WV '63 status OP or heirloom?

[ddsack]

I personally believe that heirloom should be reserved for tomatoes know to be passed down within a family, but the term is being applied to "old" or "old like" open pollinated tomatoes. I'd prefer the term classic and or antique to refer to varieties that are just old.

I agree pretty much with what Doug said above.

To me, an heirloom was an unintentionally created tomato passed down through a family that saved seeds from the best tasting fruits that represented their variety. By unintentionally created, I mean that no one artificially cross pollinated their flowers to create a new hybrid, though the same thing might have happened in their garden through bee crosses. So my prerequisite to the heirloom designation means the parent lines are a mystery or at least undocumented.

By the time you get plant science and technology into it, anyone can theoretically reproduce any cross if they know the parent lines, so I don't feel comfortable calling any recently created tomatoes heirlooms, no matter how good they taste or beautifully odd they look. Call them OP's or call them artisan tomatoes. They are not heirlooms in my book, no more than university or seed company created OP's can be called heirlooms.