Are Chocolate Cherry Tomato Plants Hybrids or Heirlooms?

Hybrid Tomatoes

• Tomato hybrids have two different parent plants. Growers choose parent plants based on growing characteristics such as color, taste, plant shape and disease resistance. Hybrid varieties, like "Chocolate Cherry" tomatoes, produce seeds that do not grow true to the parent plant. Instead, seeds produced by hybrid plant produce offspring that present characteristics of the grandparent plants in unusual and unpredictable ways. Since seeds produce unpredictable offspring, growers must purchase hybrid tomato seeds each growing season.

Heirloom Tomatoes

• When left to natural processes, tomato plants produce seed via open pollination. Unlike hybrids, which are monitored to ensure that only one particular tomato variety pollinates a specific plant, heirloom tomatoes are pollinated by insects or wind, which transfer pollen openly from any tomato plant growing nearby. "Cherokee Purple" tomatoes are similar in color to "Chocolate Cherry" tomatoes and are also available in smaller, cherry-sized fruits. "Cherokee Purple" tomatoes are heirloom tomatoes and are grown generation after generation from the previous season's seed. Open pollination allows the child plant to grow true to the parent plant. Growers save seed from year to year, a practice that strengthens the plant's characteristics. Unfortunately, heirloom tomatoes are less disease-resistant than hybrid tomatoes and are often only available from local noncommercial growers.

Other Varieties

• Heirloom tomatoes are available in a wide range of colors and shapes. "Roman Candle" is an elongated vibrant yellow. Pink tomatoes like "Ponderosa Pink" and "Pink Accordion" are mild-flavored, standard-sized heirloom tomatoes. Hybrid tomatoes also feature a wide range of colors and flavors. "Sun Gold" hybrid and "Sun Sugar" hybrid are award-winning cherry tomatoes that are capable of producing under adverse growing conditions.

Considerations

• "Chocolate Cherry" tomatoes are indeterminate, meaning that they grow continuously throughout the growing season and take on a vining, rather than bushy, habit. Protect your plants from fungal and viral infestations by allowing the plant to grow upwards rather than along the ground. Create supports from 6-foot-high wooden stakes. Loosely tie growing plants to the stakes using soft cloth or thick twine. Pinch back lower branches to encourage new, upward growth.