Summarizing the 2020 tomato growing year
Calcium nitrate to prevent end rot
I did a calcium nitrate application test to see if Ca application would prevent end rot (ER). It did, although I nearly killed the test plants by over-applying. I had two test plants and one control. The strain was Flamme, which is very prone to ER.
Soil: Miracle-gro potting mix. Test plants had ½ cup of calcium nitrate mixed in the soil. Control had zero.
½ cup ~ 120 g ; x 0.19% calcium (according to label) = 22.8 g calcium = 0.57 moles. (Calcium is 24.4% of pure calcium nitrate by molecular weight, but the material is probably not pure calcium nitrate. )
Transplanted the plants into these, 5 gal buckets 5/10/20.
On 6/7/20 I supplemented with even more calcium nitrate. This time I dissolved 120 g (½ cup) of the calcium nitrate in 500 ml water and applied it directly.
To the control, I added ¼ cup of 29-0-4 fertilizer to supply a similar amount of nitrate as the test. Note this was a slow-release pellet form; not meant to dissolve quickly! I dissolved it in 500 ml water as best I could, and added to control.
Well by evening, the two test plants were wilting. Of course, I should have realized that hitting them with a solution of 0.57mol/0.5 L, or more than 1 molar salt, would hurt! This arrested growth of the test plants. They did not recover their wilted appearance until ~6/28/20, 3 weeks later.
However – they did catch up, and by season’s end it was clear that the test plants had almost zero end rot.
Final results:
Test plants: 35 fruit. 34: no ER. ER rate 3%.
Control plant: 53 fruit. No ER: 27. ER: 26. ER rate 49%.
Interestingly, the control plant had much less ER after about Aug 15.
June-July 20: Control had about 50% ER. Test plants had no fruit yet.
July 20-Aug 15: Control had about 50% ER. Test plants had zero.
Aug 15- end of season: Control and test plants had almost zero ER.
Conclusion: It works, but don’t use such a concentrated calcium nitrate solution. Try much lower, like 50 mM, perhaps every two weeks.
Indigo crosses
I grew a few plants each of 55a1.2 F4 and 46a2.3 F5, and 1 of 28d3.3F4.
I saved seeds from 55a1.2F4 plant 2. I will now call this 55a1.2F5.
I previously thought 55a1.2F4 was not gf/gf, but it actually is gf/gf.
Since these are NOT y/y, it is hard to see the gf/gf from outside. Sliced open it was obvious. (“identical to Carbon.”)
46a2.3 F5 are gf/gf;y/y and indigo. These seeds were from 2 years ago and so I had already grown the F5 last year. These were decent as before. Were prone to sunscalding but I got started late in 2020 and that was partly why – in late July the heat and sun get really bad. Perhaps y/y is more prone to sunscalding?
28d3.3F4 did not have much at all purple. A nice cherry, but prone to cracking with overwatering. I sort of prefer Black Cherry which was very sweet this year.
Heirlooms
I derived Tangerine Dream from a store-bought orange globe “
heirloom”. Seems to breed true and was a decent yellow-orange beefsteaky tomato. Would grow again.
