Well they want to claim they are hybrids to stop people from trying to grow them. But some grow true to form. Also it still is smart to grow out hybrids. they have terrific genetics and you can develop a new tomato and give it a name.

I have some seed of Kumato saved up for next year. I obtained the seeds too late for this year. I am also growing out some Campari seeds. I am also growing out some hybrid plumb tomato seeds this year from the store.

Besides being low cost this is very interesting way to grow. It provides good learning experiences.

Cherry tomato Santa F1 they grow true. They are probably not a hybrid. The only way to get seeds is to buy a box of these cherry tomatoes and save the seeds. works like a charm.

Thanks Dawgie, I have been reading the posts back to 2005. If Carolyn is nearby, I noticed your posts about the hype around the Kumato. Has some interesting properties relative to the love life of turtles I hear. Can't fault them for the creativity. I find grocery store planting fun. Have some lettuce and green onions compliments of our local market. Last year some celery grew pretty well, even though small. If one of my plants is being grown out from seeds from a tomato I ate two years ago does that mean its an F3?

Karencon- the grocery store tomato is not the same variety that was mentioned some time back, that was an entirely different named tomato created by a private grower in the Galapagos Islands, and had an entirely different name to it-(I just forget the real name at the moment) it was supposed to have an aphrodisiac effect on any of the Island Tortoises who ate them.

However-later on the breeding rights were sold to (Syngenta) and the seed was taken to their African growing site and hybridised with other tomatoes to create their (Kumato) which carries the strong brown gene in its makeup,

This tomato grows very well in anyones garden and produces quite large tomatoes tennis ball size and the plants are very disease resistant-all grown from own saved seeds from store bought tomatoes, the flavour is also very good and leaning towards the sweet side a bit.

I doubt if any of the original Galapagos Island tomatoes created by the private grower there are still available, they were much darker-almost black, and not quite as large as the current version.

Cherry tomato Santa F1 they grow true. They are probably not a hybrid

****

Actually they are a hybrid, bred by the Known-You Seed company in Taiwan, the same company that brought you Juliet F1, the rock hard one, and the variety made popular by Andrew Chu over 10 years ago as the "grape" tomato.

If you save seeds from the F1, now the F2 seeds, 99/100 will come true and the offtype is round, not grape shaped and has a lower Brix ( soluble sugars) content than the true grape one.

There is absolutly NO WAY that I'm going to get involved with discussing Kumato, originally introduced by Syngenta to England and Australia, and introduced to the US as Rosso Bruno but is still also marketed here as Kumato, especially by Sunset produce in CA.

FYI there are NO black tomatoes indigenous to the Galapagos Islands. The various tomato species that exist on the different islands is known and documented at the PGRC, aka the Rick Center at UC Davis in CA which is the worldwide center for the more rare species, of which there are now 14 species of tomatoes. No doubt there are folks in the Galapagos who grow tomatoes and no doubt they might also be growing some so called "black' ones, but the Syngenta hype is so over the top that it's ridiculous.

And to answer the question stated in the thread title, yes, I do think it's silly to grow out most grocery store tomatoes. LOL

Carolyn

Thank you for your responses Mickey and Carolyn. Didn't mean to cause a fuss :-) I do thank you for the additional info. It's fun to grow some of these out and they are only 4 of my 28 plants. Its become winter entertainment for me to buy some very expensive tomato and save the seeds. I saved some from a very large red ribbed recently, but then decided although interesting to look at, it tasted terrible. I imagine though, a grown out store tomato should taste better when grown at home, shoudn't it?
Karen

You answered your own question. It is not silly to grow grocery store tomatoes if you don't expect too much of them and you enjoy doing it. The expense reason is not valid though because a packet of twenty seeds of a good tomato for 2 or 3 bucks is a great bargain.

I've been growing out Rosso Bruno (Kumato) for a couple of years now... I currently have F4 plants growing. Here are some pictures from last years F3 plants:

I didn't take any pictures this year yet. I'm actually quite happy with the plants -- they produce quite well and taste good in my opinion. They don't look much like the tennis ball sized F1 though -- they're large'ish like Mariana's Peace...

--
Jerold

Jerold, the green ones on my vine are very round and as you said, like a tennis ball. I wonder if yours look like one of the parent varieties.
Interesting.....

Karencon - That is interesting. Unfortunately, a search for some of the posts I made last year regarding Rosso Bruno came up with nothing. Someone else grew out this tomato and he also had smooth round tennis ball shaped fruit. The fruit I have is definitely more of a beefsteak size and shape. The RB F3 fruit in the picture doesn't have the green shoulders and streaks that many of the other RB F3 fruit have -- I think only the fruit exposed to sun show green?

One thing -- I forgot that I'm actually growing Rosso Bruno F3 *again* this year. I managed to loose the F4 seeds I saved from last year so went with the F3 seeds. I've already had ripe fruit from the current batch of F3's so I've got F4 seedlings started.

I'll take some more pictures soon and post back...

--
Jerold

I'll take some pictures when my is ripe as well.

Jerold did you grow any other tomatoes and did you pollinate and bag the bloom that formed the fruit you saved seed from? If not you could have a cross of who knows what.

taz - nope no bagging!

Here are some recent pics:

Now that's more like it. How'd this one taste?

I never think it's 'silly' to grow out any type of tomato... if it interests you and gets you involved in gardening it's a worth while endeavor. Good luck and HAVE FUN!

karencon - so far, I like the taste of these.. like other black varieties, they too have that rich "smokey" flavor. I'm holding off my judgment until later in the season, though. I find that the first batch of ripe tomatoes usually don't taste as good as subsequent batches...

Sounds good. I am still waiting. Here's how mine look.
Karen

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:1372975}}

karencon - wow, they look just like the F1's. How tall are your plants? Mine seem to stay short -- about 5 feet tall.

About five feet at this point but so much of the season is still left. I only bought six texas cages so I am tying and staking like crazy.

Jerold, finally have a picture of the rosso bruno kumato to show you. They say you can eat them at different stages. I am waiting for these to ripen a bit more because the first one was okay, but not the rich flavor I remember.
{{gwi:1372979}}

I just had to report back on how this tomato did this year. It was very productive, still going, but a little distressed from the Nor'easter (and now Earl is on the way) The taste was okay fresh... but omigosh.... it makes a fabulous sauce, especially when roasted first. They have thick flesh with little gel and juice. The color of the sauce is a deep russet which looks like my Mom's long cooked pasta sauce. Absolutely my new favorite for this purpose.

Kumato is one of my favorite tomatoes. I am growing out F1 now. Very vigorous plant. I planted seeds in mid June and I think I am going to get fruit before first frost. Just in case, they are in a container that I can bring into my garage for those chilly nights.

Nordfyr...Oh do try the roasting, its amazing. Enjoy!

* Posted by jeroldrburrow SoCal 10a (My Page) on
Wed, Jul 14, 10 at 17:40

Karencon - That is interesting. Unfortunately, a search for some of the posts I made last year regarding Rosso Bruno came up with nothing.

Though the post dropped off of page 67, it is still out there in cyberspace...found it via Google of jeroldrburrow Rosso Bruno

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: Pictures! - July 2009 Tomatoes

Thanks Sue, cyber detective!

Just thought I would bump this back to the fore and see how everyone's Kumato are doing. I am on F3 and the F3 seedlings are definitely lacking in vigor compared to F2 although F2 fruits looked identical to what I bought in the store. I am growing F2 and F3 side by side so I think something is up.

Well, my F4 plants kinda sucked in terms of vigor and production. I'm going to start some of the old F2 seeds and try again. Hopefully I can find them...

--
Jerold

Hi guys. Glad to see the post bumped. My seedlings are about 4 inches now. You both are way ahead of me over here on the right coast. I still am confused though. This will be my second growout of the initial tomato. So is it an
f2 or f3?

Hi Karencon -

The way I understand it is that the original tomato you purchased at the store was produced on an F1 plant. The seeds from that original tomato grow F2 plants.

So if this is your second grow-out, then you are growing F3 plants.

--
Jerold

Got it. Thanks

What does the F mean, though?

Thanks,

Vivian

The F stands for Filial.

Thanks, Taz.

Vivian

I'm growing 4 RB plants this year. My seeds are almost 6 years old which i saved when I lived in Hawaii. I posted a picture of a RB i grew about 3 years on my balcony and it looked and tasted exactly like the original. My plants are currently flowering so i should have fruits soon.

This is my Kumato/RB plant from 3 years ago.

Hi Sumith,

How long will seeds last? Is there a good way to keep seeds for a long time and they will still be good? I got quite a few packets of seeds this spring, but was ill and never got to plant them and need to keep them for next year, so I'd really like to know the best way to save seeds and how long seeds will remain viable.

Thanks,

Vivian

Hi Vivian! Sorry for the late reply. I just kept my seeds in a sealed envelope. I did not expect any germination, but surprisingly all of it did. This year i have more space so i figured i grow them again as my wife liked the Russo Bruno for her cooking. Most of the stuff we grow now are heirlooms but like many have posted the vigor and production on the Russo Bruno is pretty impressive. The first time i grew it (in the picture) was in our balcony and we only had maybe 6 hrs of sunlight.

That's okay, sumith,

Are the net bags to protect the fruit from predators?

I guess if I keep my seeds in sealed bags, they will be all right for next year.

Thanks,

Vivian

With a hybrid, the parents can look similar (phenotype) but be drastically different for other traits one doesn't easily observe (genotype). So the offspring may look the same but express differently for the other traits such as disease resistance.

I noticed today that Kumato has excellent resistance to early blight.