Determinate or indeterminate tomatoes

[flowerlover]

What is the difference between determinate and indeterminate tomatoes? I bought some Bush Goliath tomato plants and they are indeterminate.

Another question... When I bought them the tag said nothing about not being heat tolerant, and when I went to Bonnie's website, the description said they do not tolerate heat. Uh-oh!! Does anyone know about this particular tomato? They are Bonnie Plants brand.

[hime]

Indeterminate means it doesn't have a set height that it will grow to - it will grow as high as it can if left unchecked.

Determinate plants have a certain height they stop at genetically. So, there's a chance they could grow taller or shorter.

[culdeus]

[quote="flowerlover"]What is the difference between determinate and indeterminate tomatoes? I bought some Bush Goliath tomato plants and they are indeterminate.

Another question... When I bought them the tag said nothing about not being heat tolerant, and when I went to Bonnie's website, the description said they do not tolerate heat. Uh-oh!! Does anyone know about this particular tomato? They are Bonnie Plants brand.[/quote]

Place your least heat tolerant maters in the most NorthEast corner of your tomato plot and you'll be fine. And be prepared to mist them down in August in the afternoon, usually a no-no but if they make it to August there are some rules that you can break to have them last to fall.

[flowerlover]

Thanks, both of you!

[Marlyn]

Generally the definition I have heard is that determinant plants are selectively bred to bear most of their fruit in a short period of time. Makes them a more useful plant for crop production. Indeterminants continue to grow and continue to produce fruit over a longer period of time. Indeterminants, consequently, often get a lot larger.

Most if not all of the heirloom varieties are indeterminants. I'm guessing that's how all the tomatoes were originally, before selective breeding efforts for industrial agriculture.

Regarding the non heat tolerant variety, you may want to severely cut it back in mid July and see if you can get it to regrow for a fall crop. That is, if you like the tomato it produces.

Marlyn

[dragonfly]

Any homegrown tomato beats any store bought tomato hands down :)

Most of the hybrids from today are also indeterminates. There are very few determinates that I can think of. The determinate varieties that I have grown seem to have less flavor.

[culdeus]

Alot of Hybrids are actually "semi-determinates", Celebrity and some others out there have a steep bell curve to production as they are crosses of some heirloom and a production tomato.

If you only have room for a half dozen or less plants then think hybrid all the way. Make room for 10+ and think heirloom.

[sandih]

Funny, I thought (and someone else confirmed) that determinate - vs- indeterminate tomato plants indicated whether the plant stayed in a bush form or a vine-type form....compact (not necessarily short) vs longer cane like structure.