Blight resistance reigns supreme at the Burpee Europe trials

With the chaotic weather we have been experiencing this year, the Burpee Europe team were curious to see how their blight resistant tomato varieties had faired at their trial ground in Holland and customer trials in the UK and Germany…but they were not disappointed!”

A number of ‘top secret’ tomatoes have shown to be superb in the resistance to blight and will be on the market soon, but these below are already available to the consumer and are most definitely rewarding the Burpee team with exceptional disease resistance!

Tomato ‘Toddler’
One of the most dynamic tomatoes Burpee has bred. ‘Toddler’ has simply been the star of 2023!  Bearing elegant, exceptionally well-proportioned trusses with 20…yes 20 fruits counted on one truss at the trials!  The crack-resistant 30 gram fruit are super tasty with Brix levels of around 10% and a pleasing acid tang. This is the most disease resistant variety that Burpee Europe has bred.

Tomato ‘Cocktail Crush’
This is the smaller-fruited and sweeter sister line to ‘Crimson Crush’, with a complex tangy finish when eaten. The team call it their blight-resistant ‘Ailsa Craig’ — the classic salad tomato with great flavour. This showed outstanding resistance to blight on the German trials in very bad blight conditions.

Tomato ‘Bliss’
Has been superb in the trials and happily showed off not only its good blight resistance, but also its stunning yellow hue with faint green stripes. The fruit can be plucked for the lovely flavour to be savoured when the green is showing, but it can also be left a little longer too before harvesting.

Tomato ‘Black Moon’
This is a real stunner and has been very popular this year.  Trials have proven it’s fabulous blight resistance and also the strength of growing, which has been exceptional.  The gorgeous colour ripens to a deep orange/red and softens so that it is easy to do a gentle squeeze test to determine when it is ready for harvesting.

The background of Burpee Europe’s blight resistant breeding work
The Burpee programme has been in development for over 14 years and Simon Crawford, the head breeder, has been involved in breeding tomatoes since 1978 with Red Alert being his first introduction.

Simon first identified blight resistant genes in a number of tomato breeding lines at the Burpee research station in Yorkshire.  He then worked for many years together with James Stroud, PhD scientist at Bangor University, to create a blight resistant variety. They combined blight resistant genes Ph2 and Ph3 into just one plant, thus creating Crimson Crush.  And now of course there are also the additional Cocktail Crush and Rose Crush added to this blight resistant family of tomatoes.

There are also now many more blight resistant varieties offered to the consumer and more future varieties in trials now too.

Burpee Europe do not sell direct to the consumer, but their seeds are sold via top UK seed companies. Details of these on request from rabbitattackpr@gmail.com or 07895184395

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