What gives? I thought determinates produced most of their fruit all at once, at most, for about six weeks. These are acting just like indeterminates but are only about four feet tall. They've been producing fruit for three months and there are new blossoms every day.

Just curious. Has anyone else had this experience with this Rutgers variety?

gene

Yes, I know. I intentionally got the determinate variety. Here's the description:

Rutgers VFA #4050 (30 seeds) $2.30
Gardeners throughout the country are rediscovering this old-fashioned classic for its terrific flavor and productivity. This strain has some disease resistance, which ensures large crops of crack-free, bright red 6 to 8 oz. tomatoes with delicious old-time taste. For many years, this was a favorite for canning because of its abundance, juiciness and deep red color through and through. Developed in the 1920's, but just right for today's gardeners too. Determinate. 75 days.

Have you grown it? I'm curious about the experience of others with this one, since it hasn't slowed down and stopped like other determinates.

I love those plants.

The way I understand determinate tomato cultivars from our friend Keith is that the main growing stem produces side shoots that quickly produce flower clusters. After each side shoot sends out its first blossom cluster, it then produces 0 to 2 additional leaf nodes followed by a terminal flower cluster and then no further vegetative shoots. The terminal blossom cluster ends the upward growth of the plant, thus "determinate."

After sending out several side shoots, the main growing stem also should terminate in a blossom cluster, making the overall determinate plant much shorter than an indeterminate but with many side shoots giving the plant a bushy appearance.

The simultaneous growth of many flower clusters on the many side shoots promotes earliness and concentrates fruit maturity compared to indeterminates. However, some determinates set and ripen fruit over a much longer time span than other determinates. This year I grew four determinate cultivars ... Rutgers, Mozark, Bradley, and Merced. Each had a different timeline with Mozark exhibiting the most concentrated set of fruit and ripening and definitely the most typical "determinate" behavior setting about 40 tomatoes in a single two week period and ripening all of them within about 10 days of each other.

The Bradley, although it is billed as a concentrated set cultivar, showed the longest span of fruit set and ripening of the four determinates with all three of the Bradley plants setting fruit and ripening it over several weeks. The Merced produced and ripened all its tomatoes in two concentrated sets. Rutgers stayed the shortest of the four determinate types, but like yours, produced and ripened fruit over a longer period than any of the other four types other than Bradley.

So, for me, Bradley was the odd man out in the determinate category this time. Maybe the Bradley I bought was "semideterminate" as the plants produced more than one flower cluster to the side of the apparent main stem, like indeterminates, but eventually the shoots terminated in a flower cluster, as in the determinate plants.

This is my first year growing Rutgers, and I must say I'll grow them again next year. This small plant is a work-horse! The later tomatoes here are smaller, too, but every bit as tomatoey-tasting as the first ones. By now the plants themselves look awful at the bottom, probably because of old age, blight or some other kind of disease, but the top's still heroically producing tomatoes.

hoosiercherokee

Thanks for that information. I didn't realize that determinates have such an inclusive range of production-days! So I guess I didn't get the wrong seed in the packet -- the Rutgers long production period raised all kinds of questions in my mind. These last small tomatoes of the summer are SO tasty and juicy, even if they aren't the beefsteaks that are so wonderful and exciting and delicious earlier. They hit the dust about five weeks ago, worn out and too challenged by the heat and other problems to last any longer.

It is supposed to grow well for those in the southern US, so that might be a tomato for you to try as well.

Dean

Marion - Breeder and vendor: South Carolina Agric. Expt. Sta., Charleston. Parentage: (Pan American x L. pimpinellifolium ) x (Pan America x Homestead). Characteristics: 1 week earlier and larger fruit than Rutgers. Resistance: fusarium wilt and gray leaf spot. Similar: Rutgers. Adaptation: southeastern United States. 1960.

*****

I see Marion and Rutgers ( post 1933 version) as being just about the same and as for disease tolerances, well, both have single tolerance to Fusarium and Fusarium wouldn't be found in IA, and it depends on which specific strain of Rutgers is grown as to disease tolerances and there are about 7-9 different strains listed in the SSE Yearbooks depending on which yearbook issue.

But neither of them have tolerance to the common foliage diseases which are so very common and give us the most trouble.

And I also see both of them being semi-determinate, which just means longer vines than a determinate and all else that Bill shared above, but not as long as a full indeterminate.

Most good commercial farm varieties are not indeterminates b'c they take up too much room making cultivating and fertilizing difficult.

One of my favorite older commercial varieties is Break O Day, and I have yet to find anyone who doesn't think it's great as to both taste and production.

Carolyn