thinking about it sometimes. It's still a bad dream to me.

Hey, this is for what it worth. I hope someone can come up with an answer.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by ContainerTed

Back in the 2011 season, I had a section of my garden do this "white" thing. It involved several varieties including Chapman, Rutgers, Bradley, Crimson Cushion, and a couple others. The tomatoes would grow to full size and would be as white as you see in the early stages of sunscald. It was the apparent absence of any red, pink, yellow, or green pigment. They were as white as "milk glass" - that is, they were like the color of slightly watered down milk. I first thought that somehow I was seeing Lutescent springing up everywhere. The area affected was about 35-40 feet of two rows right in the middle of my 100' by 50' tilled area.

There was a lot of dense foliage there that was thick enough that you couldn't easily walk between the two rows. I had to harvest from the west side of row 6 and the east side of row 5. The other areas in the garden were as normal as you would want and that included a few places that were also quite dense with foliage and weeds.

Now, here's the real mystery. The tomatoes eventually took on their normal colors. And it didn't matter if you let them stay on the vine or harvested and set on the kitchen counter. I haven't any explanation for it happening, and it hasn't happened again. For some time now, I have wondered (and I still wonder) whether I did something wrong, or was there something in the soil, or bad seeds, or bad fertilizer, or ..... it drives me crazy just thinking about it sometimes. It's still a bad dream to me.

Hey, this is for what it worth. I hope someone can come up with an answer.

I don't have any quick answers for you Ted,just be glad you didn't have any Lutescent plants in their,nee Honor Bright. Certainly different with yellow foliage and fruits of many colors on a plant at one time.

Me no like at all, as to taste.

For those who don't know this variety

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Lutescent

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...30.bkCYUDK78B8

https://www.google.com/#q=Lutescent+tomato&hl=en

Carolyn

[ContainerTed]

Carolyn, I've given the whole thing a lot of thought over the years and the only thing that keeps creeping back in my mind is that no sunlight was getting to the fruit. But that can't be the answer. The leaves of the plants were in the sun.

It just makes me crazy.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by ContainerTed

Carolyn, I've given the whole thing a lot of thought over the years and the only thing that keeps creeping back in my mind is that no sunlight was getting to the fruit. But that can't be the answer. The leaves of the plants were in the sun.

It just makes me crazy.

No, that can't be the answer since we both know that sun on the fruits is not necessary for fruits to ripen up.

I would get under there and pick the ripe and half ripe ones, and just rearranging the foliage,which was necessary to do would often leave fruits exposed to sunscald,etc.

Carolyn