Manipulating Tomato Flavor?

[livinonfaith]

As far as the over-watering issue goes, I've found that picking tomatoes before they reach full color definitely cuts down on both cracking and flavor issues, especially in my container tomatoes which have to be watered heavily and often.

I let mine ripen about halfway on the vine. They might get picked a little sooner if there is a forecast for rain, a little later if no rain is forecast and I'm not having to water every day. I'm also learning to pick the garden right before I have to water, not after.

Also in my experience, the longer that the tomato sits inside without reaching a point where it starts to deteriorate, the better it will be. I've found some varieties that I thought were bland at first, but if picked just a little early and left for a week or two on the counter, they are delicious, sweet and juicy!

Some tomatoes don't like to sit and will deteriorate quickly after being picked, though, so that "aging" technique doesn't work as well with every variety. But almost all of them can be picked at least a little early and ripened for a few days. That may make the difference between them getting too much water too late in their development.

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by chastom

How about planting companion plants with the toms ,like basil ,this is said to enhance flavor .

I am a huge advocate of companion planting. So believe me this is hard to post. But in side by side comparisons I never saw a taste difference for basil. Yield yes. Better yield! Less problems with insects and disease yes. Overall healthier plants!

But taste? No difference to my palate.

The only thing that I have personally used that enhanced flavor was Rosemary, and Rosemary can't be grown with Basil. They fight each other so badly that neither one ends up being beneficial to the tomatoes. However Rosemary is perennial in mild climates, so I usually pick a tomato or two to grow beside my Rosemary bush. Then my basil I plant with the rest of my tomatoes.

[Tapout]

I wish I could taste every type of tomato and make a list of what I liked and what I didn't. There are literally thousands and thousands and thousands of different tomatoes out there and I don't know if I ever will be able to grow them all in one life time

[TightenUp]

Originally Posted by Redbaron

for basil. Yield yes. Better yield! Less problems with insects and disease yes. Overall healthier plants!

The only thing that I have personally used that enhanced flavor was Rosemary, and Rosemary can't be grown with Basil. They fight each other so badly that neither one ends up being beneficial to the tomatoes. However Rosemary is perennial in mild climates, so I usually pick a tomato or two to grow beside my Rosemary bush. Then my basil I plant with the rest of my tomatoes.

when do you find is the best time of season to plant basil as a companion?

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Redbaron

I am a huge advocate of companion planting. So believe me this is hard to post. But in side by side comparisons I never saw a taste difference for basil. Yield yes. Better yield! Less problems with insects and disease yes. Overall healthier plants!

But taste? No difference to my palate.

The only thing that I have personally used that enhanced flavor was Rosemary, and Rosemary can't be grown with Basil. They fight each other so badly that neither one ends up being beneficial to the tomatoes. However Rosemary is perennial in mild climates, so I usually pick a tomato or two to grow beside my Rosemary bush. Then my basil I plant with the rest of my tomatoes.

Someone else asked you when to plant basil, but my question/comment, is different.

When Louise Riotte first brought out her book, Carrots Love? was it tomatoes, about companion planting I tried manyof the suggestions and ALWAYS using control plants for the same variety and planted far away from the experimental ones.

First, I never experienced any taste difference with basil. In a culinary sense basil and tomatoes love each other, but in my experience no difference in taste. One would assume that the roots of basil secrete something that then has to move through the soil to be taken up by the tomato roots, but tomato roots take up nutrients that are simple, not formed compounds released by basil, and to be honest, I don't even know what basil roots do secrete, but moving through soil filled with bacteria and fungi and various enzymes, I don't think they go far.

Better yield, better tolerance to insects and disease, from companion planting with basil?

How can one account for that?Yes, I know that not everything has a scientific explanation, that's for sure, but I'm having a hard time trying to understand how basil can do all that you say. Never did that for me and myplants and the diseases and insects that my plants could experience.

Not doubting you but trying to understand, especially with foliage diseases where it's known that specific receptor sites have to be present for infection to occur.

Scott?

Carolyn

[Melissa569]

Originally Posted by Tapout

I wish I could taste every type of tomato and make a list of what I liked and what I didn't. There are literally thousands and thousands and thousands of different tomatoes out there and I don't know if I ever will be able to grow them all in one life time

Ohhh, I kinda got to do that when I went to a tomato festival one year! They had a BIG long tent, and an endless buffet of tomato variety samples.. And you bet my little hiny was walking the whole length of it trying sample after sample, lol. Very educating

[jamserg]

Basil has never had any affect on my tomatoes (neither taste nor growth/diseases) in my 15 years of growing. Some of my plants were literally surrounded by basil plants and were the same as the plants with no basil in site. Just my 2 cents

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by TightenUp

when do you find is the best time of season to plant basil as a companion?

I plant Basil in the spring, either the same time or maybe a week or two after the tomatoes.

[Redbaron]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Someone else asked you when to plant basil, but my question/comment, is different.

When Louise Riotte first brought out her book, Carrots Love? was it tomatoes, about companion planting I tried manyof the suggestions and ALWAYS using control plants for the same variety and planted far away from the experimental ones.

First, I never experienced any taste difference with basil. In a culinary sense basil and tomatoes love each other, but in my experience no difference in taste. One would assume that the roots of basil secrete something that then has to move through the soil to be taken up by the tomato roots, but tomato roots take up nutrients that are simple, not formed compounds released by basil, and to be honest, I don't even know what basil roots do secrete, but moving through soil filled with bacteria and fungi and various enzymes, I don't think they go far.

Better yield, better tolerance to insects and disease, from companion planting with basil?

How can one account for that?Yes, I know that not everything has a scientific explanation, that's for sure, but I'm having a hard time trying to understand how basil can do all that you say. Never did that for me and myplants and the diseases and insects that my plants could experience.

Not doubting you but trying to understand, especially with foliage diseases where it's known that specific receptor sites have to be present for infection to occur.

Scott?

Carolyn

I am not sure of causality. I can speculate, but as for causality? That is above my pay grade. I suspect it probably has something to do with either this:Fighting Microbes with microbes Or possibly this: Down and dirty Maybe even this: Interplant Communication of Tomato Plants through Underground Common Mycorrhizal Networks

Or maybe something else thus far undiscovered?

I do know that it has been confirmed by others. Yield, pest density, and tomato flavor effects of companion planting in garden-scale studies incorporating tomato, basil, and Brussels sprout

[travis]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Paddy,many light yellow and so called whites have a pink blush inside, sometimes only on the inside, but that doesn't make them a bicolor b'c it's fairly well known that temps can also be involved with those pink splashes on the inside as well as at the blossom end.

A true bicolor, as in two colors,always has two colors on the exterior and the seconday exterior color to develop on the inside.

A true bicolor is one that starts out one color,most often yellow/gold, then a second exterior color, usually pinkish red, starts from the blossom end and colors the fruit on the exterior to varying degrees near the stem end, depending on the specific variety.

Are we talking about tomatoes that carry the ry, yellow/red modifier? If so, these tomatoes can express central flesh remaining pale yellow except for occasional red streaks, or masses of red flesh. In fact, different fruits on the same plants sometimes will show various amounts of red coloration through the interior yellow flesh. Climatic conditions appear to influence the degree of lycopene streaking that occurs through the interior flesh, as well as the degree of red blushing that becomes visible through the skin. For example, the same tomato variety grown in Texas may express far more red streaking and surface color than when grown in Wisconsin. Moreover, the same plant may have early season fruit that shows little red streaking, and later season fruit that is heavily stained with red.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by travis

Are we talking about tomatoes that carry the ry, yellow/red modifier? If so, these tomatoes can express central flesh remaining pale yellow except for occasional red streaks, or masses of red flesh. In fact, different fruits on the same plants sometimes will show various amounts of red coloration through the interior yellow flesh. Climatic conditions appear to influence the degree of lycopene streaking that occurs through the interior flesh, as well as the degree of red blushing that becomes visible through the skin. For example, the same tomato variety grown in Texas may express far more red streaking and surface color than when grown in Wisconsin. Moreover, the same plant may have early season fruit that shows little red streaking, and later season fruit that is heavily stained with red.

Travis, which commonly known yellow or so called white varieties have that modifier? I don't know, but perhaps you could give some known examples of specific varieties that are known to have that modifier.

But what you said above is essentially what I was trying to say in terms of most yellow and whites that do show a pinkish/red blush either at the blossom end or inside, or both and those expressions are highly variable.

You noted climactic changes, I noted temps and yes, it would also apply to where, in a geographic area a variety is grown.

Genes I like them, we all do, but the phenotype does not always express the genotype.

Carolyn, whose personal phenotype certainly has never expressed the potential inherent in her genotype.

[travis]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Travis, which commonly known yellow or so called white varieties have that modifier? I don't know, but perhaps you could give some known examples of specific varieties that are known to have that modifier.

Is there other genetics that causes "true bicolor" tomatoes as opposed to not-so-true bicolors?

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Paddy,many light yellow and so called whites have a pink blush inside, sometimes only on the inside, but that doesn't make them a bicolor b'c it's fairly well known that temps can also be involved with those pink splashes on the inside as well as at the blossom end.



A true bicolor is one that starts out one color,most often yellow/gold, then a second exterior color, usually pinkish red, starts from the blossom end and colors the fruit on the exterior to varying degrees near the stem end, depending on the specific variety ...

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by travis

Is there other genetics that causes "true bicolor" tomatoes as opposed to not-so-true bicolors?

I can't answer your question Bill since I don't have a handle on the genetics of what I call the true gold/red bicolors. I don't know that anyone has Ided any specific genes involved.

What I do know is that the accidental cross between Brandyhwine and Tad in Craig's garden gave us Lucky Cross and LittleLucky, both gold/red bicolors. Brandywine I know and Tad, which is striped, I also know well b'c Tad Smith sent me seeds that resulted from a 3 way cross he did and while he said I had a 1/64 chance of finding what he wanted, I found it with the first 12 plants put out.

There's Big White Pink Stripes and many other similar ones that some folks call bicolors, but in my experience they aren't bicolors b/c the same variety grown in different years can differ, as we discussed above.

I don't find that with the Gold/red bicolors. Mary Robinson, for exaample, will always ripen up to almost pure red up to the stem, which is different from most others I've grown and does so consistently.

I don't know if that helps, or not, to answer your question, but at least I'm trying to do so.

Carolyn

[Fusion_power]

Templeton found this in oz.


http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/...matoes/4576086

There is a linked audio file that is worth listening to.

DarJones

[travis]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

I can't answer your question Bill since I don't have a handle on the genetics of what I call the true gold/red bicolors. I don't know that anyone has Ided any specific genes involved.

So then, are "true bicolors" defined not by genetics, rather by arbitrary declaration and according to how much red streaking is visible to the person who makes the arbitrary declaration?

Is the decision whether a variety is a "true bicolor" arbitrary to the extent even that a variety may be declared a bicolor when grown in one region, climate, or time of year to achieve the arbitrary benchmark coloration, but not when the same variety is grown in another region, climate or time of year that inhibits the same inherent expression?