Rey Humberto or King Umberto

[MrBig46]

I favour you speedy recovery.
Vladimír

[Tom Wagner]

Carolyn,

It is interesting what a little research of an old variety creates depending on who is doing it! I sent an email to my source, Taryn, for her source of King Umberto in anticipation of at least resolving what I have used in breeding work.

So many nooks and crannies caught my eye as I looked into the internet connections with key words....Chiswick, Re, Roi, Rey, Umberto, Humbert, Humberto, etc. All I wanted was the proper phenotype description for what I used to make crosses. Little did I think there could be so much to cause confusion as to synonyms, and distinct germplasm differences. This variety is so fraught with dichotomous and diverse lineage that I fear no one will sort it all out. In fact, I rather like the associated discord and it provides credence to what many older tomato breeders have admitted to me. Basically it was an answer to the question..."If one has the same variety and someone else has the same variety and many generations have separated the two collections...are they the same?" No, was the answer.

No..... as the default answer implies that breeders experience bottle necking, variety admixture, out crossing, mutation, faulty records, and plain re-selection. A variety like the Umberto type has traveled far and wide for a long time. Viva la diferencia!

Ventmarin says
King Umberto..... no picture but says to see Roi Humbert
I don’t know if that he thinks they are the same or just the names are linked somehow.

Chiswick Red as a synonym for King Umberto?
Chiswick shows up on GRIN and a couple of photos help distinguish it.
Chiswick Red or Red Chiswick PI 645002


The fruit of Chiswick
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/4kSNZDN.png[/IMG]
Very different shape from the Humberto/Umberto types





The leaf of Chiswick
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/oGZ44ID.png[/IMG]




The German version
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/5Hl0x8F.png?1[/IMG]
No points on the German type




Tatiana’s
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/ZNp1qDX.jpg[/IMG]
It has points




Underwood/Terroir
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/xYdOcd5.jpg[/IMG]
It also has points


Solana Seeds has much to say...

Re Umberto
Notice the spelling
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/ZZY2PMW.png[/IMG]
Does not look like King Umberto



Solana states:

Old italian variety named after King Umberto. Paste type, like Roma and San Marzano, with oval shaped, 6 cm, deep red fruits. For sauces or fresh eating. This one will ripen very slowly on the plant. So make sure to wait until it is turns completely red. About 90 days. Rare! (This is not the "King Umberto" Tomato.)

Solana then suggests to read this:
King Umberto, a tomato in exile

"It is a matter of synonyms" Alberto Olivucci

http://www.gondrano.it/agric/reumbert.htm


The translation…for what it is worth….
http://www.freetranslation.com/translation.html#!/505037985fe01ac20407b80a/505037985fe01ac20407b7fb/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gondrano.it%2Fagric%2Freumbert.ht m

[carolyn137]

Tom, I noted above that there were so many ways of expressing this variety that I was having trouble searching

You've linked to several of the links I was going to put up, so now I don't need to do that.

For what it SHOULD look like I'd go back to some of the pictures in the older catalogs from the Ventmarin link I gave,

And MOST helpful are the line drawings, a single fruit, a cluster of fruits and a smaller single fruit showing the square shape of the fruit, and description in the first English edition of Vilmorin in1885,

I'm going to laboriusly, ahem, copy down all of that description. And laboriously since it's near the end of that very fat book, I can't keep the page open, so have to type one handed.

KING HUMBERT TOMATO (Tomate Roi Humbert)

This variety, which is probably derived from the pear-shaped tomato, is distinguished by its rather peculiar form and appearance. The fruit, which grows in clusters of from 5 to 10, is of a pretty regular shape, but is frequently flattened on four sides, so that a section of it, espeically near the end, presents a nearly square outline. It is about the size of a small hen's egg and of a very bright scarlet colour. The plant is of average height and earliness, and a most extraordinary cropper, with spreading leaves that are not curled,. The new English variety called Chiswick Red comes so near this variety that we think one might be very easily mistaken for the other.

$$$$$

There are no nipples shown.

I couldn't get your translation of the Italian article to display.

From the 2006 SSE YEarbook listing for King Humbert.

From Belgium;aka Re Umberto),indet,red shaped fruit, excellent paste

From Denmark:, aka Konig Humbert, indet,pear shaped, egg sized,scarlet fruits in clusters of 8-10 or more, tasty,amazingly prolific, midseason but crops well until first frost ( smooth, slightly thick skin), described in Vilmorin 1885, introduced to Denmark same period, trialed by Royal Hort Soc England in1887,reintroduced to England in1970's from Gatersleben Gene Bank.

&&&&

No mention of nipples and I went back to Bill Minkey's listing and he said nothing about nipples either,his source was Norbert in France, as I described above and I'm pretty sure that my seeds were from Bill and I don't remember any nipples either,just the tough skin.


Carolyn

[Tom Wagner]

Carolyn, the translation, albeit awkward, is below.
If someone could edit the translation from Italian to English a bit better...an early thanks!


It sounds like the King Umberto was dropped from a national listing due to a problem of synonyms, not to say we have problems in this country. lol. Tomatoes with the same name, homonymic, but actually different varieties...may be the issue. A variety can be more popular by name than by the actual tomato seed.

"The king Umberto is one of the few national tomatoes at that time which was appreciated and cultivated in half of the world."

The question I have is...Are some of the Humbert, Humberto, Umberto collections more like San Marzano or the more oval Umberto?





[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/yIMmC0m.png?1[/IMG]

King Umberto, a tomato in exile

I began to discover the existence of the tomato King Umberto reading a rehash of the wonderful book of Vilmorin-Andrieux "The Vegetable Garden" which in turn was the American edition of a book published previously in France by this family of seed companies, whose name stands still today. Printed the first time in 1885, it was a collection of news on biodiversities semi commercial at that time spread between the two continents, and describes hundreds of plants with meticulous care, giving also information on their culinary usage and the culture to which they were linked. Also contains information on the techniques of agriculture before the days of chemistry. Contemplating the engravings on this book of the ancient plants i was dazzled by the changeable forms that the biodiversitdipinge on the palette of the fields and i have asked perchabbiamo lost all this without doing anything, without intervening before. For a long time i waited that arise some initiative in Italy that followed the example of seed savers in the rest of the world and offer my collaboration, but in vain. For this reason alone I broke the delay and i felt was appropriate to launch my proposals. AND the history of tomato King Umberto seems to be made specially for you to understand what happened to the old varietche without us are defenseless. The king Umberto one of the few national tomatoes at that time was appreciated and cultivated in half of the world. This is the main reason to put it back on the book of Vilmorin. This same tomato found him in the some time even on a whole series of old catalogs of the catalog (Sgaravatti)? Tideland Signal Limited company ranging from 1910 to 1940, received on loan from a collector. The descriptions some synthetic dedicated to him described him as a "must": no catalog could do without him. The image shown on the catalogs was always the same as the book of Vilmorin: a nice tomato from dark oval shape. Also the captions were always very generous. But where today the tomato King Umberto? I began to ask him at my cooperative of seed growers. One of the engineers was remembered to have seen him in a field test of the ETOILE PEREIRE in the midst of hundreds more. But puancora purchase? Where can I find it? Was wondering if anyone without that nobody i knew respond. On commercial catalogs available to me there was no and i began to suspect that it was also deleted him from official registers. Cosper short approached the question to an official of the ministry to know what company seed nor might preserve purity the seed. Dear the negative response:
"This year the King Umberto was deleted.
"As cleared, but a tomato historical, has more than centoventanni. You know that was called cosdal name of the King that unified Italy?
"Yes of course, but the problem that the seed companies that were selling, made into the sachets at breakie seeds of tomatoes that resemble but were not King Umberto and then THE ETOILE PEREIRE nor has decreed that the deletion".
"But I hope that in seed banks there is still a sample."
"Unfortunately we gicercato and not if it finds"
"But then you are telling me that due to the lack of controls pudefinire extinct."
"Perhaps it still find ourselves, then we are proposing to seed companies."
Then phone the Etoile Pereire, the ministerial component that should have monitored the distribution in purity also of this cultivar, and I confirm that everything. Then I called the bank half of arcades that the only to have a collection of italian tomatoes and curator i responds that "the King Umberto then cossimile to S. Marzano. What's the problem?
"But she has never seen that S. Marzano slightly squared and and umbonate profiles and King Umberto perfectly oval?
"For me are the same thing".
"Then the king Umberto does not exist: but then what they sold the catalogs of the Tideland Signal Limited in the past?
"It is a matter of synonyms".
The evidences are under the eyes of all instead: the official catalog shows the different types of S. Marzano but never defines the King Umberto as homonym. The fact that no one wants to admit that a varietche is part of the Italian history has been lost due to negligence, perchchi was paid to monitor or to preserve has not done so. Which solution puadottare a seed saver (as me that I subscribe to Seed Savers Exchange 45$ sob! I pay)? Simple: open the yearbook of the seeds in an exchange where there was always a place for the King Humbert Tomato collected in Italy in the years '50 is still kept by several members of the network. A Christmas list, $2 and the tomato in exile back more quickly that the males of the house of Savoy. And this summer he grew up in my garden, patiently enduring two months of drought the poor soil and stony of my hill, the few cures of the undersigned that transforms always the garden in a survival camp, giving despite all good fruits ovals, and dark red as in the engravings of 115 years ago. Great for dry and sauce, vigorous plants, too, if you want the seeds not harrassment in a row that i have not for all. Thanks seed savers, thanks Earth, through Heaven. It takes me a little to be happy, but that satisfaction.

Alberto Olivucci
President of CiviltContadina
June 30, 2003

When Olivucci writes: if you want the seeds do not harrassment in a row that I do not have for all you can trust him: last year gave it i wondered, me li has promised me he sent (the elbow macaroni can infestargli the ortho!!! ). I've had at last this year, by another member of CiviltContadina. AND having cosavuto way to accommodate myself to my garden the King Umberto, can I add that I don't see how it might be confused with the San Marzano. Suffice it to say the photography reported in opening page, that plays a sample of the harvest, for realizing it.
In addition, on a treaty the years '50 the two varietsono both cited as precisely two varietdistinte. It is worth to carry the pitch, that between the tomatoes to keep lists:
The San Marzano, originating in the province of Salerno, cylindrical, elongated, with two lateral depressions parallel along 6-8 cm with flesh , red-alive, a few seeds and peel red-alive;
And a few lines below:
Between the tomatoes from Serbian, much sought after in the South, are prevalent Fiascone or King Umberto, the Fiaschetto, or tomato sauce a bunch of Nocera; the bulb, which probably derived from San Marzano; ( ... ) These varietdebbono be late and matured on the tree eradicated and hung in a dry place and possibly sunny; usually hanging to the houses on the walls facing south ( * ).
Therefore not only two varietdiverse but also belonging to two classes of varietdiverse, preserves the one, by Serbian the other. But don't try everything cisu treaties and catalogs contemporaries: as you rightly note Olivucci, King Umberto have lost track.

Philip Eugenio Tontini

( * ) Enrico Pantanelli, herbaceous crops, Agricultural Editions, Bologna, 1955

Tideland Signal is likely a poor translation ...

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/weuIHdi.png?1[/IMG]


[QUOTE]Tideland Signal Limited company ranging from 1910 to 1940
catalog Sgaravatti [/QUOTE

Tomato seed of the variety fiascone translates to little flagons. Aka pitchers

Like San Marzano?

Fiaschetto as pictured below...means flask.


The cross I made with King Umberto pollen was to Flaming Burst.

Flaming Burst is a teardrop or droplet shaped tomato. Crossing a
Gocciolina = Droplet or Teardrop = Lacrima to a fiaschetto or fiascone shape is going to come up with a variety of shapes in the F-2. Luck will have it that I will find even new shapes eventually. Whatever historic tomato clone King Umberto derives from is of no real concern excepting keeping the record straight.

Ooh...I just got a message from my source for the KIng Umberto...it was Underwood/Terroir
The selection I have should look like this...

[carolyn137]

Tom, I don't have time to make but a few comments since my surgery is scheduled for this week and I have lots of other priorities right now/

While the Underwood link, which is one I also have, shows what they call King Humbert and speak of Vilmorin, what is shown at Vilmorin, as I typed above, are square looking fruits that are often seen, not what Underwood and some others show.

There was one of your links, I don't remember which one, that did show square looking fruits.

In my 2013 seed offer,seeds produced in the summer of 2012, there were three small red cherries offered;

Durmitor, from Serbia
Nano Cilega, fromItaly
Fiaschetto, from Italy

I had all three grown at home here in 2012 and in my notes I say that Fiaschetto was a small red cherry with a nipple, not square, nothing like that/

Nano Cilega was a small red cherry/

And the best tasting one was Durmitor,also a small red cherry, from Serbia.

I put up a performance thread each Fall I make a seed offe r so that folks can report back what they got, how they liked it,many show pictures, so we'll see what others got for Fiaschetto. I know already that there was probably crossed seed for Durmitor, and I'm curious to see what others got for that one.

Here's my seed offer for 2013, seeds produced in 2012, just so you can take a Look if you want to.

http://tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=26028

The Italians keep insisting that King Humbert originated in Italy, I can understand why, but that goes against the Ventmarin info that says it was named in the US in honor of King Umberto. Yes, presumably something brought to the US by Italian immigrants, but unnamed, which was so true of so many seeds brought to the US by immigrants from many countries.

But what Underwood is selling, and refers to Vilmorin, is not what Vilmorin says it should be and I'm glad I copied word for word what was in the Vilmorin English edition of 1885, which I've had for many years.

No nipples were shown on the line drawings from Vilmorin, as noted in what I copied from the description.

So what questions remain?

As I said, you did have one link that showed, in color, the square shape of what Roi Umberto is supposed to be, but I don't have time to go back and note which one it was.

Carolyn

[Fusion_power]

The only tomatoes I know of that can be used as winter pantry types are from Italy. King Humbert fills the bill.

DarJones

[Tom Wagner]

Went out to the tomato plot where I did most of my crossing. Picked over seventy different hybrids with the string tags attached. Even found another variety coded 32 with a single fruit which has King Umberto as a male parent.

As I was talking on the phone with Stephen Scott co owner of Terroir Seeds...the seed source for my single plant of King Umberto....I found that plant and took a picture of it. This photo will stand as the prototype or standard of what I had used.



It looks like the one on Terroir's page and not at all squared off as a Marzano would be...no neck and a distinct nipple on the bed end.

Any other strain or variety passing as Rey Humberto or other spelling is a moot point now. All of my breeding lines will emancipate from the Terroir line.

[MrBig46]

I see, that discussion continue. I add by that time only this picture (King Umberto in the illustrations kept to the Museum of the Royal Palace of Portici).


Vladimír

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Fusion_power

The only tomatoes I know of that can be used as winter pantry types are from Italy. King Humbert fills the bill.

DarJones

Darrel, there are many winter "hanging" ones from Spain as well. Here's a Google search;

http://www.google.com/#fp=927651d2b2...matoes&start=0

And on the second page of that search here's a link to Alan B's site where he's discussing the gene involved with winter types and talks about the Spanish ones, and you participated in that thread so maybe you forgot about the Spanish ones.

http://alanbishop.★★★★★★★★★.com/thread/7115

It doesn't surpise me that it was mentioned that the winter ones no doubt appeared in Spain first b'c that's where the Spanish brought back the first ones from Mexico and the first ones were yellow. Red ones then eventually appeared in Spain and it was Spanish missionaries who took them to Italy. Yes. Italy also had some of those first yellow ones from Spain as well, as in Pomodoro, aka pomme de Oro, aka Apple of Gold.

Andrew Smith's book on the history of the tomato does an excellent job of outlining where tomatoes were distributed by the Spanish after taking them from Mexico.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...Smith+tomatoes

Andy has written many interesting books as well as being a large contibutor of that Oxford Encyclopedia that's listed. His expertise has been histories of different items we eat

http://alanbishop.★★★★★★★★★.com/thread/7115

Yes, longkeeper types are discussed in the above link as well, but also discussed specifically are the ones that are hung up as winter ones.

Carolyn

Edited to add that I'm sorry that the one link was disabled twice, but you can find it on the second page of the general Google link that I also linked to.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Tom Wagner

Went out to the tomato plot where I did most of my crossing. Picked over seventy different hybrids with the string tags attached. Even found another variety coded 32 with a single fruit which has King Umberto as a male parent.

As I was talking on the phone with Stephen Scott co owner of Terroir Seeds...the seed source for my single plant of King Umberto....I found that plant and took a picture of it. This photo will stand as the prototype or standard of what I had used.



It looks like the one on Terroir's page and not at all squared off as a Marzano would be...no neck and a distinct nipple on the bed end.

Any other strain or variety passing as Rey Humberto or other spelling is a moot point now. All of my breeding lines will emancipate from the Terroir line.

A moot point for you Tom, but not to some of us.

I know the Terroir site, nee Underwood, and have received correspondence from them asking me to send varieties for trial. But since I already did so to several seed sites I didn't take on this one as well, and in addition had my reasons for doing that.

Carolyn

[Tom Wagner]

The picture above is the fruit extracted for seed. It will represent my introgression of this clone/variety/version into the hybrids and OP recombinants. A notation will be added to the pedigree that Terroir was the source....not Chiswich Red, not PI 131880 from Argentina ('Rey Humberto').

If someone wants me to use a different version of Humberto/Umberto in breeding..send me that seed!

Below is a picture of my creation FLAMING BURST. It has a teardrop shape which might be interesting in the hybrid that I made with it and King Umberto (Terroir).



The Flaming Burst retains the green gel around the seed due to the linkage with Verde Claro background. The fruit has that aromatic, sweet taste of Flammee and the sweet "grassy" flavor of Verde Claro. The hybrid of FB and King Umberto (Terroir) could be called "UMBELIEVABLE" or "Umbilical Discord" as a way to honor the many history buffs on the Humberto series of historical tomato varieties.

[MrBig46]

Originally Posted by Tom Wagner

The picture above is the fruit extracted for seed. It will represent my introgression of this clone/variety/version into the hybrids and OP recombinants. A notation will be added to the pedigree that Terroir was the source....not Chiswich Red, not PI 131880 from Argentina ('Rey Humberto').

If someone wants me to use a different version of Humberto/Umberto in breeding..send me that seed!

Below is a picture of my creation FLAMING BURST. It has a teardrop shape which might be interesting in the hybrid that I made with it and King Umberto (Terroir).



The Flaming Burst retains the green gel around the seed due to the linkage with Verde Claro background. The fruit has that aromatic, sweet taste of Flammee and the sweet "grassy" flavor of Verde Claro. The hybrid of FB and King Umberto (Terroir) could be called "UMBELIEVABLE" or "Umbilical Discord" as a way to honor the many history buffs on the Humberto series of historical tomato varieties.

I am sorry, I look at that tomato and I see more Principe Borghese than Re Umberto.
Vladimír

[Tom Wagner]

Since Terroir Seeds also carries Principe Borghese....it makes me wonder how closely related the Italian tomatoes are. What exchange of genetic material occurred over the years in years in so many places and so many years?

[carolyn137]

Tom, I couldn't sleep, too much on my mind right now, so went back and reread this thread.

You asked about backgrounds, others experiences with it, said you were already working with it and never said your source was Terroir seeds until post #19;

So I am not at all surprised that you said the seeds you got from them would be your prototype.

However, when I looked at the pictures from those catalogs at Ventmarin, I see squared off fruits in most of them. When I look at the Vilmorin description, which I copied to here, I see mention of squared off ones When I look at the pictures that Vladimir put up I see squared off ones.

When I look at Dee's picture I see squared off ones.

You asked anyone to send you true seeds, but you'd already started your project with the Terrior seeds.I think it's reasonable to conclude that Dee's seeds might well have come from Bill Minkey from an SSE Yearbook, as were mine, and Bill got them from Norbert in France in that huge trade we did in 1992.

Summary? I'm speaking only for myself here, obviously, but I can't help thinking that Vladimir might agree with me, and that's that seeds for fruits that could be, and were squared off were available, but that you are no longer an SSE member who gets the annual yearbooks, so didn't know of the listings for it for quite a few years now, so just concentrated on what you could get commercially, which were the seeds from Terrior.

Tania listed three sources for 2013 as well, but I didn't check that out, and I didn't remember to check out her seed sources prior to 2013 except to note that she She didn't list Terrior.

OK, back to bed, perchance to dream.

Carolyn

[MrBig46]

The tomato King Umberto is an old Italian variety, selected in the nineteenth century, whose name is a tribute to King Umberto I of Italy, for his first visit to Naples in 1878. It is an excellent tomato sauce and preserves, but also from Serbia: at the end of the season if they estirpavano plants and was put on the walls facing south, to dry them.

http://oryctesblog.blogspot.cz/2012/...e-umberto.html

I think, that tomato Re Umberto has two history from 1878 year. One is history comercial ( the bigining Vilmorin) and second is a less interesting history, which farmers wrote on the
root of Vesuvio. Maybe Re Umberto is planting there in some small hamlet where farmers bought seeds never. We possibly don´t fight out this problem on the internet.

http://www.agricoltura.regione.campa.../piennolo.html

Vladimír