Indigo Rose is bred by OSU (not Burpee) and it is called a semi- determinant. What it means that it is a compact indeterminatnt. I grew it last year and I am growing it this year too.It is vey productive, considering its small size.

I usually prune indeterminants that are vigorous but not Indigo Rose.

Sey

While Indigo Rode may not grow exceptionally tall the same cannot be said of other Indigo series varieties. Indigo Kumquat, a dark grape variety, grows very tall. I almost needed a ladder this morning to clip upper branches to stringline. I rate Indigo Kumquat as the only Indigo variety to have acceptable texture and flavor of all that I have grown. Just my opinion.

THIS IS THE LABEL.

Well, IR is OP. So anybody can sell the seeds.

What I meant was that it is not a Burpee product.

Correction : Semi indeterminant !? The "semi" thing is confusing.

IR has indeterminant growth habit but it won't grow very vigorously tall.

Sey

Do i need to prune semi-indeterminate tomatoes?

@Sey, while Indigo Rose is open-pollinated, it's illegal to sell or give away the seeds (in the USA) without license to do so, because it's a PVP variety. You can grow the seeds you save yourself, and you can use it in breeding programs (under certain conditions). F1 hybrids involving it as a parent are covered by the PVP, too. However, the F2 hybrids are public domain.

PVP doesn't cover cuttings, however, but in addition to the seeds, it may cover plants grown from seed. So you could potentially sell or give away plants if the plants were grown from cuttings.

You are free to sell the fruit of PVP varieties without permission, however.

"Do i need to prune semi-indeterminate tomatoes?"

David, you don't NEED to prune any variety. It is just an option and a personal choice. Some do prune and some don't.

Your plant just happened to be "tagged" as from Burpee but Sey's point is that the Burpee tag isn't relevant. It doesn't mean Burpee actually grew the plant or controls it in any way. They buy plants from many different sources and in this case they had to have bought it from a source with with PVP permits. Burpee is notorious for mis-leading advertising and claims which is why many growers won't use them as a source.

Semi-determinate is the correct term for such plants. They have a indeterminate growth pattern of leaves, nodes, and truss placement and will usually grow taller than determinate varieties. But they are more compact and shorter than most indeterminate plants. They will produce a main crop like determinate plants but will also continue to produce up until frost like an indeterminate.

Dave

I've grown Indigo Rose for a few years using seeds saved from the previous year's fruit. The plants continue to grow throughout the season like indeterminate plants, but are not nearly as big as a Sweet 100 or Watermelon Beefsteak, which can cover a small house. In other words, they probably won't outgrow the tomato cage as so many others do. No need to prune.

There aren't currently many PVP tomatoes out there, as I understand it, but Indigo Rose is one of the more popular ones. A lot of sellers don't mention that it's PVP, but they should. (A popular PVP pepper analogous to this tomato is the Black Pearl pepper.)

It's hard to tell which F1 hybrids have a PVP parent, though (there could be lots of them—however, because the F2s will be public domain, it doesn't really matter that much, most of the time).

I would just grow a different blue tomato instead of Indigo Rose, personally (there are lots of them: e.g. Helsing Junction Blues, Blue Berries, Black Beauty, Fahrenheit Blues, Dancing with Smurfs, etc.) I don't think any of these are PVP.

Indigo Pear Drops, which looks pretty awesome, may end up being PVP (since they applied for it).