I doubt it. In my experience, seeds come in different sizes even when the package holds a single variety so I don't see how you would separate out one variety from two others.

As for smell, I've never really checked seeds to see if there was a difference and I think that would be highly subjective anyway.

If you have a small garden, I can understand why you wish to know in advance what you are going to grow that season. Sungold or Sun Sugar makes it into my garden every year. Not having grown either of the either varieties, I can't say what they are like. However, if you sent the seed packs to me, I would grow whatever happened to sprout because a few more plants wouldn't make much difference.

If I were you, I'd just order a package of Sun Gold seeds and forget about it. After all, you don't have much money in that 5 pack. Pricewise, that was a very good buy whether you realize it or not.

There are those who say they can ID Sungold F1 by smell, but I've never been able to do that.

I think mixed seed packs are fine as long as the seeds are color coded and IDed as to variety by that coloration. Less helpful is to just mix a bunch of seeds together and say what MIGHT be in there and no more. Horrible is when some places offer mixed tomato seed and say nothing at all.

What you have might be fine for someone who has lots of garden space and plans on growing out lots of plants, but for those who have limited space and the seeds aren't IDed, I think it's terrible.

You didn't indicate whether the Sungold was F1 or one of the OP Sungolds.

And why would places mix seeds without color coding them? I have my ideas, what are yours? ( smile)

Carolyn

WinterSown has leaf scans of Sungold (I'm assuming OP) and Yellow Pear.
http://www.wintersown.org/wseo1/Tomato_Leaf_Scans.html

mto, ya old librarian, great idea.

Here they are from my own clippings.

I think this is doable. I'll have to let the seedlings get up about 18 inches, I think to get nicely developed leaves. The good news is Yellow Pear is the most different.

Carolyn, I couldn't find the label online so I took a pic of it too.

I should hope Sungold Hybrid from Burpee means F1. And everything you mentioned in your comments addresses my issues with the mixed seed packets I have. If only they color coded them. Here's the contents.

Only about 30 seeds and certainly no way to differentiate them. I will start these from the just opened pack this winter.

I recognize a sort of bitter odor on Sungold the others don't have. Then I have a very sensitive sniffer. Sungolds have a hint of bad Mexican marijuana and fresh Creeping Charlie under the usual tomato smell. It's distinctive to me. Even sniffing those cuttings revealed it, and gave my kid further proof that I've lost it. But the leaves seem like the key here, not scent. I just have to raise all 30 or so up to a size where I can differentiate leaf patterns.

So I will report back. Probably 20 Yellow Pear, 8 SS100 and 2 Sungold, right? ;)

a hint of bad Mexican marijuana and fresh Creeping Charlie

Bob - do we dare ask how you know what bad Mexican mj smells like? ;)

Seriously, this could be a whole new career for you and your sniffer - sorting seeds by smell. Seed suppliers could eliminate their mis-packed seeds packages overnight! :)

Dave

PS: more likely 28 YP and 1 each of the others. Good luck.

To me, a mature Sungold plant has a very distinctive smell....kinda sweet and fruity. I notice it when I'm not even thinking about the plants I'm near. Suddenly, I'll catch a wiff of a different smell and wonder what it is and then realize that I've bumped against the Sungold. I was amazed to find out that many people do not notice the smell at all. For me, it is one of the most noticeable smell in my garden.

However, having grown seeds from the same mix you show, I would go with a purchase of Sungold seed alone if at all possible. I found the young plants difficult to tell apart by either leaf or smell. Your photos may show differences, but do all leaves from a variety look similar enough for you do depend on that method. Using smell and leaf shape, I definely did not feel confident that I was keeping seedlings that would be for sure Sungolds. I ended up buying a few plants to be sure I really had a Sungold. But maybe you could do it...I'm not always the best at the finer points of plant ID.

Naturegirl, was the mix actually equal parts of each in your experience?

If I find Sungold seed locally or on one of my frequent trips to the city, I'll buy it. Maybe I'll trade for some this this fall. I just hate paying shipping for one pack of fairly common seeds and don't feel like making a big order considering I won't be able to grow all the varieties I already have.

• "Bob - do we dare ask how you know what bad Mexican mj smells like?"

There was a shortage of good mexican? I used to be border patrol? I forget. One of those.

Okay seriously, I don't mess with drugs legal or otherwise, but I have sure smelled the dry brown mexican mj and it's similar to a derned Sungold plant! No other tomato has that feint sweet and sour skunkiness that I know of.

I grew both sungold and yellow pear this year (the yellow pear was "unknown" until it showed itself to be YP, and then disappointment set in, lol), and did happen to notice that they smelled different. When both were small, I found myself constantly rubbing on the stems to see if the then unknown plants might be sungold. I was told that they might be, so I was hopeful, but I knew for sure that I had a sungold, and I knew for sure that the YP smelled nothing like it. In fact, it didn't smell much at all. As they got a bit taller, the foliage on the YP was distinctly wispier than that of the sungold.

I also grew SS100's from seed, but to be honest, by the time they were big enough to be transplanted, I was already so enthralled with the other tomatoes I was babying that I didn't pay much attention to them as seedings, in smell or in appearance.

Sungold F1 DEFINITELY has a distinct aroma to the plant, but I don't recall ever testing or noticing it as a seedling. Also, do NOT count on Burpee seed packs to give you the genuine Sungold F1. The dozen or so packs I bought below for $1.75 a pack last year I thought were too good to be true. Well, it turned out that it was. I planned to share them with friends, which I did. There were all sorts of results. Reds, yellows, etc.....all late. NONE of which were the real sungold. The plant i got this year from the seed looks more like Blondkopfchen than sungold. Tastes like crap too. This is my first year without Sungold in my garden thanks to Burpees....who I will never purchase seed from again. I will buy them from a much more reputable source over the winter who does not deliberately attempt to dupe their customers. BTW, i wouldn't expect the others two varieties to be true either.

What the hey? Has anyone else had this type of result from Burpee? Do they too have a bad reputation I don't know about?

I've grown Burpee tomato seed for years without an issue. My current Sun Golds are from an 07 Burpee lot and they were true as could be, same as they've always been. This is my favorite cherry, and I spot an imposter quickly. I'm just out of seed now, well except for whatever is in the mixed packs. My 12 SS 100 plants are from a Burpee pack, and they're the same as they've been for 15 years, near 100% germination and identical healthy giant plants year after year. Same with Better Boy, Big Boy, and Early Girl. Oh well jtcm05, sorry about that lot of seed. I think you should discuss it with customer service. They've promptly replaced Ruby watermelon seed for me (mine wasn't seedless), no questions, and all I did was email them a note and a pic (custserv@burpee.com). They sent two replacement packs that were correct. I'll do the same if I get very few Sun Golds from that mixed pack that's supposed to have equal amounts of each. Ha! I may come out of this with a few fresh packs of Sun Gold. :)

I absolutely can tell true Sungold by its smell, even at the four-leaf stage. I don't even bother labelng them any more. OF course, if you have offspring volunteers, they can confuse things, because sometimes they inherit the smell. But if you are looking at only SS100, Yellow Pear and Sungold, it will be easy to tell.

Carla in Sac

Geez-Loweeze dude, spring for shipping and save yourself the trouble of trying to guess what your growing. With my luck I would have all bland mealy tastless yellow pear.
When my kids go to the garden with our guests, the only cherry they pick is sungold- not yp,ss100,matts wild,snow white, sweet 10'6, or black cherry. All those colors look great for photos, but for taste sungold is king, imo.

I only grew a few plants from the pack this year. From the small sample, I can't really say if the varieties were equally represented.

Pete, dude that's no trouble. It'll be fun. Starting seed through planting out is my favorite time of year, by far. I'll start that pack, and I'll keep tabs on what I get, for the fun of it. I'm rooting for Burpee here. The more I've thought about it, and looked at my current plants, I now agree with Carla. It'll be easy to identify these three well before planting time. I'll probably get more Sun Gold seed, but I have to know what's in the packages now.

Naturegirl, did you get any Sun Gold?

YES, I CAN identify Sun Gold plants by the smell.

On a sidenote, I'm growing 2 Sun Gold here from Burpee Seed, and not only don't they smell correct but they also are producing orangy RED cherry tomatoes! My buddy is growing 2 from the same pack and he said they don't taste anything like the Sun Golds grown last year (different source.) His 2 are golden orange.

I jokingly told him they were incorrect back when we sowed them since I usually spell the name as one word and Burpee's pack is two words; YES, I know it's often spelled both ways depending on who/where.

By the way, the seed at precisely 2 up approximately 7 o'clock on the napkin is Sun Gold. Of course it may not be Sungold...

I rest my case. I wouldnt count on any sungold seed, or any other variety for that matter, from Burpees.

Mojavebob, I think 2 out of 8 were Sungold.....or maybe Sun Gold :) They were small, orange, and sweet either way. And pretty and fruity smelling. I always think Sungold is pretty, probably because it was the first orange tomato I ever grew.

I've grow other Burpee veggie seeds and have been pleased with the results. I don't care for their high catalog prices, but our local big box stores carry Burpee packets prepriced with lower prices and often have a discount on top of that. I plan to continue using their seeds when the price is right.

How large does the sun gold plant get? I think sun gold foliage stinks. It doesn't smell like my other tomato plants.

Looking at wholesale seed prices, Yellow Pear is about the cheapest tomato seed per seed you can buy, 1000 seeds for $5.28 or about half a cent per seed, while Sun Gold costs $70.40 for a thousand seeds, or about seven cents a seed, or about 14 times more per seed than Yellow Pear. So what do you think the percentage of each seed would be?

Californian:
I tried and tried, but I don't understand your question, and I don't think it's about the smell--maybe start a new subject?

Helenh:
Sungolds are the largest tomato plant I know of. They grow larger where it's hot, so yours may not get as big, but mine grow up to the roofline and down again, every year, maybe 20 feet? 25? I stack 2 5-foot cages on top of each other for Sungolds.
And not to "dis" you, ('cause everyone is different!) but I adore the way Sungolds smell, they make my mouth water--I can't believe you think they stink! Ah well, vive la differance!

Carla in Sac

I had my tomato plants in my basement. When I inspected my small plants and moved them around or moved the light, I could tell when I bumped sun gold. Now that it is bigger and outside, the smell doesn't seem so bad.

Great, now i'm gonna go sniffing my Sungold plants when I get home...thanks a lot! ;-)