The number of fruits on any vareity that have BER can vary considerably from year to year depending primarily on weather conditions, and that applies to almost ALL paste varieties that I've ever grown. Same with Opalka which for many is a heavy producer for alot of folks.

If you aren't happy with what you're growing for paste tomatoes then maybe think about the following:

Mama Leone
Heidi, originally from Cameroon
Sarnowski Polish Plum
Martino's Roma

......to name a few.

I guess what I'm saying is that I wouldn't abandon any variety if it disappointed me the first year out, especially if I knew that others who had grown that variety liked it very much.

Finally, most of my tomato friends prefer to grow non-paste types for sauce, for a couple of reasons. First, paste tomatoes are not known for great taste, they're known to have dense flesh with few seeds. But there are some exceptions and I posted a few suggestions above.

Paste varieties are also susceptible to Early Blight ( A. solani) and also to BER.

So that's why many of my tomato friends use non paste varieties with dense flesh and few seeds and with great taste for sauce. Just cook down the sauce to the consistency desired.

Carolyn

Mine are good producers so far, and only about 10-20% get BER so far and I'm hoping that problem fades away later in the season like it does for some people. this is my first time with Opalka as well. No ripe ones yet but they're getting bigger every day...so far no complaints on the variety, I am just accepting the BER as typical for most paste type tomatoes.

I have just a couple Opalka fruits with BER, should I remove them from the plant or let them go?

inagf6, I picked off all the BER fruits.

Carolyn, I am completely open to using non paste tomatoes for my sauce. What are some good varieties? My opalka is 5ft tall with 6 to 8 fruits on each plant. Granted the fruits on there are pretty huge. I cage them so I didn't prune and there are a lot of top growth but few flowers. I think this amount of vegetative growth is also contributing to BER as I read that leaves will rub calcium from fruits. I sure hope the plants will catch up later with the fruiting.

Now that I have made two batches of tomato sauce, I have to say I will grow opalka again next year despite the BER issue. The fruits are very large on my plants and the yield is decent. But the best part of it is the texture of the flesh and the fact that they are so easy to skin! The skin literally peels right off. No need to blanch beforehand. There are very very few seeds and the taste is good.

I pruned my Opalka to two or three stems, and I had one fruit with a dot of BER, so I picked that one and threw it away. Now I have 15 excellent looking fruit and probably a few more will come. I cut off the growing tip when the plant got over 6 feet tall so that the stake wouldn't topple over, so between the pruning and topping off, I'm sure it could have been much more productive. But I'm still pleased with it and can't wait for them to ripen so I can make sauce with them - it's my only paste out of 20 varieties.

Right next to it is a heart variety where every fruit had BER until very recently (I removed all the BER fruit). Same water/sun/dirt conditions for both plantss, so go figure.

Carolyn, I am completely open to using non paste tomatoes for my sauce. What are some good varieties?

****

Ikea, I never saw your question from July, so I'm late, but I'm here. LOL

Some suggestions for sense fleshed, few seed non-paste varieties.

Red Penna
Neves Azorean Red
Wes, heart
Chapman
Milka's Red Bulgarian
Russian Bogatyr
Linnie's Oxheart
Indiana Red, heart
Danko, heart
German Red Strawberry, heart
Ludmilla's Red Plum

... to name a few.

I threw some hearts in there b'c almost all of them have dense flesh with few seeds and excellnt taste, as do the other non-hearts on that list, at least for me they do.

Carolyn

I'll second the hearts suggestion! So far, the best tomatoes I've had for sauce this year are hearts--Amish Paste and Joe Thieneman's Australian Heart. I might end up trying more heart varieties next year, too... they're quickly becoming my favorite type, because they're so versatile. They can be big enough to slice up for sandwiches (one JTAH slice was big enough for a BIG BLT!) and meaty enough to chop up for fresh salsa, tacos, etc. I don't bother removing the seeds when making sauce, because they don't have many. And there's not much space inside the tomato wasted (at least to my mind!) on juice/gel/empty cavities.