Searching for parthenocarpic tomato

[Alex]

I'm searching for the best parthenocarpic tomatoes. Any recommendations?

[William Schlegel]

I grew Siletz in 2017. It is very early due in part to the parthenocarpy and impressively large for so early a tomato.

[Justin Jardinier]

Wow, a parthenocarpic SI tomato could be really interesting! Would solve the problem of people just growing 1 or few, plus the first appearing flowers in a group! So is Siletz only doing that when there's not enough wind or vibration for the pollen to fall on the stigma, and/or maybe correct temperature for fertilisation?

[William Schlegel]

http://www.saveseeds.org/biography/baggett/index.html

The previous tomato breeder at OSU really liked the trait.

Not sure about its utility for SI or not Justin, could also be complicating. I decided to avoid the trait back in 2017.

One of the growers at Triple Divide did a seed crop of Baggett's Gold Nugget also parthenocarpic. A necessity to charge a premium for the seed as in some years they produce a lot of parthenocarpic fruit. Or grow the seed in a climate where the parthenocarpic fruit is less handy. Still for home seed saving their low seed set is likely fine.

[Steph S]

I grew Siletz and Cold Set back around 2012.  As I recall, all of Siletz early set were seedless, so I only got seed from the later fruit - that is when temperatures warmed up too so it could be temperature sensitive.  Both of these had decent fruit set, size and taste for early red tomatoes, but they weren't that early per se.  Both also had a lot of foliage disease by the time they ripened fruit, but that may be in part due to lack of technique on my part - in the circumstances, many plants will resist disease better if you feed them when they start ripening.
There is facultative parthenocarpy that turns up in a few OP tomatoes that I've grown.  Oaxacan Jewel PL is often seedless in early fruit and also makes seedless fruit sometimes in the heat.  This is an asset from a food standpoint, that even when pollination fails for one reason or another, you still get edible fruit, but they are smaller.  And I've seen the same in a few others over the years - smaller and seedless but still fit to eat.
Siletz OTOH had full sized fruit whether seedless or seeded, you couldn't tell.
Cold Set actually produced seed in all its fruit iirc including the earliest.  Much easier to get seed than Siletz.  It is a bit smaller fruit, and pink I believe. 

[Alex]

What is about Oregon Spring?
I'm interested in parthenocarpic tomatoes for hot, wet tropical climate where there are no pollinators or they simply ignore the tomatoes (tropical honey bees ignore many non-tropical plants). Full parthenocarpy is preferable.

[Diane Whitehead]

Siletz was developed to be an improved Oregon Spring—it is indeed bigger, earlier & has a better flavor.

Legend by Dr. James Baggett at Oregon State University is parthenocarpic and late blight resistant.

[Justin Jardinier]

Siletz was developed to be an improved Oregon Spring—it is indeed bigger, earlier & has a better flavor.

Legend by Dr. James Baggett at Oregon State University is parthenocarpic and late blight resistant.

For anyone interested, it's apparently homozygous PH-2

[Alex]

Oregon Spring is very sour, not my taste at all. But it grows great for me and tolerates heat well.

[Alex]

Siletz was developed to be an improved Oregon Spring—it is indeed bigger, earlier & has a better flavor.

In fact, my Siletz set fruit later, there are fewer of them. It is very weird. Maybe unscrupulous sellers sold me wrong seeds.

[Alex]

Legend by Dr. James Baggett at Oregon State University is parthenocarpic and late blight resistant.

This tomato does not tolerate heat. My tomato is still alive, but it is very likely that it will die.

[Alex]

I'm searching for Severianin tomato - parent of Oregon spring.

[Alex]

Legend tomato does not set fruits.

Siletz was developed to be an improved Oregon Spring—it is indeed bigger, earlier & has a better flavor.

My Siletz had bad taste, worse than Oregon Spring.
It is very difficult to get Severianin tomato, there is no success.
Any others to try?

[Alex]

In general, for a tropical climate, parthenocarpic tomatoes are theoretically the only ones that can bear fruit in the heat. My heat starts from mid-May to early September, during this period not a single variety sets fruit. But here another problem arises - intolerance of parthenocarpics to heat itself. For example, Legend tomato survived only 1, it was between life and death during the entire heat, it could not set fruit. It was not possible to test Oregon spring this summer, since slugs and root rot destroyed it. But so far it is the most resistant to heat for me.

[Alex]

I grew Siletz and Cold Set back around 2012.

I found information on the tomatoville forum that Cold Set is heat tolerant, so I'll look into it.
AZRuss wrote: "I have discovered, quite by accident, that Cold Set is also apparently an extremely heat tolerant variety. I planted out a couple of seedlings in May, and to my surprise they started setting fruit a few weeks ago in our intense desert heat. Each plant now has at least 12 tomatoes that are growing well, but obviously several weeks away from ripening. Go figure!!"