Kewalo - University of Hawaii
Submitted by royh on Thu, 08/02/2007 - 23:25.
Name: Kewalo
Type: Determinate
Seed: Yes/Open pollinated
Shape: Round fruit
This variety of tomato is doing very well right now in our garden. It is a prolific producer of round fruit, that I'm sure will taste great when they finally start to ripen.
I am considering saving seed for the purpose of replanting the seed immediately for seedlings to give to our gardener for commercial production. However, the gardener needs to 'fess up and start paying us our share of the sales of the produce from our lands. As it is, his pigs can't possibly be eating ALL of the crops, as he claims.
Either way, I'll be saving seeds from this variety anyhow for replanting in our kitchen garden. Our kitchen garden is kept up by our own selves, and so hopefully our produce won't be walking away like it did last time when we let someone else manage it. If we do have problems, there is a means for locking the gate, but resorting to more locks isn't exactly how we'd like to live.
Anyhow, Kewalo is a very thirsty plant. From my own observations, it requires consistent deep waterings in order for it to set and maintain its fruit. Side dressing with fertilizer every two weeks once the blossoms start to set fruit doesn't hurt either. But if you plant this variety and discover that blossoms are falling off without setting fruit, dig a deep test hole off to the side and check the moisture levels. If my own observations are anything to go by, it may be raining, but the water is running off and not penetrating to the main mass of the plants' roots. And without enough moisture, this variety will forgo setting any fruit, and it may even terminate some of its young fruit in order to conserve moisture.
Any further comments on this variety would be appreciated, and you can be sure that I'll be updating this with comments from time to time as I observe these plants longer.
Kewalo - Update 9/17/2007
So far I've only eaten a few fruits from this variety. It seems to me that this variety is prone to water stress, be it too little or too much water. Too little and it doesn't set fruit, and too much and its fruits start cracking.
Now, before I let you in on the taste test, I'll describe the fruit and the plants' tendencies in more detail.
The Kewalo variety is extremely bushy, with sturdy stems and a tendency to branch in any and every direction. It is very disease resistant, which is nice, but it is slow to fruit. I've noticed a tendency for concentric cracks around the stem of the fruit, often causing softening of the top portion of the fruit close to the ripening stage. Taste wise, so far, the Kewalo has only been average. Compared to the Epoch tomato, it has been a let down in that department...
But, do not despair - looking closely at the later fruit the plants are setting, I'm seeing a higher quality of fruit... not to mention, the fruit even seem to be getting larger, believe it or not. So, I'm hoping the mediocre fruit set and fruit flavors will improve as the plants hit their stride. I'm hoping that the previous mediocrity was caused more by root injuries caused by the multiple late transplants, than by any deficiency in the variety.