Heirloom tomato
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An heirloom tomato is an open-pollinated (non-hybrid) cultivar of tomato. Heirloom tomatoes have become increasingly popular and more readily available in recent years.
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[edit] Requirements
The definition of the use of the word heirloom to describe plants is highly debated.
One school of thought places an age or date point on the cultivars. For instance, one school says that the seeds must be over 100 years old, others 50 years, and others pick an arbitrary date of 1945 which marks the end of World War II and roughly the beginning of widespread hybrid use by growers and seed companies or industrial agriculture. It was after the end of World War II that hybrid seeds began to proliferate in the commercial seed trade.
Another way of defining heirloom cultivars is to use the definition of the word "heirloom" in its truest sense. Under this interpretation, a true heirloom is a cultivar that has been nurtured, selected, and handed down from one family member to another for many generations.
Additionally, there is another category of cultivars that could be classified as "commercial heirlooms," cultivars that were introduced many generations ago and were of such merit that they have been saved, maintained and handed down - even if the seed company has gone out of business or otherwise dropped the line. Additionally, many old commercial releases have actually been family heirlooms that a seed company obtained and introduced.
Regardless of a person's specific interpretation, most authorities agree that heirlooms, by definition, must be open-pollinated. They may also be open pollinated varieties that were bred and stabilized using classic breeding practices. It is currently generally agreed that no genetically modified organisms can be considered heirloom cultivars.
[edit] Cultivars
Heirloom tomato cultivars can be found in a wide variety of colors, shapes, flavors and sizes. Some cultivars can be prone to cracking or lack disease resistance. As with most garden plants, cultivars can be acclimated over several gardening seasons to thrive in a geographical location through careful selection and seed saving.
Some cultivars are:
- Big Rainbow – One of dozens of large fruited yellow tomatoes with red swirls, having a mild, sweet flavor. Hillbilly, below, is another. According to some sources, tomatoes of this color were never sold by American seed companies; their origin is not known.
- Blaby Special – A red fruited cultivar grown in the village of Blaby in Leicestershire until just after World War II. It was the main tomato cultivar supplied through England during the war. The cultivar ceased to be cultivated when the Shoult's Tomato Farm was closed after the war. The cultivar was brought back into cultivation in 2006 as a result of a campaign by Russell Sharp of Lancaster University. It may have resulted from either a mutation or cross-breed of an older cultivar known as Anwell.
- Black Krim – A dark red to brown cultivar often cited online as being from from the "island of Krim" in the Black Sea. It is likely that this is a translation error, since there is no island of Krim, and the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea is known in Ukrainian as Krim.
- Brandywine – A wide ranging family of heirloom tomatoes, from yellow to dark purple. Fruits are large, often a pound or more.
- Cherokee Purple – One of the very first known "black", or deep dusky rose colored cultivars that are becoming so popular. Named in 1990 by Craig LeHoullier, who received seeds of an unnamed cultivar in the mail from J. D. Green of Tennessee. Mr. Green indicated that the "purple" tomato cultivar was given by the Cherokee Indians to his neighbor "100 years ago".
- Green Zebra – Often called an heirloom, it is not. It is an open-pollinated cultivar bred and released by Tom Wagner of California in 1985.
- Hillbilly – See Big Rainbow, above. It is known in regular leaf and potato leaf forms.
- Jubilee – A heavy yielding, golden fruit. Released by Burpee Seed Co. in 1943.
- Mortgage Lifter – One of the more famous heirlooms due to its fanciful history, described in great detail in the catalog of the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange company. The enormous pink tomatoes are sweet and tasty.
- Traveler – An open pollinated pink tomato in the 6 ounce range. Another cultivar commonly referred to as an heirloom and just as often erroneously listed as "Arkansas Traveler". Released by the University of Arkansas in 1970.
