I've grown Black Cherry from seed purchased from Tomato Growers Supply and found it very good. I have seed for Black Cherry from Baker Creek but haven't grown theirs yet.

I also have seed for Purple Haze from the breeder as well as F2 and F3 seed from folks who have grown Purple Haze and subsequently grown out F2 seed and gotten larger fruit.

That to me is the benefit of Purple Haze over Black Cherry ... that Black Cherry is stable and you'll get the same thing year after year; while Purple Haze (with Brandywine, Cherokee Purple and Black Cherry in its immediate heritage) will segregate into various interesting forms in subsequent generations.

The seeds for F1 Purple Haze are not avaiable unless you get them from the original breeder. Live plants are available, this is because the original breeder wished for proceeds from the sale of this particular tomato to go to Autism charities he supports.

I bought a Purple Haze plant last year which produced some fruit, but quickly came down with some sort of wilt and died. I saved the seed and am growing them this year, but will I get actual "Purple Haze" plants or something else?

Thanks!

You'll get something else. It will be close but not the same.

I have not seen much variation for color with one exception (noted below) but I have seen variation for shape.

I get three predominate shapes:
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(10:45 4/21 CST - I goofed in second picture and will change it by 12pm)

The first type is a oblong cherry/plum. They can range in size of about ½-2 oz. Some have had pointed blossom ends like these and others dont. They will segregate for cracking - some do, some dont. The flavor is very good on all further lines I have (now at F4).

The second type is a oblate large cherry/saladette. They are about 2 oz. Most of the interior is seed gel rather than "meat". Though they do taste pretty good - like a Black Cherry - I have not elected to pursue this type. Though this particular plant didn't. This is also the type I see the weird "spiral cracking" as opposed to radial (spider like) or concentric cracking [lines in a circle from the top ((( * ))) ].

Spiral cracking:
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The third type is a small beefsteak type. They range from about 4-6oz (a few got to 8oz). They have more to the interior and have excellent flavor. (I cut this a little too close to the top so more white core shows)

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The other things which have shown and should expect are some variation in striping (which fades) and yellow skin - which shows up randomly but often in more sun exposed fruit. Both of these traits come at least from Cherokee Purple (maybe Black Cherry too?). This "yellow skin" is curious because all the parents are clear skin. I suspect that Cherokee Purple must carry some kind of modifier gene which is switched on in certain crosses and/or environmental influences (light?heat?). Similar things have happened with CP crosses not involving Black Cherry. If you carefully pull the skin on a regular CP you can sometimes see some yellow skin at the stem end. So I suspect there might be some allele/modifier gene which regulates where and if this occurs further down the shoulders and sides of a fruit. So its possible that changes to the expression (like crossing) causes this to be expressed further down or all over the fruit maybe by some modifier genes. This could explain what I have seen in this cross and others and how Cherokee Chocolate possibly came about. I have also recovered all yellow skins from the Brandywine x Cherokee Purple cross when one of the brownish F2's was looked at by the F4.

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Following up on a seed saving question I posted, did you get these 3 different varieties from 3 different offspring plants (I assume yes, i.e. that one plant did not give you different shapes of tomato)? Also, you mentioned the 3 parents, 1 is potato leaf...did any of the plants from your saved seed have potato leaf, and did the fruits from those plants resemble the potato-leaf parent?

yes, each one is from a different sister line from the F1. three predominate shapes with a few variations within those shapes.

the cross was an advanced PL BWxCP line crossed to BC

The leaf type segregates about 3 RL's for every 1 PL.

The Type 3 closely resembles the PL parent but the fruit are not as large. Fruit seem to be an improvement tastewise. Won a blue ribbon for taste from a panel of chefs and food critics.

What I didn't see was a close match to Black Cherry. All fruit types are larger than BC. With larger numbers of F2's I probably would have seen something closer. I wondered about getting a PL Black Cherry out of it but Ill let someone else find that.

Over time some lines may be closer to BC once they stablize the genes for size and shape. Just have to wait and see.

Thanks Mule, interesting stuff, I am doing a similar grow-out from saved hybrid seeds this year, if I get any noteworthy results I will post.

I was actually surprised to see the oblong cherry with the point on the bottom, that characteristic is not present on any of the parents, it it?