Space Tomatoes

[beasl004]

My son finished up his school year last week and on the last day his teacher gave him a peat pod with 4 seedlings in it. They had planted the seeds as part of a class project and had let them germinate on the teacher's desk in the classroom. The seeds were flown in the International Space Station and then distributed to elementary schools. Unfortunately my son doesn't remember anything past "these seeds flew in space", so we don't know when they flew or what variety they are. He asked for them since we have tomatoes planted and he wanted to grow his own "Space Tomatoes". The seedlings had just gotten their first true leaves when he brought them home so we potted them up individually and they seem to be doing fine. Now I have to find a place for 4 more tomato plants so we can figure out what they are.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by beasl004

My son finished up his school year last week and on the last day his teacher gave him a peat pod with 4 seedlings in it. They had planted the seeds as part of a class project and had let them germinate on the teacher's desk in the classroom. The seeds were flown in the International Space Station and then distributed to elementary schools. Unfortunately my son doesn't remember anything past "these seeds flew in space", so we don't know when they flew or what variety they are. He asked for them since we have tomatoes planted and he wanted to grow his own "Space Tomatoes". The seedlings had just gotten their first true leaves when he brought them home so we potted them up individually and they seem to be doing fine. Now I have to find a place for 4 more tomato plants so we can figure out what they are.

Here are the details

http://tomatosphere.org/

And back in 1984 the same thing was done in terms of distributing tomatoseeds,but I can't see why they would ever be using those.

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/tra...king_food.html

Some pictures for you for the current ones in space with Scot Kelly

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...24.iSc048DbFRc

Carolyn

[beasl004]

Thanks Carolyn, this helps a lot with the background info. The only thing we knew was that these had been marked as having flown.

[Scooty]

Looks like it's a hybrid plum tomato from H.J. Heinz Canada - H9478 F1 (source).

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by beasl004

Thanks Carolyn, this helps a lot with the background info. The only thing we knew was that these had been marked as having flown.

As a former teacher,not of little kids,the teacher IMO should have given some background information and used the opportunity to talk about space travel, and why all those missions have been flown and will be flown.

The pictures should have also shown the cooperation of others from different countries,all working together,which is again,I think a good point to be made.

Carolyn

[dheideman]

I actually picked a set of these up myself, to play with. Here is a photo of my seed packets from the second "Seeds In Space".

*EDIT* I thought SiSII and Tomatosphere were the same thing; they're not. My seeds are older, so yours are probably not the Rutgers California Supreme. The Heinz hybrid seems to be correct for current seeds: http://tomatosphere.org/faq#3