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Getting Discouraged With Oblates
Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2024 4:25 pm
by GoDawgs
Radial cracking. Or deeply lobed fruit. I'm tired of having to cut at least a third of the top of oblate tomatoes off and only having the rest to use. The cracking is probably a watering thing but I've tried any of a number of watering schemes to prevent overwatering. The plants are well mulched, the soil drains well. I've tried picking at first blush but then I swear they just don't taste the same as those left to ripen more on the vine despite what the "experts" online say.
Four big Bill Beans and a Rosedale:
24.07.11 Four Bill Beans, 1 Rosedale over 1 lb.JPG
Some Daniel Bursons, not quite ripe yet but showing that they're thinking about cracking:
24.07.05 Some big Daniel Bursons coming.JPG
To top it all off, Pickles doesn't like tomato skin. Peeling a heavily lobed oblate without dunking it in hot water to loosen the skin is a no-go for me. I want a fresh tomato, not one very slightly pre-cooked around the outside.
This year Daniel Burson, Bill Bean and an occasional Rosedale (all wonderfully tasty tomatoes!) all did the cracking thing. I don't have this problem with round or plum shaped tomatoes so I guess it's the nature of the oblate beast.
Is anyone else in this situation? Maybe I should just ditch the oblates?
Re: Getting Discouraged With Oblates
Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2024 6:05 pm
by JayneR13
It sounds discouraging. I’ve had cracking in a few varieties but not like that! Are oblates prone to it, like Romas are prone to BER? If so, it might be time to try something else.
Re: Getting Discouraged With Oblates
Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2024 6:34 pm
by karstopography
I’d run the tomatoes even drier. You can leave them on the vine longer, too. I believe prolonged and high heat is part of the problem, but I believe excess water is part of it also. I only get radial cracks on oblates late in my season when it is hot and the rain adds too much water.
You can grow another shape, but I had understood heart shaped tomatoes aren’t so great in more southern latitudes with blazing sun. To my tastes, nothing beats the superb more or less oblate beefsteaks. Or try Japanese Black Trifele or a similar shaped tomato. No way that shaped tomato will get those cracks.
Re: Getting Discouraged With Oblates
Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2024 7:20 pm
by Tormato
GoDawgs wrote: ↑Sun Aug 25, 2024 4:25 pm
Radial cracking. Or deeply lobed fruit. I'm tired of having to cut at least a third of the top of oblate tomatoes off and only having the rest to use. The cracking is probably a watering thing but I've tried any of a number of watering schemes to prevent overwatering. The plants are well mulched, the soil drains well. I've tried picking at first blush but then I swear they just don't taste the same as those left to ripen more on the vine despite what the "experts" online say.
Four big Bill Beans and a Rosedale:
24.07.11 Four Bill Beans, 1 Rosedale over 1 lb.JPG
Some Daniel Bursons, not quite ripe yet but showing that they're thinking about cracking:
24.07.05 Some big Daniel Bursons coming.JPG
To top it all off, Pickles doesn't like tomato skin. Peeling a heavily lobed oblate without dunking it in hot water to loosen the skin is a no-go for me. I want a fresh tomato, not one very slightly pre-cooked around the outside.
This year Daniel Burson, Bill Bean and an occasional Rosedale (all wonderfully tasty tomatoes!) all did the cracking thing. I don't have this problem with round or plum shaped tomatoes so I guess it's the nature of the oblate beast.
Is anyone else in this situation? Maybe I should just ditch the oblates?
In a good harvest season, NEVER.
The top third of the tomato? My standard procedure is cutting a tomato in half, squeezing the seeds out of the top half, for saving, and eating the unblemished bottom half. If some of the top half is salvageable, pieces go into a container and into the freezer for making sauce in the later season cooler weather.
I recommend Soldacki, which gets long radial and long concentric cracking at the same time, so that you'll never complain again about your current cracking.
Re: Getting Discouraged With Oblates
Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2024 7:35 pm
by bower
I hear you on the problem, and that did steer me away from some varieties that are extra prone to throw big irregular shoulders.
I've seen a few beefs that are not as ruffly, tend to be more regular and less prone to either cracking or another nemesis, the formation of mold in the stem end dimple. Indian Stripe was a good shape for me. Malachite Box was pretty good too iirc. Then again it can depend on conditions around pollinating, whether you get really even pollination or not, and then it's a better shape with less difference between locules. If the fruit is really great and you don't have an equally great tomato that's smoother, what to do?
Zena's Gift is the only ruffly tomato I've seen that was also perfectly shaped (I don't think they cracked either). But that was not a flat beef or oblate at all.
Re: Getting Discouraged With Oblates
Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2024 8:58 pm
by rxkeith
for just a very brief second, i mistook oblates, for opiates.
the day is drawing down, and i am tired. thats my story.
keith