They work well for me here in the middle of the Texas Panhandle, and our temps get in the upper 90s and up as high as 105 sometimes.

I've grown this variety. It grows. It produces in the heat. The fruit has very firm texture and only so-so flavor. Of course, I'm very picky about both flavor and texture. This is not one I'd willingly grow again, and so far I feel that way about virtually every heat-setting type of tomato that I've grown, and I've tried pretty much all of them. To me, it is nothing special flavor-wise and only marginally better than a grocery store tomato. Everyone's taste buds are different though, and perhaps some people actually like its flavor. I'm just not one of them.

The heat-setting type I've been happiest with has been Phoenix, and after growing it for 3 or 4 years, I decided I didn't like it enough to keep on growing it. It did, however, set fruit in July and August of 2011 when our daytime highs were hitting 110-115 and our nighttime lows were in the 80s, so it certainly performed well in the heat. I noticed that even though I happily picked the Phoenix tomatoes in August, I rarely ate them. If I pick a fresh tomato and let it set on the kitchen counter until it begins to rot, that's a sure sign that I don't like it. Nowadays, when I see a heat-setting hyrbrid tomato variety (easy to spot because most of them have a word in their name that tips you off, like heat, solar, sun, etc.), I ignore it. When they can breed a heat-setting type that tastes as good as the heirlooms I grow, I'll rejoice, but I kinda think that day will never come. It is a sad state of affairs with a die-hard tomato lover like me would rather go without tomatoes than eat one of those heat-setting types.

I did like Merced and it did set well in heat, but its seed was dropped from production several years back so you can't find it any more unless you shop at a small, local nursery that either stockpiled a huge amount of the Merced seed so they could continue growing and selling the plants until their seed runs out, or is dehybridizing it and producing their own seed.

You'll never know if you'll like it until you grow it and try it. Just don't expect the heat-setting types to match the flavor of your favorite heirlooms or hybrids.

Has anyone grown Old Virginia? I'm not sure where I got the seeds, but the packet jumped out of my seed stash and germinated well. They're supposed to be an heirloom that produces well in the heat and a nice slicer. I'm looking forward to trying it.

osuengineer - are you going to try to make it to the Spring Fling/Swap? I have a few....or 20. I can set aside a couple for you or send them home with someone else that comes for your direction.

Ha! I know the feeling. I have about 11 of the Heatmaster and 25 Valley Girls. I will probably buy some Early Girl and Juliet plants as well. I only plan on setting out 20 total so I've got way to many. I've never been to the spring fling, but I may consider it. I live in Northeast Canadian County. Where is the spring fling at?

Dawn, I still have a package of Merced tomato seeds. Back in the early 2000s I raised them for one of the garden nurseries in Amarillo. Their other suppliers would not grow Merceds - don't know why. You never heard so many crying customers that they had when I could no longer get Merced seeds!

Mary

Paula, I grew it a couple of years ago and it was okay, didn't produce all that many fruit per plant, had okay flavor but nothing special. That probably was during a drought year. It might have produced better in a year with better rainfall.

OSUengineer, It is in Norman and Paula will email driving directions later on to folks who sign up to attend,

Mary, It wouldn't have been so bad that it was dropped if the varieties intended to replace it would have had better flavor, but they were not an improvement on Merced. I hate when a great variety is dropped on a whim like that because the seed companies think they have an improved variety to replace it. Maybe they should wait and see if the new variety catches on with the public before they drop a great variety like Merced. Tomorrow I'm going to go to my favorite nursery in the DFW metroplex to see if they have it this year. They have had it as recently as 2 or 3 years ago.

Dawn

Yeah, I tried one of the varieties that was recommended as a replacement for the Merced and it was absolutely horrible! Didn't plant all the seeds, so when the tomatoes turned out to be worthless, I threw the remainder of the seeds away. Hope some bird enjoyed them...

Mary

My memory is about the same as yours, and so far, all the heat-setter types I've tried have had underwhelming flavor or texture or both....if the heat-setting tomatoes are going to produce home-grown tomatoes that are about the same as grocery store tomatoes, then my question is why bother growing them? So, I generally avoid any variety with "heat", "sun" or "solar" in its name. Phoenix has been the least objectionable, but then, I want a tomato that is better than "least objectionable". Some summers that's pretty easy to achieve, but in really hot years, it is mostly either cherry tomatoes or Porter in most of July and August.

I've gotten good fruit set in Jul/August of an average year from plenty of non heat-setting types, including Sioux, Super Sioux, Fantastic, Super Fantastic and Carmello, so if I want to grow one that seems more likely to set fruit in higher heat, I'll grow one of them. This year I'm growing Carmello , and I was happy to see its hybrid seeds available here in the USA again after an absence of quite a few years. I had been growing Tomatofest's dehybridized Carmello and it wasn't the same as Carmello F-1, so I'm happy to have the real thing again. Now, if only they'd bring back the original Dona hybrid too.