Summarizing the 2020 tomato growing year

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.