NYTimes on "improving" store bought tomatoes

[Dewayne mater]

Here is a link to the article in today's online NTY discussion improving flavors of the store bought tomato by cross breeding. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/he...src=rechp&_r=0

It sounds like a good idea to improve store bought tomato flavor by breeding and not by genetically engineering them. However, the guy doing it doesn't really eat tomatoes and the article makes it seem like the only factor they are really looking into is how sweet is it? I mean we are a nation of sugar addicts, so I'm not shocked, but, still there are so many taste components that make tomatoes taste good...not just sweetness. Sigh. If ALL that matter is sweetness, why not just sell Sungolds and be done with it? (disclaimer, I like and grow Sungolds...but also many other varieties!) Baby steps, I guess.

Dewayne Mater

[Noreaster]

Just read that myself !

Nice to get more confirmation that heirloom tomatoes grown in backyard
will likely never be equaled by commercial farms.

Since Cornell is involved, Carolyn Male's comments on this should be interesting.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Noreaster

Just read that myself !

Nice to get more confirmation that heirloom tomatoes grown in backyard
will likely never be equaled by commercial farms.

Since Cornell is involved, Carolyn Male's comments on this should be interesting.

Yes,I'm a Cornell grad but Cornell isn't really that important in the context of the article.

It was all about Dr.Klee and when it was said why not cross a sweet heirloom with a hybrid I'm yelling that's exactly what Dr. Randy Gardner,whom I do know as do some others here do as well and who is a member here as well. And a few of us have grown ones he's developing using heirloom varieties. Randy is retired now from NCSU at Fletcher, but is still breeding tomatoes and has relased some great ones.

Yes, it's been known for a long time that about 400 volatiles have been detected but it's one thing to detect them as volatiles and quite anothe rto associate them with specific genes involved with tomato taste.A few are known,but that's about it.

Interesting article to a point but I do wish they had contacted some tomato breeders other than Dr.Klee. Dr.Gardner is another, Dr. Jay Scott at FL is another and yes, I know Drl David Francis, mentioned in the article b'c I sent him many heirloom varieties to work with. And there several other tomato breeders that might be mentioned as well

Carolyn, who says ignore the underlining,it just happened and she didn't want to go back and redo it.

[Doug9345]

In all these discussions texture is always ignored. It can have the best taste in the world but if it has the consistency of wax fruit it's still going to taste like a commercial tomato.

I agree if sweetness was the only thing that distinguished good and poor tomatoes then any tomato could be fixed by soaking it in syrup.

[travis]

I grew a few different lines of tomatoes this summer that were bred for flavor and commercial qualities by both Dr. Randy Gardner and Dr. Jay Scott. Gardner's tomatoes were superior in all regards except holding and shipping qualities, but they were heritage quality fruit. Scott's tomatoes are more firm, but less flavorful, and far less interesting to look at (just red). However, all of them had fantastic advantages over most old fashioned varieties in that the new creations were far more disease resistant, heat tolerant, free of common defects, and had a much longer shelf life.

The one standout was Dr. Gardner's line that includes Malachite Box in its pedigree. Those plants were production monsters, and the tomatoes were on par with Malachite Box for flavor, yet had much more disease resistance, longer shelf life, and absolutely no catfacing or skin cracking. And the texture wasn't hard, waxy, pithy, mealy, etc. It was perfect for eating fresh by slicing, dicing, fresh salsa, or canned salsa verde.

[Dewayne mater]

Sounds awesome Travis. If Malachite Box is in its pedigree, what is the name of the variety? Does anyone offer it for sale? Thanks.

Dewayne

[travis]

Not a "variety" yet. The plants I grew this year were both F2 and F3. Last year, I got both green-when-ripe bicolor and yellow/red bicolor from F2 seeds. This year I got typical green-when-ripe bicolor, rusty or "copper oxide" reddish tinted green-when-ripe from the F3s, and an orange fleshed F2.

Seeds were obtained 3 years ago from a friend, but not available as far as I know, at this time.

I was just using these and Scott's as examples of what's going on to improve tomatoes by blending heritage and modern genetics.