Craig LeHoullier in his book makes some interesting statements about tomato flavor. I am actually growing a few of his top flavor picks to see what I think. He suggested somewhere that in a blind taste test some of the reds would have really good flavor. So this assumption that oranges and yellows are better flavored may not be a perfect one. Though I followed that assumption for at least several years.
I sort of regret not being more careful with some of the 2020 XL red seeds from the promiscuous project. I remember one of those having pretty amazing flavor- smooth no off tastes. I still have some seed I am sure but I think I would have to taste a lot of tomatoes to find it that perfect again.
I definitely think that I have had some good yellows and some good oranges. However, and I think this is important, it is also possible for yellows and oranges to have some off flavors. It may be the case too that off flavors are more distinct in yellows and oranges than in reds. The reds might have more of an ability to mask some flavors. I definitely have had some off flavors in some of the segregates from Indigo Kumquat that Mike sent me a few years back. I have also found a lot of off flavors in the big hill descended bicolors in the promiscuous project. I was too liberal in my seed saving in 2020 and found off flavors in most in 2021. We will see what that means for 2022 with the three good, flavored selections from the promiscuous project that I made in 2021.
That said, one of my main tomato breeding tools right now is the MMS and MMM project which is anthocyanin potato leaf bicolors. Then one of my all time current flavor selections is my 2021 selection of the promiscuous project that I found reminiscent of fuyu persimmon which is an orange bicolorI have already set up crossing blocks in the seedling trays between the OSSI dwarfs, the MMS/MMM and the fuyu persimmon reminiscent selection. So I am heading in that direction however it is more because I already have good flavored yellow and orange tomatoes that I want to keep working with.
One of my hopes with the OSSI dwarfs and the now 16 varieties I have acquired of them is to add a larger color palette of potential dwarfs. Sort of mimicking the start of the dwarf tomato project when Patrina made those eight initial crosses. So if I end up with a dwarf crossing block with the Antho MMS/MMM as I am currently planning, it should result in a diversity of colors of tomato including orange, green when ripe, yellow, chocolate, and maybe some red which would start to become apparent in the F2 and F3 of the grex. Though controlled crosses would be ideal in terms of making it less likely to accidentally select out good material in early generations and I do hope to make some. I have some older Dwarf Gloria's Treat larger in one-gallon pots and I hope to cross them with the MMS/MMM project before out planting them. However time to out planting is now roughly three weeks and no blooms yet. That cross one of the main outcomes would be to add anthocyanin to a bicolor potato leaf dwarf. Though you could also get that outcome by crossing Dwarf Gloria's Treat with Dwarf Mocha's Cherry or by crossing MMS with Dwarf Mocha's Cherry. I think I need to grow a few dwarfs for next winter's tomato crossing grow out.
