Diener

[travis]

Can anyone elaborate on the truth about Diener's flavor, size and origin. There seems to be disagreement among tomato historians and growers on this particular variety.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by travis

Can anyone elaborate on the truth about Diener's flavor, size and origin. There seems to be disagreement among tomato historians and growers on this particular variety.

Travis, I have no idea what others have to say about Diener, but see below, nor what other growers have said about it, so I can only share with you my experiences with it.

I wanted to include Santa Clara Canner in my book, a variety from Italy that became so well known in CA and it was in researching that one that I found that Diener was a selection from SCC, made by a man named Diener.

All my research links on it were on the hard drive of a previous computer, but I knew the name of the man who made the selection and the year and all.

I looked at several websites where Diener is listed and all said good things about the variety in terms of taste. THen I decided to check Tania's data base and found what you may be referring to and that's that Amy Goldman, or her researchers, had said it was a cross between Trophy and San Jose Canner and it was a selection of that cross.

Yes, I have Amy's book but haven't read much in it except when someone asks me about something in it. And right now I'm not going to try and dig it out b'c Tania has quoted the comments most relevant to your question.

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Diener

Trophy was introduced in the 1860's , one of the first smooth reds along with Paragon, and SCC was popular in CA in the 1940's. I ran across the name San Jose Canner when researching SCC and there were several selections made for SCC that were given names for the area or county where they were selected, that I remember. Most were selected for earlier fruits as I recall.

it's a bit of a stretch for me to understand how the two parents Trophy, a smallish red and which had gone out of favor long before SCC became popular in CA and a selection of SCC as the other parent could give rise to a variety such as Diener, which I found identical to SCC except for color. But who knows for sure: I don't.

Craig got Diener out of the USDA and shared seeds with me. I had previously gotten SCC out of the USDA myself and grew it before I ever grew Diener.

So.... when I first got SCC it didn't do too well so I saved seeds, replanted the next year and it was great. A large oblate beefsteak with some of this thickest walls I've ever noticed with a tomato and when you bit thru the wall there was a rush of delicious juice. The fruits were orangy/red in color.

So then I compared SCC with Diener and the latter had the same shape, the same thick walls, the same delicious juice that poured out, and the only difference I could detect was that Diener was a true red with no orange undertones.

Tania thought it had a good old fashioned taste, that is Diener, Jeff Nekola in his compendium did as well as did Gary Ibsen and another site and I thought the taste was very good indeed.

I know Amy said it was sour and acidic, as Tania noted, but no other source I looked at said that and you can confirm that with your own GOogle search if you wish,

So there you have it on history, Amy says one thing and I know she didn't do all the researching herself, and my info says something different, if that's important to you.

And my opionion about taste was quite positive as were all sites I looked at as opposed to Amy's opinion that it didn't taste good at all.

So why not grow both yourself in the same season and see what you think, unless your major concern is the history of SCC and Diener and there's nothing more that I can do to help in that regard b'c I'm not going to start from zero and go back and reresearch it.

[travis]

Thank you. A few years ago I bought some Diener seeds after reading your book and the comments about Santa Clara Canner and Diener. I think I ordered them from the heirloom seed company formerly run by Chuck Wyatt and the seeds were old and didn't germinate well. After reading your information in the message above, I'd like to find some fresh Diener seeds as what you describe regarding fruit color and the extra heavy walls brings to mind Merced, a hybrid tomato no longer available.

And yes it was the information at Tatiana's that cause the questions regarding origin and flavor. Thanks for clearing that up too.

[nctomatoman]

Here is the info I have on Diener from the MI State Bulletin put out in the 1930s:

Diener is a late variety with large, flattened very rough red fruit. It was introduced by Richard Diener in 1917. It appears to be a selection of the old rough canning tomato used in central California before the development of Santa Clara Canner, but stocks we have observed show little, if any, improvement over the old type.

For Santa Clara Canner:

Synonyms or similar varieties: Diener, San Jose Canner, Jap Canner, Strawberry, Cal 55, Santa Rosa and other local and similar strains all based on the same original material and used exclusively in California.

Fruits are very large, flattened and sometimes oblong in cross section, commonly 4 inches in diameter and weighing one pound each.

History - the original source is not definitely known but probably came from Italy and was modified by the growers in the Santa Clara valley before modern breeding work was undertaken. In 1918, this variety was fairly well stabilized as a very late, very large, flat, rough type fruit on very large vines. It was very productive and well suited to the region but produced the bulk of its crop in Oct. and Nov, when quality is usually poor and an early frost would catch much of the crop on the vine. In 1923, Morse and company undertook a breeding program for the Canners League of California. Single plant selection was made, and within three years the variety was smoother and earlier - Santa Clara Canner was coined by F. A. Dixon to designate the official Canners League strain.

So although it is called similar to Diener, nothing in the Santa Clara description relates the two.

The description of Trophy describes it as being similar to San Jose Canner.

By the way, on release, Trophy was a large tomato - up to 4 inches in diameter, and quite flat. Through the years it likely crossed, and the USDA sample that we grew out is very likely quite different than the original.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by nctomatoman

Here is the info I have on Diener from the MI State Bulletin put out in the 1930s:

Diener is a late variety with large, flattened very rough red fruit. It was introduced by Richard Diener in 1917. It appears to be a selection of the old rough canning tomato used in central California before the development of Santa Clara Canner, but stocks we have observed show little, if any, improvement over the old type.

For Santa Clara Canner:

Synonyms or similar varieties: Diener, San Jose Canner, Jap Canner, Strawberry, Cal 55, Santa Rosa and other local and similar strains all based on the same original material and used exclusively in California.

Fruits are very large, flattened and sometimes oblong in cross section, commonly 4 inches in diameter and weighing one pound each.

History - the original source is not definitely known but probably came from Italy and was modified by the growers in the Santa Clara valley before modern breeding work was undertaken. In 1918, this variety was fairly well stabilized as a very late, very large, flat, rough type fruit on very large vines. It was very productive and well suited to the region but produced the bulk of its crop in Oct. and Nov, when quality is usually poor and an early frost would catch much of the crop on the vine. In 1923, Morse and company undertook a breeding program for the Canners League of California. Single plant selection was made, and within three years the variety was smoother and earlier - Santa Clara Canner was coined by F. A. Dixon to designate the official Canners League strain.

So although it is called similar to Diener, nothing in the Santa Clara description relates the two.

The description of Trophy describes it as being similar to San Jose Canner.

By the way, on release, Trophy was a large tomato - up to 4 inches in diameter, and quite flat. Through the years it likely crossed, and the USDA sample that we grew out is very likely quite different than the original.

Craig, my folder with the MI State Bulletin information about Diener and Santa Clara Canner, etc. is on the floor to my left and I never thought of even looking at it when answering the question.

So thanks for providing it. And as I had remembered there was no cross with Trophy, which indeed when grown by you and me from the USDA is not the Trophy of old .

All things considered I didn't do too badly with what I remembered off the top of my head.

Travis, until you've grown either SCC or Diener I don't think you can appreciate HOW thick those walls are. I haven't grown Merced but I can't imagine any other tomato variety having walls that thick. And of the couple of thousand varieties I've grown those two DO have the thickest walls I've ever seen, but the skin is not tough.

Off hand I can't remember the places that were selling Diener seeds that I looked at when responding to you, but I know SCC is sold by Sandhill. I'm sure I have seeds for both SCC and Diener around here somewhere but I don't think you want to fool around with seeds that old. If there were NO Diener seeds available at all then it might have been worthwhile.

The fact is that I've never thrown out seed stocks I have starting from what I grew in about about 1990. I started growing OP's in the mid-80's after I moved back East but didn't start saving seeds until about 1990.

And as I said in my first post about these two, the only difference I saw between SCC and Diener was that the latter was a true red while SCC had some orange undertones.

[cottonpicker]

Gary Ibsen's Tomatofest sells Diener.

[travis]

Thank you everyone for the information. While I would prefer the deep red tone, the orange undertones wouldn't bother me. It's the thick walls plus the good flavor I would be most interested in. Heat tolerance would be a bonus. I'll check the Sandhill online catalog. Thanks.

[nctomatoman]

One thing to be possibly wary of - when they said that the variety was well adapted to California, I may have seen evidence of that...or just got a bum plant. My one attempt at both Diener and Santa Clara Canner gave me humongous plants that hardly flowered at all, and I got no fruit from either! I've not given either of them a second chance.

[bitterwort]

I've grown Diener from seeds I got from Carolyn a few years back (thanks again!), and it did great for me in Minnesota, though much better in summers that were slightly warmer than usual than it did last year (so that may suggest heat tolerance). The fruits had very thick walls, as Carolyn says, and I liked the flavor quite a lot. (A friend who fancies himself a tomato gourmand requested them by name.) Like Craig's my plant grew humongous, but it was the heaviest-bearing plant in my garden both of the first years (last year in our very cool summer, not so much). A very good tasting, meaty tomato, imho. I'm pretty sure I saved seeds but wasn't successful in getting bagged blossoms to set fruit, and I have so many flowers and pollinators that I would expect them to be crossed (otherwise I'd offer you some, Travis).