How The Taste Of Tomatoes Went Bad . . .

[plainolebill]

Don't confuse all hybrids with tomatoes grown for supermarkets. Hybrid tomatoes that were/are developed for home gardners are a whole lot different than those you get in the supermarket. I have a limited amount of space and live in an area that gets a low amount of heat compared to the rest of the country so growing heirlooms is pretty much a waste of time for me. I might get 3 or 4 ripe full sized heirlooms if I'm lucky or in the same space get 25 -30 Jet Stars which are darned tasty. We do grow Stupice, an extra early heirloom with mundane tasting tomatoes a little bit bigger than a golf ball - when the Jet Stars start coming, the Stupices get forgotten.

 

[digitS']

I am very inclined to agree with you, Bill.

Some of the hybrids are totally inappropriate for the soopermarket industry. There was a book that came out recently about growing tomatoes in Florida. Apparently, it is a very difficult location for the plants. (In my own tomato-challenged location, I hold onto this notion, anyway .) Anyway, finding disease-resistant genes and bringing them into an otherwise tasty tomato makes good sense. There is also the development of those that can actually ripen in our gardens - Bill's and mine but also where summer heat limits the seasons.

There's quite a story about the debut of Early Girl. It's French, did you know? The plant breeders didn't know what to do with it; they couldn't sell it to the farms. Here in the US, the wholesaler didn't want it until they were pushed into it by a horticulturalist in Reno. He was on the board of Peto Seed and wanted them to offer something for the home gardener with a limited season. Burpee retailed Early Girl back in the '70's. Of course, I avoided it for nearly 10 years . (I'm still playing the game that I will be able to entirely replace it . . . sometime, in the future . . . )

Steve

 

[so lucky]

With the high temps and now rain and humidity, my Rutgers tomatoes are splitting before they get ripe enough to eat. So I decided to pick several before they split. Unfortunately, they have green shoulders. Maybe I should say fortunately, since this is supposed to be a sign of a good tasting tomato. So I was wondering if I should leave the shoulder up when waiting for it to ripen, or turn the tomato upside down. And should I break the stem off or leave a bit? This is the first year in a long time that I have intentions of canning tomatoes and sauce, so I am trying harder to keep the tomatoes blemish free.
So far, nearly all the Romas I am getting have had blossom end rot, even with the crushed egg shells I put in the soil.

 

[hoodat]

Some heirlooms, such as Cherokee Purple, naturally have green shoulders even when fully ripe. If you look at a ripe tomato on the vine you will see a bulge in the stem a short way above the top of the tomato. That is a natural joint where nature intended the fruit to snap from the vine. Bend the joint sharply and it will usually pop apart (it pops easier in some varieties than others) There is an inner membrane in the stem at that point that heals over quickly on both the fruit and plant side. This protects the vine from bacterial and fungal invasion that can occur in an open wound. It also helps the fruit retain its juices in storage.

 

[digitS']

I realize that calcium deficiency makes for a problem with the plant moving fluids into the fruit, increasing the likelihood of blossom end rot. Still, I think that difficulty maintaining adequate soil moisture is the most frequent cause of BER.

Variable soil moisture & water on top the fruit are the most likely causes of splitting. The plant pulling in water rapidly may cause the the fruit to swell quicker than the skin can stretch to accommodate that swelling. Having water directly on the fruit, just makes matters worst.

Here, the weather is going from near record lows to highs in the upper nineties, and no rain. I don't have any tomatoes ripening. There are some green ones. If this weather continues -- I'll have trouble with soil moisture. Big Time.

Thru the summer, my rapidly-draining, rocky soil makes it difficult to have adequate moisture always available to the plants. Then . . . I use sprinklers . . . Some varieties are completely out-of-play because of their tendency to split. The cherished ones, those that won't usually split, are not necessarily tough-skinned. It is mostly that they have some flexibility to the skin that allows the fruit to swell more easily.

Steve

 

[so lucky]

Thanks, Hoodat, I never knew that about the bulge in the stem. Now that I know, it is pretty obvious.
digit'S, what are your most precious varieties? That don't split?
I think I am going to try some other kind of paste tomato next year, other than Roma. I chose it because it is an OP, but that doesn't do me much good if there are none that make it to harvest. Any suggestions on varities, anyone?

 

[digitS']

BER seems to be the "rap" on Roma. Don't know, I don't grow paste tomatoes.

Hybrids Big Beef, Goliath and Early Girls don't often split. Sweet 100 don't split and Sun Sugar are less inclined to split than Sungold.

Heirlooms Thessaloniki and Porters seldom split. First-timers, I had no problem with Dagma's Perfection splitting last year and Dr. Carolyn cherries came thru very well. Two years ago, Tigerella had no real splitting problems and I've got them again this year.

Steve

 

[grow_my_own]

I realize that calcium deficiency makes for a problem with the plant moving fluids into the fruit, increasing the likelihood of blossom end rot. Still, I think that difficulty maintaining adequate soil moisture is the most frequent cause of BER.

Variable soil moisture & water on top the fruit are the most likely causes of splitting. The plant pulling in water rapidly may cause the the fruit to swell quicker than the skin can stretch to accommodate that swelling. Having water directly on the fruit, just makes matters worst.

Here, the weather is going from near record lows to highs in the upper nineties, and no rain. I don't have any tomatoes ripening. There are some green ones. If this weather continues -- I'll have trouble with soil moisture. Big Time.

Thru the summer, my rapidly-draining, rocky soil makes it difficult to have adequate moisture always available to the plants. Then . . . I use sprinklers . . . Some varieties are completely out-of-play because of their tendency to split. The cherished ones, those that won't usually split, are not necessarily tough-skinned. It is mostly that they have some flexibility to the skin that allows the fruit to swell more easily.

Steve

As far as blossom-end rot, I can tell you that last year (our first year in this house), every tomato and curcurbit I planted got blossom-end rot, and we had ZERO yield last year (I only planted a few plants... we got here late in the season). I learned this year about adding calcium, so I added a half a handful or so of oyster shell calcium underneath each seedling when I transplanted it into the ground this past spring. Knock on wood, we have not lost a single piece of fruit this season... not even one... to BER.

For 3 years in a row (2008-2011), we didn't have any tomatoes ripen on the vine in the central valley of California because it didn't get hot enough. In 2010, I had 8 plants, each with about 10 pounds of fruit on it, and we had MAYBE 4 tomatoes get ripe on the vine that year. The rest either had to be ripened indoors in a brown paper bag or were fed to the chickens. It was very disappointing. In 2009 and 2010, the only tomatoes that fully ripened on the vine were the cherry tomatoes, and even THOSE had really thick skins (another sign of low temps).

We are growing 4 varieties of purple tomato this year (black zebra, black cherry, black krim, and Cherokee purple...had a black prince but I think it had a disease because the plant didn't grow... it got a single tomato on it, then the leaves withered up. The plant didn't die, but it did not fluorish as my other plants have. So I pulled it. Anyway, we've had a few of the black cherry tomatoes get ripe and OMG, I have never had a better-tasting tomato!

 

[digitS']

Ripe cherries by the 1st week of July but no ripe tomatoes in late summer on another year? Yeah, your weather almost sounds like Eureka weather was sliding over the Coast Range and messing things up!

Before moving up here, I lived (& gardened) near Eureka. I think, I actually left a location with only a few nights of frost sometime after Christmas - to come here, where there was more warmth! Hey, we can expect subzero winters here but on the northern California coast, it never seems to warm up!

What's that old story of Mark Twain saying that the coldest winter he ever went throught was a summer in San Francisco . . .?

I came to the California coast from the Rogue River Valley in Oregon, where I grew up. It was hard for me to understand that I wasn't going to have any sweet corn! But, if you live anywhere near Redding, grow_my_own, and you have trouble with tomatoes ripening - wow!

BER is also a problem in some other things. If calcium can provide the remedy - that's great. However, I have read that the plants sometimes have trouble making use of available calcium. Or, maybe I should say that even when the calcium is applied and should be available to the plant; they just can't pull it in. I've had frustrated gardeners locally ask about applying calcium nitrate but, gee, I just don't know! We have a caliche layer in our soil. The calcium should be there! Perhaps, the plants still may not be able to get ahold of it.

Steve

 

[grow_my_own]

Our worst year for tomatoes in the valley was 2010. I had a ton of plants, heavy with tomatoes. Planted in March, tomatoes started popping up in June, didn't turn red that year until late September, and even then, most of them stayed green & still had to be ripened in paper bags (which never tastes nearly as good as ripening on the vine).

Did you know they closed down the Ragu Spaghetti Sauce factory over in Merced a couple of years ago? The tomatoes don't ripen in the valley like they used to. They were having to ship tomatoes in from all over & it was no longer cost-effective to keep the factory open, so they closed it. I remember when it first opened up & created a lot of jobs in the area because it was right smack dab in the center of California's tomato-growing region. No longer.

Edited for typos.