Subject: The Growing Edge: Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

From: [email-masked] (Patrick Kane)
Date: 1 Feb 94 16:02:43 GMT

Recent tomato research has made amazing advances in increasing the solid
content of tomatoes at large.  Martin P. Waterman reports about these
stunning discoveries in tomato science in the current issue of The Growing
Edge:

---------------

Tomatoes have undergone a phenomenal evolution since some Spanish
priests found them growing in Mexico around 1550. These tomatoes were
small, yellow and, at first, grown mostly as ornamentals.

Today's tomatoes hardly resemble these earlier varieties. More
interestingly, the changes that the tomato has gone through since may be
few in comparison to the changes in the near future. It is likely that
the tomato we grow and eat today could be as foreign to our
grandchildren as the older historic varieties are to us.

The volume of tomato research is phenomenal and reflects the great
economic importance of this crop. The North American tomato crop is
worth billions of dollars. Think about what you may have eaten in the
last few days. You are sure to find that you ate a tomato or some form
of tomato in a salad, catsup, soup, stew, pasta, sandwich, beverage or
cocktail.

A Solid Future

Water has to be removed from tomatoes when they are processed into such
products as tomato soups, spaghetti sauce, catsup and other foods. The
more water that has to be removed, the higher the cost of processing.

According to estimates from the tomato industry, a one percent increase
in the solid content of tomatoes could result in savings of between 70
to 80 million dollars each year.

Work is under way to develop tomatoes that have a higher ratio of solids
to water. This work is currently under way at the USDA Western Regional
Research Center in Albany, California.

Most tomatoes have a solid content of about 5 to 5.5 percent. The lab
has already produced tomatoes with a solid content of between 8 and 13
percent. One over-achiever registered an astonishing 15 percent. Plant
breeders at Rogers NK Seed Company are already hybridizing these high-
solid tomatoes with the best commercial varieties.

The procedure for producing high-solid tomatoes starts with a special
gel-like mixture of nutrients. Healthy tomato plants are cut into tiny
bits and placed on the gel. Some form roots and become plants. This
tissue culture propagation of plants causes a phenomenon known as
somaclonal variation.

---------------

So begins this issue's featured article from The Growing Edge magazine.

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