I'm glad you linked to Tomato Addicts ( Terry) blog, she is a good friend of mine, and that anyone interested in either Kumato, OR Rosso Bruno, I encourage to read the blog for that name and much more, and read ALL that she wrote as well as the responses.

That's for others here since yes, I've tasted it, as Kumato, and like many others would never grow it, although there are others who do like it, that I know.

By putting in your title THE kumato thread do you mean to synthesize the many hundreds of threads and thousands of posts about it since it was introduced?

Good luck if that's the intention. ( Smile)

Carolyn

That's the thought. I see random information dotted here and there regarding this tomato on gardenweb and across the internet and it has piqued my curiosity.

I've sent Terry an email inquiring about how his/her Kumato trails went and never received a response. Also, I never saw it discussed again on his/her blog. Reviews of growing the Kumato pretty much run the gambit, so I thought having a centralized thread on this would be noteworthy.

smithmal

Terry is a lady and she visits France each year where she has many contacts and has been very helpful to me in the past in terms of doing French translations for me when needed.

Right now I owe her some seeds she wanted from me.

And when she returned from France this past spring I was the recipient of some wonderful French chocolates and more.

She is very busy this time of year doing her growouts and processing seeds for what she sells off of her website.

Carolyn, who still doesn't like Kumato.LOL

I've harvested about 200 seeds from some store bought Kumato's and definitely intend to grow it this in '15 and see how it goes.

If anyone has any information on general ripening time after transplant, that information would be helpful.

Due to it's size, and that's it's crossed with a black variety, I'm thinking it's somewhere between 70 - 85 days (from my experience with blacks of similar size like Nyagous, Paul Robeson and Noire de Crimee), but anything is possible.

In any event, I'm looking forward to the experiment and will post back as to it's germination time and seedling growth characteristics in March of '15.

smithmal

Last year I tried to grow Kumato. BUT I germinated the wrong seeds. hahaha
Then I found this black/brown tomato called Japanese Black Trifele (JBT). I like it a lot. It is very similar in color and size to Kumato and tasted much better. So I abandoned the Kumato adventure because I don't have garden space.

To answer the question: Why people would want to grow a tomato from F1 hybrid, that does not have such a good taste : I think of 2 reasons:

1- Chances are that it might be tastier when grown in the garden.

2- Just an adventure to discover the misinformation about hybrids. There are a multitude of so-called hybrids that grow true from F2, F3, ..Fn seeds. I am going to grow a "mini Roma" from store bought. Even for greenhouse tomato, it tastes great , to me !

Seysonn

smithmal,
I grew Kumato this past summer from seeds that I saved last winter from a grocery store out of the five or six tomato cellophane wrapped carton. I did not keep track of the supplier's name, so don't know if they were Canadian or Mexican. They were small saladette size dark tomatoes. I save the seeds on a whim, so don't remember if I just rinsed them in a sieve or used the ajax treatment on them, but they were left to dry in a coffee filter until I used them several months later. No germination problems.

The plants were easy to grow, and were quite lanky and sprawly but took a longer time to set tomatoes than other plants producing tomatoes of the same size. I sort of forgot about them and ignored them because they were so slow to ripen. The appearance and taste were very similar to the store bought. I had hoped to grow them for their keeping qualities to have a stored supply of greenies to ripen in the house that would be at least equal to store bought, but most were too ripe when I did my last pre-frost picking so I did not save enough to get a decent sample of their keeping qualities under indoor ripening conditions. They were just ok for eating, but I probably won't use garden space on them again, because I ended up with many much better tasting thin skinned varieties to ripen indoors.

ddsack,

Thanks for the info. Sounds like Kumato was a dud for you. I'm somewhat shocked that there was no difference in taste between the store bought Kumato's vs. the OTV that you produced.

I'm wondering, since you're zone 3, if that played a part in the Kumato's taste/ripening speed. According to the linked map below, you get anywhere from 2 weeks to 6 weeks of temps above 86F.

I'm wondering if flavor suffered due to this. In any event, I'll give it a shot growing in my zone (6b) and report back.

smithmal

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:2132186}}

smithmal, it's always worth growing out your own and seeing what works for you. Zones, weather patterns, microclimates and taste buds are different for everyone. Kumato may very well do better for someone with a longer, hotter season. I had two plants, one had more sun, but got disease early and just barely hung on for most of the season, did not produce much. The other plant only got sun after 11AM (til sunset) was very productive, but late, and though it was an indeterminate, it seemed to set a large flush of fruit at once. Which makes sense if it was bred for commercial picking. But I hate to generalize from one plant. I know of a person on another forum that grows it every year and just loves the taste. It was ok tasting for me, and may even have been better than the store version, but skin was thick and taste was not up to most of my other OP and heirloom varieties. It was fun trying it, and I'll be interested in how you do with yours.

ddsack & Karen,

Thanks so much for your replies. Just wondering if you've ever compared the flavor of your garden grown Kumato vs the store bought variety? My experience with the store bought variety was that it's flavor was terrible. From what you've indicated, taste is good, but not "CP" good.

That being said, CP is legendary for it's taste, so if Kumato is as prolific as you say it is, I'd be willing to sacrifice some taste for strong production. In my experience, if there's one consistent knock on black tomatoes, it is that they aren't known for their productivity.

smithmal

Hi again. I can't remember comparing the tastes of mine to the store-bought but I will this summer. Even thought I do like them, I don't think they are a substitute for something like CP Paul Robeson or other blacks. As I said, I do like them for a sauce, so I tend to freeze many of them for that purpose while fresh eating the other varieties. I agree that productivity has been lacking though in the others.

Karen

I have only bought them couple of times. To my recollection, they were tangy and had creamy texture. Taste was nothing like CP and JBT, I believe.

Seysonn

I am hunting for some kumnato seeds for personal use. The kumato tomato does not affect my arthritis like others do and I had seeds that I used last year but now have run out. Can anyone help me? I am would refund any expenses to the supplier plus add some for their efforts.

Bryce ....You can try some grocery stores. Trader Joe's always have them. I have also seen them sold in some Kroger chain/affiliate. About 3 weeks ago I bought a pack and took few seeds from one an planted . but did not save any seeds. Now they are growing true leaves. It is a bit too late for me but I just want to try it. Last year I sowed the wrong seeds.

BTW: The ones that I had the last time were 4oz each, pretty good size.


Seysonn

Hi Seysonn and Bryce,

Seysonn, I just finshed my last Kumatos from Trader Joe's three days ago and was thinking about posting the question to get the latest opinions now that Kumato has been around a few years, how it compared, but this thread wasn't that glowing. I purchased them on Apr 5 or 6 in North Florida with a "packed date" of March 24, "product of Mexico", . I don't like that because a packed date sounds like they were harvested green and held over for a loooong time.

I was very disappointed in the store bought ones as I found them too tasteless and not juicy enough, and they were $3.49 here for a pound package (5 tomatoes).

I did save them and they've been fermenting three days now so tonight I'm ready to clean them up to save. After reading this thread I'm really not sure anymore, though I think it is really a good looking tomato.

Bryce go to Trader Joes like Seysonn suggested or any supermarket with a decent tomato selection so that you could pick up some fresh Kumatoes to save seed and eat them meanwhile, too. To plant immediately, soak the pre-blotted seeds for 6 minutes in about 1 part regular bleach to 5 parts water stirring, then rinse well for a few cycles immediately. You may then sow the seeds in a continuous act just as normal with dry seeds. There are many ways to do it, but I added that in case you haven't done it before and just wanted one way that works. If you can't find them, let me know and I can help.

PC

Hi PC.

The ones I got the last time were better and bigger.
I just planted the seed without fermenting or drying. That was the last variety that I germinated so it is still tiny.
It is possible that if you grow them out side might be tastier than greenhouse grown. We shall see. I will report when the time comes.

Seysonn

Seysonn, I really hope you get a good impression. I don't think the size matters since we were both well within the 80 gram to 120 gram range, and taste-wise, it's been a long time since you had fresh tomatoes and I just finished my last ones on March 28:

Last Home-grown tomatoes of the 2014 Fall season carried to 2015

Elsewhere you asked about Indigo Rose, I grew a cross of Indigo Rose and vowed not to regrow anything antho-purple (Yuk), and that tomato you can see in the pic, with its slices ending on the top like a line of fallen dominos. I did everything I could to avoid eating the antho tomatoes and let me say I was so looking forward to the kumatoes after reading good things about them to bridge me through. That is completely unfair because I still have fresh the taste of some good home-grown reds on my palate andf they were store handled, no matter what the kumato system claims from seed to shelf, they can't near hold their own to home grown. But a fresh picked kumato? That would be the fair comparison.

I got curious and went to the Kumato site and read between the lines on what appears to be their European site:

"Moreover, since all the tomatoes marketed under the Kumato® brand grow and ripen under optimum climatic conditions and they are carefully selected before they are commercialised, consumers can rest assured that all the fruits will have the same intensity of taste and concentration of flavour."

I studied the wording and decided it is misleading since other places people seem to think they pick them ripe off the vine in one interpretation of this. However it is ambiguous. The claim speaks of "climatic conditions together with growing. That to me is a misleading attempt to get consumers to hear vine ripened in a nice climate, when in fact the climatic is an artificial climate controlled room, like all the other tomatoes. It sounds to me like the claim is that Kumatoes are tough enough to sit around for 2 weeks after ripening and since they are not exposed to cold after green harvest, that is what they have going for them, but no more. Since I think it is an awesome-looking tomato I would be curious to grow it and see just how sweet and juicy it gets, and what I wonder is whether anyone really knows if the F2 holds up the sweetness. One growing tip ... the 'Syngenta system' favors nearly dry farming this tomato to acheive good flavor. In that sense, that could make it an Early Girl knock-off that is a different color and is tough enough to somewhat dry farm and be a shipper. Not a favorite combination of characteristics for me...

PC

You are right , PC. It has been a long time since I ate some REAL tomato.
So I have to try Kumato along with JBT and CP and then compare the taste. It will be on a hot day in July.LOL

Seysonn

Seysonn,

That will be a great comparison read. Similar to you, I'm growing Kumato, JBT and Indian Stripe (my favorite from last year). Hopefully feedback after this growing season will put to bed whether Kumato is a worthy choice for one's backyard garden.

smithmal

Yeah, smithmal,
Lets keep each other posted later on, your own thread.

BTW my Kumato seedling has true leaves and growing nicely. It should be ready for plant out around mid May. That is the latest and smallest seedling that I have

Seysonn

Update:
My kumato seedling has its first 2 true leave. Right now it is growing slowly. Maybe it is spending more energy on growing roots. So it should be a long while before I can plant it out.

Sey

I’d like to purchase the Kumamoto seeds. Please advise!

According to Wikipedia, the Kumato seeds patent is held by Sygenta, and they only sell seeds to approved large growing operations in various countries, and have said they will never sell seeds to individuals. If you see seeds for sale on the internet, they are most likely F2 or later seeds saved by someone from purchased fruit in which case they may or may not taste like the store bought version. One seller says they are "Spanish heirlooms" which they are not, though they may have some Spanish background in the mix. By the time you spend $5 for seeds that won't be exactly like the original, you might just as well buy a pack of Kumatos, eat them and save out a few seeds to plant yourself.