Yield Characteristics of Indigo Purple Tomato Varieties in Kentucky

To evaluate the field yields of Oregon State University's anthocyanin-rich Indigo series against established heirloom varieties under Kentucky field conditions.

Production system. Field, raised beds under black plastic mulch, drip irrigation, staked on wooden tobacco stakes and twine.

Analysis. Analysis of variance with least significant difference mean separation at P < 0.05, computed in CoStat. Letters beside each value are the report's own mean-separation groups: values sharing a letter were not significantly different.

The report describes no unusual weather or disease pressure for the season and records only that potato beetles were controlled with Sevin dust as needed.

Per-acre yield extrapolated from small research plots. Yields are not measured per acre. They are measured on research plots of roughly 8 to 200 plants and multiplied by a correction factor to estimate a per-acre figure. The publication states the consequences of this plainly: small errors are greatly amplified by the multiplication, and because drive rows are excluded from the calculation the resulting per-acre yields are typically much higher than what a commercial farm achieves. A yield produced by this method is therefore a comparison between varieties grown side by side, not a forecast of what a grower will harvest. Standard: University of Kentucky Fruit and Vegetable Research Report, "Our Yields vs. Your Yields".

Mean fruit weight from plot counts and weights. Fruit number and total weight are recorded for every plot at each harvest, and average fruit weight is derived from those two totals. No grading step is applied first, so the average covers all harvested fruit rather than a marketable subset.

This trial grew 10 entries. AMSeed publishes results for 2 of them. The rest are listed by name below with the reason their numbers are withheld, so the trial is represented as what it actually was rather than as the slice we happen to cover.

A single site in a single season with three replications. Yields are per-acre extrapolations from four-plant plots, which the publication warns amplifies small errors and overstates what a commercial farm achieves. The report gives its yield column as "Average Yield" without stating whether culled fruit was excluded, so these figures are recorded here as unqualified yield rather than marketable yield.