So called Intense Tomatoes

[murgatroyd]

I don't believe there was anything in the article about taste. And since when are slicing tomatoes supposed to be crisp?

www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=184115

[Tom Wagner]

Since you put that link up, I just had to look at the article.

what’s special about the new breed of tomatoes, known abroad as “intense tomatoes,” is that they contain less liquid than regular tomatoes.

“What this means is that they have a longer shelf life, they slice and dice easily and leave much less of a mess. While other tomatoes are squishy and leak, intense tomatoes are much firmer. You can put them in a sandwich and not have to worry about it getting soggy in the middle, you can cut them into a salad and not have it come out all wet.”

Most tomatoes in the food industry are used as condiments, therefore flavor is from the other food it is on. Chopping or slicing tomatoes is done when the tomatoes are still a tad under-ripe. Most heirlooms are sold over-ripe and are soft, mushy, squishy, juice running all over the place, never mind that they just might have some kind of flavor.

Many of the Taco joints want tomatoes that are not juicing all over the place, but then I repeat myself. Hamburgers need slices that don't smash when they are sliced, and must be firm enough so that the food preparer does not have the tomato slice falling apart for lack of firmness. Tomatoes are sliced as thin as precooked bacon.

The market place is demanding firmness and lack of excessive juicing. The "Intense" tomato is just trying to meet the needs of the food preps.

I have done much of what the "Intense" tomato is touting to be. I combined high pectin, rin genes, low brix/high juiciness into hybrids and for the last ten years or so I have also inserted high lycopene, shiny skins, and occasionally...some flavor. I should include some of these lines, and many of my newer F-2's together for my winter listings. I rather like tomatoes that are both juicy and firm, but juicy only on the palate, much like eating an apple.

If I ever get my act together, I should try to make stem cuttings of the best recombinants and propagate those. It seems often that my best lines are the result of unusual pairing of genes occurring in F-2, backcrosses, etc. Any time I want really firm tomatoes I have to have heterozygous rin or nor genes. If I want flavor, I have to have homozygousity.

I am hoping someday to market seed or plants from F-2 progenies in which only one in 16 will be perfect tomatoes and that one won't be stable...that should be enough to infuriate just about everyone.