When growing tomatoes and reading about them—on our website, store signs, and plant tags—you eventually encounter a lot of tomato growing terms. Determinate and indeterminate. Hybrid and heirloom. VFNT and SWV. What does all this mean? Learn tomato growing terms right here.
Determinate and Indeterminate
When selecting tomato varieties, you must choose between plants with different types of growth habits called determinate or indeterminate. All tomatoes are either one or the other.
Determinate varieties (including bush varieties) reach a certain plant height and then stop growing. The majority of their fruit matures within a month or two and appears at the ends of the branches. These are popular with gardeners who like to can, make sauce, or have another reason for wanting most of their tomatoes at once. It might even be that you'd prefer to harvest early and leave late summer for a long vacation.
Most determinate varieties need a cage, but there are some very stocky varieties, such as Better Bush, that have a very sturdy main stems; they don't need much support, just a stake to keep them from toppling in wind and rain. Varieties especially suited to growing in pots, such as Patio and Better Bush, are determinate. Little or no pruning is needed.
Indeterminate varieties continue to grow and produce tomatoes all along the stems throughout the growing season. Indeterminate plants need extra-tall supports of at least 5 feet. Because indeterminate varieties throw out so many shoots, gardeners often prune them for optimum-sized fruit or train them on a very tall trellis. However, if you don't prune, no harm done! You may have seen photos of 10- or 15-foot tomato vines. These are definitely indeterminate types.
Most gardeners grow both types, determinate for large harvests for canning and freezing and indeterminate to get fruit for salads and sandwiches throughout the growing season.
A few varieties are called semi-determinate or compact indeterminate because they are somewhere in between. For best results, give them support.
Symbols for Disease Resistance
Tomato names are often followed by capital letters that stand for resistance to certain diseases. This is very important because these diseases can wipe out a tomato crop. Bonnie Plant Farm offers varieties that have proven to be most productive with disease resistance a major consideration in our selection. Resistance to disease is indicated by these letters:
V – Verticillium Wilt
F – Fusarium Wilt ( two F's indicate resistance to both races 1 and 2 )
N – Nematodes
ASC – Alternaria Stem Canker
TMV – Tobacco Mosaic Virus
St – Stemphylium ( gray leaf spot )
SWV – Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus
LB – Late Blight
Other Tomato Terms
Heirloom tomato – Any tomato that is at least fifty years old and is not a hybrid.
Hybrid tomato – A tomato bred by crossing varieties. Hybrids offer better disease resistance, higher yield, and other improved traits. Our hybrids are not genetically engineered.
Early variety – A tomato that matures in 50 to 60 days; these are prized for early harvests and late summer planting for a fall crop. Sometimes we refer to tomatoes that mature in more than 60 days as "early," but only in comparison to their peers. For example, the earliest beefsteak type is only early compared to other beefsteaks. Beefsteaks are typically longer maturing than other tomato types because they are so big!
The harvest period for determinate tomatoes is generally short, making them good choices for canning. Indeterminate tomatoes continue to grow, flower, and set fruit until killed by the first frost in fall. Accordingly, the harvest from indeterminate varieties often extends over a 2 or 3 month period.
Most cherry tomatoes are indeterminate and have a large, sprawling growth habit that requires pruning and support. When space is limited, many gardeners choose determinate varieties as they grow in a more compact, bush-like shape.
While grape tomatoes are determinate, meaning they are bushy and produce fruit in a short period of time, beefsteak tomatoes are indeterminate, meaning they have sparser foliage and produce fruit over the course of a growing season. As indeterminate plants, they grow higher and require staking as well.
How Many Tomatoes Can You Get from a Determinate Variety? Determinate tomatoes, aka bush or patio varieties, give you the majority of your fruits all at once. You'll have a big harvest, and then you may get a couple more fruits here and there, but your plant is pretty much done producing.
Roma tomatoes come in both indeterminate and determinate varieties. The harvest window of determinate plants is narrower, which is helpful for making sauce and canning because so many fruits ripen at once.
Cucumbers can be determinate – grow, bloom, set fruit and mature all at the same time, or indeterminate – grow, bloom, set fruit & mature continually throughout the growing season. There are long vine cultivars, and bush cultivars. Vining cucumbers grow long vines and are best grown on trellis.
Determinate tomato plants are also known as “bush” tomatoes because they grow in a bush-like manner. At first, the plant grows vertically, but then vertical growth stops.
Pepper plants are indeterminate plants. That is, they continually grow new stems and leaves. For this reason they have to be pruned and trained on a regular basis in order to ensure a balanced growth for maximum fruit production.
Determinate tomatoes need no pruning other than removing all suckers below the first flower cluster because pruning won't affect their fruit size or plant vigor. If you do any pruning at all above the first flower cluster on determinate tomatoes, you'll only be throwing away potential fruit.
Try to plant tomatoes in a different spot every year, rotating through your garden space every three to four years. Planting them in the same place allows disease pathogens that are specific to tomatoes to build up in the soil. By moving them around in the garden each year, you can break up the disease cycle.
Determinate tomatoes grow to a certain size, then stop growing. Indeterminate tomatoes continue to grow throughout the growing season. Seed catalogues, seed packets or plant identification stakes will indicate which type of tomato you have. Prune indeterminate tomatoes only.
Early Girl is a cultivar of tomato with indeterminate growth, which means it produces flowers and fruit until it is killed by frost or another external factor (contrast with a determinate cultivar, which would grow to a limited, predefined shape and be most productive for one large harvest before dying or tapering off ...
As an indeterminate variety, the Sweet 100 plant will produce fruits continuously up until the first frost, so check plants daily or every other day until cold weather sets in to make sure you don't miss any ripe tomatoes.
Tomatoes can be characterized in many different ways. The most common way is to categorize it by shape and size. Other ways include heirloom vs hybrid varieties, determinate vs indeterminate varieties or the color of its skin.
Introduction: My name is Nathanael Baumbach, I am a fantastic, nice, victorious, brave, healthy, cute, glorious person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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