Some Interesting Leaf Shape Variations
Thought I'd post pictures of some leaf shape variations I'm running into this year so far. Hope y'all find them interesting.
The first two are Novikov's Giant, also called Gigant-10 Novikov. Andrey, from Minsk, Belarus, sent me three seeds for this Russian tomato a couple of years ago. All of the Novikov Giant pictures I've seen online show leaf forms that appear to be what some folks call intermediate or irregular potato leaf shapes with some smooth serrations.
I planted the three seeds around March 1, 2007, and only two germinated. One plant is an intermediate leaf form like this.
And the other plant shows a very smooth edged potato leaf shapes like this.
Another potato leaf variant I found interesting is Cherokee Purple PL grown from seeds received from Tom in New Jersey. I think Tom got them from Bill (Spudleaf Willie) in New Mexico. Here is a leaf shape on that plant.
Randy, another tomatohead who posts as Big Chief or RIK, sent me seeds for a tomato that sprang from a cross between Brandywine Sudduth and an unknown regular leaf plant in his garden. Last year all his F1 seedlings were regular leaf. The seeds he sent are the F2 generation, and I got about 25% potato leaf in the starter tray. I kept one particularly strong seedling and it makes leaves like this.
The first flower cluster the plant I call "Big Chief" put on has over a dozen blossoms, but one flower already has made a tomato larger than a quarter, so I don't think it's a cherry. No telling what Rick let his Sudduth cross with! Here's that big spray of blossoms a week ago.
Last year I grew some Brandy Boy F3 plants from seeds sent by another tomato grower, John in Massachusetts. He also posts here occasionally. Last year's best plant had leaves that looked like this.
The tomatoes looked like this.
This year, I kept two starts grown from seeds from that particular 2006 plant, and they look slightly different. The first plant has slightly puckered, ever so irregular shaped leaves like this.
The other plant I kept has smoother leaves that look like this.
I keep hearing that Carbon is a good black tomato, so I thought I'd try it out. All but one of the seedlings I grew were regular leaf. One seedling came up with great long cotyledons that looked like 2 inch willow leaves ... long and very slender. Then came the true leaves ... potato leaf rather than regular leaf. Now the plant looks like this. (Those new leaves in the middle of the plant are not serrated, they are "ruffled" and actually flatten out into smooth edges as they grow.)
Oh yeah ... Potato Top. This variety has foiled me for two years straight. I got the seeds from Doug Oster, garden editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He distributes seeds for this great pink, potato leaf tomato originated by Fred Limbaugh. He says to cull out the off type "regular leaf" appearances. But that's all I get! So last year I sent half my original Oster seeds to Tom in New Jersey, and Tom got one fabulous potato leaf plant and sent me back some seed. Guess what? I got regular leaf again!!!
Spudleaf Willie called me this morning and told me this is much closer to the potato leaf shape, so I'm keeping this one to see if the fruit is good. Tom kept one like this last summer and said it just didn't stand up to the true Potato Top in his taste comparisons.
Well, that's about it for the off types or weird stuff ... except for this one Rutgers plant. I bought a six pack of Rutgers from a buddy's nursery. He likes the determinate type Rutgers. One of the seedlings in the tray was a runt. I put it in a pot. Now it looks almost like a rugose dwarf type to me. What do you think?
Bill
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anney
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anney
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tomstrees
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