Yellow tomatoes: 6 varieties compared, from taste to blight tolerance
The ones that hold up outside in the rain are small. Six varieties compared with the German trials and the RHS awards.
If you want yellow tomatoes outside, in a wet summer, choose small ones. The yellow varieties kept by the German outdoor trials are all cherry tomatoes or wild tomatoes. For the big yellow ones, we found no trial that says how they hold up to blight.
The six, side by side
| Variety | Fruit | Plant | Blight according to the sources | Seeds to resow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Balconi jaune | Round cherry, yellow | Dwarf and bushy, 10 to 50 cm (RHS) | No data | F1 status to check on the packet |
| Sunviva | Bright yellow cherry, about 20 g | Vigorous, needs staking | "High field resistance" (Göttingen project sheet) | Yes, a variety under an open-source seed licence |
| Cerise gelb | Yellow cocktail, sweet and juicy | Very vigorous, climbs high | Kept among 10 outdoor varieties out of 3,500 (Göttingen) | Yes |
| Golden Currant | Wild tomato, fruit of a few grams | Bushy and dense | Kept among the 10, "very robust" (Göttingen) | Yes |
| Sungold | Golden orange cherry, very sweet | One stem, 1 to 1.5 m (RHS) | Blight on the list of susceptibilities (RHS) | No, F1 hybrid |
| Gold Nugget | Orange-yellow cherry, thin skin | Dwarf, 10 to 50 cm, no pruning (RHS) | Blight on the list of susceptibilities (RHS) | Not stated |
| The move | Taste before you choose | In a pot, a dwarf; in a bed, a vigorous one | Space the plants, water at the base | A fixed variety can be kept from year to year |
A note on the sources. The RHS, the British horticultural society, gives a prize, the Award of Garden Merit, to varieties that have done well in its garden trials. Sungold and Gold Nugget have it. Its sheets still list blight among the possible diseases, as for many tomatoes. The German trials, for their part, deal with blight outdoors.
The German outdoor trials
In the German climate, blight almost rules out an outdoor tomato harvest with no greenhouse or roof. The Dreschflegel association and the University of Göttingen started from this finding. In 2003, they made a selection among 3,500 varieties, then tested it from the North Sea to the Alps. They kept ten for their robustness, their taste and the reliability of the harvest. The researcher who followed the project, Bernd Horneburg, now runs the outdoor tomato trials at the University of Kassel.
Among these ten, there are two yellow ones, both small. Their advice is blunt. On a difficult spot, start with cherry tomatoes or wild tomatoes.
Sunviva
It comes from the project itself. Its sheet describes it as a very aromatic cherry tomato, sweet and juicy, with bright yellow fruit of about 20 g. The plant is robust, with airy foliage, trained on one or several stems. It likes open, airy, sunny places. The sheet states high field resistance to blight. This sheet comes from the project that selected it. Take it as a serious indication, not as an independent trial.
Sunviva came out under an open-source seed licence. You can resow its seeds, give them away and multiply them.
Cerise gelb
The "yellow cherry" on the Göttingen list is a climber. The plants are very vigorous and robust, with curled leaves typical of the variety. Its sweet, juicy fruit is harvested over a long time. The sheet advises not topping it and letting it climb a bean pole.
Golden Currant
This is a wild tomato, of a different species from the cultivated tomato. The Kassel page counts about 6 g per fruit. The plant grows dense and bushy. Its small yellow fruit is sweet and juicy. The Göttingen sheet calls it very robust, with a very long harvest period. Let it grow against a fence or in a frame. Thin only if it spills over.
The yellow ones awarded by the RHS
Sungold
The Japanese seed company Tokita released it in 1992, according to TOMATObase. For the RHS, its small golden orange fruit is very sweet. It grows it on one stem, outside or in a cold greenhouse, up to 1 to 1.5 m. In a greenhouse, its heavy trusses keep going until autumn. TOMATObase ranks it among the earlies, at 55 to 60 days.
It is an F1 hybrid. Its seeds do not give the same tomato again. You have to buy a packet every year.
Gold Nugget
This dwarf, early cherry tomato grows as a bush and needs no pruning (RHS). Its orange-yellow fruit, slightly oval, is sweet, with a thin skin. The RHS recommends it for pots and window boxes. Selected in Oregon in 1983, it sets fruit well in cool spring weather. Its first fruits have no seeds (TOMATObase).
The Balconi jaune, the one in the catalogue
The Balconi jaune is the smallest of the six. The RHS describes it as a dwarf cherry tomato, fast and productive, bushy, 10 to 50 cm tall. Its small, round, yellow fruit arrives in summer. It needs no stake. It suits the balcony and the window box. No source gives its tolerance to blight. On a balcony sheltered from rain, the question matters less.
Growing it in a pot, the size of the container and the watering are in Tomatoes in pots.
Which to choose
For all of them, the same moves limit blight. Space the plants, water at the base and keep tomatoes away from potatoes. The Göttingen sheet adds removing affected leaves and fruit, to let the plant grow back over them. The detail is in the article on tomato blight. The full calendar, from sowing to harvest, is in the full tomato season.
If you save your seeds, take a fixed variety like Sunviva, Cerise gelb or Golden Currant. The fermentation method works for all of them. The article on open-pollinated seeds and F1s explains why a Sungold cannot be resown true. The catalogue tomatoes are in the Tomate Lovers collection. The app gives you the sowing dates for your varieties. Start here.
FAQ
Which yellow tomato resists blight best?
According to the sources we opened, Sunviva, whose sheet states high field resistance. Next come Cerise gelb and Golden Currant, kept for outdoors by Göttingen. No numerical score is published.
Is a yellow tomato sweeter than a red one?
The sheets often describe the yellows in this comparison as sweet. None of the sources we opened compares the sugar of yellows and reds. Taste them.
Which yellow tomato for a balcony?
A dwarf, the Balconi jaune or Gold Nugget, 10 to 50 cm tall. The RHS recommends Gold Nugget for pots. The Balconi jaune needs no stake.
Can you resow Sungold seeds?
They germinate, but Sungold is an F1 hybrid. Next year's plants will not be Sungolds. Buy a packet again, or choose a fixed variety like Sunviva.
Are there big yellow tomatoes for outdoors?
There are, but we found no outdoor trial that measures how they hold up to blight. Grow them under cover if you can.
Photo: Tom Jur, Unsplash
Sources
- Dreschflegel e.V. et Université de Göttingen, Tomaten im Freiland : Sortenempfehlung und Anbauanleitung (dix variétés de plein air retenues parmi 3 500 pour leur robustesse, leur goût et la sûreté de la récolte, dont Cerise gelb et Golden Currant)
- Open Source Seeds, Tomate Sunviva (projet de tomate de plein air de l'Université de Göttingen : fruits jaune vif d'environ 20 g, haute résistance au champ au mildiou)
- Université de Kassel, The organic outdoor tomato project (essais depuis 2003, liste des variétés issues du projet avec leur poids : Sunviva, Golden Current)
- RHS, Solanum lycopersicum 'Sungold' (AGM, tomate cerise orange doré, très sucrée, 1 à 1,5 m, sensibilités dont le mildiou)
- RHS, Solanum lycopersicum 'Gold Nugget' (AGM, tomate cerise naine et précoce, jaune orangé, peau fine, 0,1 à 0,5 m, sensibilités dont le mildiou)
- RHS, Solanum lycopersicum 'Balconi Yellow' (tomate cerise naine et buissonnante, fruits ronds jaunes, 0,1 à 0,5 m)
- RHS, Tomatoes: grow your own (variétés recommandées AGM, dont Sungold, Ildi et Gold Nugget)
- Tatiana's TOMATObase, SunGold F1 (Tokita Seed, Japon, 1992, hybride, 55 à 60 jours)
- Tatiana's TOMATObase, Gold Nugget (James Baggett, 1983, déterminée, noue bien par temps frais, premiers fruits sans graines)
He gardens in Belgium and tries out in his own vegetable patch what the app recommends. His articles always start from a source you can check and a step you can take this weekend.
