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Tomato Plants - Determinate, Indeterminate and VFFNTA

June 10th, 2009 in Grow, Go Organic     

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Choosing tomato plants isn’t necessarily tricky. Still, most people only think of two things when they consider purchasing tomato plants for their home garden. They ask themselves what size (regular or cherry)? Next, they decide how many plants to buy and that’s it.

There are a couple of other factors that may guide you in how to decide what tomato plant varieties to choose. One of them is difference between determinate plants and indeterminate plants. This detail tells you the growth habit of that particular tomato.

A determinate tomato plant’s habit is to grow into a bush. Once these reach a certain size (3-4 feet), they bloom and set fruit. After that, they’re pretty much done. One reason someone would chose a determinate plant is because they don’t want to mess with a lot of staking (although you still would be smart to toss a cage around them), plus you don’t have to prune them.

An indeterminate plant is a true vine and continues to grow forever and beyond (up to 12 feet) if you don’t do a little pruning once in awhile. These guys can take up a lot of space and that could be a nuisance to some people. They need to be trellised throughout the season and pruned regularly.

More on pruning, heirlooms, and tomato supports: • Video: How to Prune Tomatoes • Pruning Tomatoes • Heirlooms: Tomatoes with a Past • The (Tomato) Stakes are High • Build a Freestanding Tomato Trellis • The Supporting Cast for Tomatoes

That said, the indeterminates have a lot going for them. For one, they have a much higher fruit yield and the tomatoes are bigger as well as better. You’ll get a lot more yield per square foot with these crazy vine types as they continue to produce fruit up until a hard frost kills them. The bottom line for taste is that the indeterminates win every time. Most heirloom tomato plants are indeterminate; and that should tell you something.

VFFNTA
When purchasing tomato plants, you may have seen these letters on the plant’s tag next to the variety name. Sometimes it’ll be “VFF” or VFN”. Have you ever wondered what those letters are telling you? Should you even care? Well, it all depend if your growing zone encourages certain diseases or not and if incredible flavor turns you into a risk-taker.

Each one of the letters stands for a different disease that tomato plants can be prone to developing. Tomato-freaky scientists have bred and produced tomato plant varieties which are prone to these diseases. If you buy a tomato plant that has the letter “V” next to its name such as “‘Oregon Spring’ V”, this tells you the disease the plant is bred to resist is verticillium wilt which commonly attacks tomato crops.

V = verticillum wilt
F and FF = fusarium wilt
N = nematodes
T = tobacco mosaic virus
A = alternaria leaf spot

More on managing tomato pests and diseases: • The Road to Healthy, Productive Tomatoes • A Few Good Bugs to Fight Tomato Pests

The question of whether or not to buy the cultivated disease-resistant plants for me is flavor. The tomatoes with the most outstanding taste are the heirloom varieties that have no such man-made resistance. When you grow heirlooms, you just take your chances – which is why every year I grow way too many tomato plants for our family. I’m always planting in fear of some fatal disease knocking out the majority of my tomatoes; a fear that has never actually materialized, yet I persist in stocking up.

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posted in: Grow, Go Organic, tomatoes, determinate tomatoes, indeterminate tomatoes, VFFNTA

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