True Love and TOMATOES

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VFN resistance has been available to be bred in naturally for decades. Mandarin Joy is gene-spliced to ignore five of the seven plant diseases to which resistance can be bred into tomatoes. Following is the resistance code of these largely viral diseases. The list will expand as more diseases are brought under control; bacterial wilts may be just a few splices away.

V verticillium wilt
F fusarium wilt
FF fusarium wilt races 1 and 2
N nematodes
T tobacco mosaic virus
A alternaria stem virus
St stemphylium gray leaf spot

Science Tames the Wild Tomato

To modern seed men, varieties that retain a tomato's native perennial and vining growth pattern are said to have an "indeterminate" growth habit. Long stems produce two or three nodes, or "joints", between flower sets. The plants can generate new stems from any leaf axial (where leaf meets stem) or produce root growth from any node, establishing a new plant. Overgrowth of new roots or rank foliage can limit fruit production. Flowers and fruit can be produced indefinitely, but to have best fruit production in the home garden these potentially perennial vines must be treated as the annuals they will prove to be, even under a light frost. Nodes must be kept away from soil, and indeterminates must be pruned of "suckers", or new stems that want to grow from every leaf axil. They can't root if grown flat on plastic film or staked to 6' poles.

Indeterminates are best for home gardens, where the crop can be harvested over several week's time. In homes equipped with gro-lites, rooted cuttings can be taken inside at season's end. The plants will grow and produce all winter, and growing ends can be transplanted out again in late spring.

Early in this century, modern "determinate" tomato plants came about, ones producing flowers and smallish fruit at every node with a flowering terminal node at about 3' plant length (or height if staked). Small fruit mature faster and all at the same time on most determinates. The many varieties are good for one-shot harvest and are commercial favorites.

Another new development is the "Indeterminate Short Internode", or ISI, series that combines the unlimited fruiting characteristic of indeterminates with the limited growth habit of determinates. Growing 4' to 4.5' high (caged or staked), they flower and produce as long as the weather holds up. The yellow, pink and red 5- to 7-ounce-sized fruit, along with the red and gold cherry varieties in the series, also carry resistance to verticillium and fusarium wilts. Sure to be home-garden favorites.

Our Favorite Varieties

Every adventurous home gardener tries a few new tomato varieties each year, but relies for the main crops (especially for canning) on varieties that have produced well over the years in their soil and under their growing habits. For us, in gardens from Washington state to Pennsylvania to central and upper New England, the most consistently reliable varieties have been two old (first-generation, nongenetically engineered) hybrids.

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