Camaro

Camaro produces early maturing, extra-large and firm red globe shaped fruit, on mid-compact determinate plants. Setting and size is good through the plant with final yield potential being high. Due to the plant habit, pruning is either unnecessary or should be low. The deep red fruits have smooth shoulders and perform well for both vine-ripe or for mature green gassing.  For more: sakata.com

Red Racer

Red Racer, a cocktail-size tomato, produced small, uniform fruits with great taste in the AAS Trials. Cocktail tomatoes have a good sweet/acid balance and are a smaller variety tomato (although larger than cherry or grape tomatoes). These tomatoes are uniform in size and mature as a cluster of fruits. The compact, determinate plants produced a huge yield, seven to 10 days earlier than the comparisons and are ideal for small space and container gardens. AAS 2018 Edible Winner. Bred by EarthWork Seeds, Distributed by Garden Trends Wholesale. For more: all-americaselections.org

Damsel

Damsel is a sweet and tangy pink tomato with excellent resistance to late blight. It features a compact indeterminate plant, which requires little to no pruning and fits well in a hoophouse. It is versatile enough to excel in both indoor and outdoor applications in a range of climates. If you experience late blight and have customers who demand premium flavor, Damsel is an excellent choice. For more: johnnyseeds.com

Midnight Snack

Midnight Snack is a unique indigo-type cherry tomato that ripens to red with a beautiful glossy black-purple overlay when exposed to sunlight. This coloration comes from the accumulation of anthocyanin pigments, the same reason blueberries are blue and contain healthy antioxidants. The indeterminate growth habit means vines should be staked. AAS judges commented on the improved taste of this indigo tomato and said this is a “Big improvement in purple tomatoes!” AAS 2017 Edible Winner. For more: panamseed.com

Chef’s Choice Yellow

The fourth addition to the popular Chef’s Choice tomato series is Chef’s Choice Yellow which produces hearty beefsteak type tomatoes in a beautiful yellow color. AAS Judges raved about the quantity of the 10-ounce fruits that each five-foot indeterminate vine produced. A disease resistant (Fusarium Wilt, Verticillium wilt, Tomato Mosiac Virus, Crack, and Scab) plant with dark green leaves and well-behaved form. AAS 2017 Edible Winner. For more: seedsbydesign.com

There may be no such thing as a perfect tomato, but due to research by Amy Bowen and Dave Liscombe at the Vineland Research and Innovation Centre, growers are one step closer to producing great ones.

In 2012, the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers put out a list of research priorities, and one of those priorities was to improve or differentiate flavor in tomatoes. The focus was on tomatoes on the vine, the ones consumers can buy in clusters, Liscombe says.

The team received a grant for the project from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and got started in the spring of 2013. The goal was to discover what consumers wanted in a tomato, and provide growers with tomatoes that have the right mix of naturally occurring chemical profile to grow.

Finding a tastier tomato

“What we want to do is understand what is it that makes one tomato more flavorful than another tomato for the consumer?” Bowen, who headed the flavor side of the research, says. “Then this information is being connected with our biochemistry group, which is where Dave Liscombe comes into play. He’s looking at the biochemistry of the tomatoes and how their chemistry relates to different flavors that are perceived by the consumer.”

To discover what consumers were looking for, Bowen and her team including Vineland's sensory panel of 15 people (all of whom had no ties to the food industry and were selected based on their ability to describe and differentiate different horticultural products) initiated a study.

“They created a lexicon of terminology that we could use to basically differentiate one tomato from another,” she says.

The panel came up with 20 different attributes that could be used to distinguish one tomato from another, such as sweetness, acidity, juiciness and others. They then took 56 varieties of tomatoes and decided which were similar and different based on those attributes.

The researchers could then select a diverse variety of tomatoes to take to consumers to test which varieties they liked better.

“Now when we go to consumers we’re looking for people that would be representative of the population that are going to be purchasing our product,” Bowen says. “We can use that to create what we call the preference map, which identifies different segments of consumers based on their preferences for the product, and also gives us the sensory attributes that are driving preference for the product.”

Top attributes

The consumers showed texture is incredibly important when it comes to tomatoes, and if the flavor is enjoyable but the texture is off, consumers will not favor it.

“Anyone who’s shopped for tomatoes in the grocery store [knows that] people tend to feel them, pick them up and squeeze them,” Liscombe says. “This is the tricky thing about tomatoes and any other produce that we need to grow in mass quantities to feed everyone.”

After texture, specific flavor factors such as sweetness and acidity were also important.

“What we found, in general, was that if it was too juicy and soft, they didn’t like it,” Bowen says. “If it was too firm with a meaty or grainy texture they didn’t like it. It had to be a strike zone somewhere in between those two.”

That information was then sent over to Liscombe and his team in order to understand what the chemical makeup looked like for the favorable tomatoes. One way the team did that was by analyzing the aroma of the tomato.

“We basically measure all these chemicals in all the tomatoes that were tasted and then look for correlations between the levels of certain chemicals and how much people liked them,” Liscombe says. “If all the tomatoes that are very much liked by consumers had very high levels of certain aroma chemicals, we conclude that they’re important in liking.”

Only about 10 percent of a tomato’s volatile chemicals that make up its aroma influences a consumer’s perception of flavor, Liscombe says, but they can be manipulated to create a better taste.

Liscombe also says it’s important to not only have good flavor and taste for consumers, but also good production traits that growers are looking for, such as disease resistance.

“The main goal here is to develop varieties that the greenhouse growers will be able to grow,” he says. “They’re not really going to be responsible for figuring out which ones are liked or disliked by consumers. That’s really what we’re going for, essentially developing varieties in the seeds for those varieties to sell to the growers.”

Maddie is an intern in the GIE Media Horticulture Group.

Photo: Thinkstock.com

Speaking as a tomato addict, I have plenty of opinions about what makes a great tomato. I buy tomatoes at the market, and I grow a lot of tomatoes in my own outdoor and indoor gardens. However, I rarely enjoy tomatoes served to me in restaurants, and will even request tomatoes be left off my order. Most of the time the fruit is not ripe, the texture is terrible, and worst of all, it’s flavorless. Even restaurants that claim to serve fresh local heirloom tomatoes serve me unripe fruit. I know many people, including my husband, who claim to hate tomatoes. Many tomato-haters may not have been raised on, or have ever tasted, a truly well-grown, ripe, fresh tomato that tastes like a tomato should. They’ve probably gotten an overdose of restaurant tomatoes.

Restaurant tomato-haters aside, consumers buy a lot of tomatoes. According to the 2017 USDA Specialty Crops Project, “Increasing Consumption of Specialty Crops by Enhancing their Quality & Safety,” about 42 percent of participants buy tomatoes at a grocery store on a weekly basis. Another 35 percent buy them two to three times per month. That’s a lot of tomatoes. The study also lists tomatoes at the very top of the bushel when it comes to consumer knowledge of specific nutritional benefits. So, most grocery shoppers are already regularly buying tomatoes and are very educated about their value to health and wellness. Now our job is to adaptively respond to shifting preferences in fruit characteristics and provide creative uses to keep tomatoes fresh on the consumer’s mind.

Personally, I prefer the flavor and texture of tomatoes I grow myself because I have specific characteristics I’m looking for. I prefer unusual colors, such as orange; and I demand very meaty flesh that’s still juicy, with a sweet flavor. When you become accustomed to really good, fresh tomatoes it’s hard to settle for less. With the introduction of double and triple grafted tomato plants, home gardeners, even those who have struggled or given up on growing tomatoes in the past, will be encouraged anew to grow more tomatoes at home. Tomato producers must consider the impact of backyard tomato production on their own sales numbers, at least seasonally. But you can also use homegrown tomato trends and preferences to your advantage to help guide your commercial production and marketing choices.

When I buy bulk grocery store tomatoes, I look first for color, then fragrance, then level of firmness. I sniff them because I’m trying to find tomatoes that will taste good. Interestingly, the aforementioned USDA study has firmness ranked as the No. 1 tomato attribute for participating consumers, followed by juiciness and then color. Sweetness falls far behind those three attributes, as does aroma, which is interesting considering most people I talk to want more flavor from their tomatoes. I suspect that many consumers simply may not know best how to judge the ripeness and flavor potential of tomatoes they buy in the store. A packaging, labeling, and POP opportunity perhaps?

Despite my personal home-grown preference, I know that plenty of commercial tomato producers turn out wonderful tomatoes. When grocery stores are on point with their sourcing, timing, buying and maintenance practices, tomato lovers win. With off-season indoor production capabilities growing, there’s more opportunity to produce good product for store purchase year-round, another priority for the consumer: 365-day-a-year crop availability.

The popularity of heirloom tomatoes is still going strong with consumers, and unusual colors are also gaining popularity. The winning variety in my home garden this spring (we have two tomato seasons in Texas) was ‘Orange Blossom.’ The color is fantastic, the flesh is dense and juicy, and the flavor turned out better than many of my standard hybrids. Plus, production is early. ‘Chef’s Choice Orange’ is another winner. These orange-colored tomatoes are still a surprise to many of my friends, family, and followers; and they have the added benefit of being higher in Vitamin C and beta-carotenes than yellow tomatoes. Yet, I don’t see many unusual tomato color options in the grocery store, other than small cherry types. I’d say there’s growth opportunity for these healthy and colorful slicers.

If you want to take advantage of the consumer’s penchant for the unusual, but don’t want to mess with temperamental heirlooms, turn to hybrid heirloom look-alikes. Be sure to check out the Coeur de Boeuf tomatoes from Syngenta, ‘Arawak,’ ‘Tomawak,’ and ‘Gigawak.’ The names are fun too.

When it comes to tomato breeding program trends, extreme climate issues are making things more challenging for the breeders. Plants that may be discarded from trials in one region might just have be perfect for regions with different climate issues. However, as more tomato production moves indoors and under lights, breeding programs are shifting to respond to these more uniform growing conditions.

Lastly, if you’re looking for new ways for your customers to use your tomatoes, you need to get on the homemade condiment bandwagon ASAP. Homemade condiments and vegetable sauces are the next big consumer culinary fascination. The trend got started with a resurgence of interest in homemade mayonnaise and is now spreading (pun intended) to other condiments. I’m already planning my first batches of custom homemade ketchup. If you currently have tomato varieties in your production arsenal that are perfect for making condiments, now’s the time to make it known.

And while you are all at it, can you work on a ‘Restaurant Ready’ tomato variety for me? Yes, I just came up with that name, so let me know when you’re ready to work on branding.

Growing high-wire tomatoes in the greenhouse is a labor-intensive practice recommended only to those who enjoy working in a dynamic growing environment. Without careful attention to detail, everything that can go wrong will go wrong! However, understanding key production concepts can help you produce high-quality, vine-ripened fruit that will make your business thrive.

1. Purchase transplants from the experts.

Typically, grafted transplants are purchased from specialized growers who provide flower-induced plant material that will enter production shortly after transplanting in the greenhouse. Buying transplants will allow you as a grower to concentrate fully on the intricate practices of exploiting this heat-loving crop.

2. Manipulate the environment.

One of the most important aspects of producing indeterminate tomatoes in the greenhouse is to understand that manipulating the environment can be to your advantage. Promoting vegetative growth will enhance root and shoot development that will be helpful in the initial establishment of your crop. On the other hand, promoting reproductive growth will stimulate flower development and thus, fruit production, which is what ultimately drives the success of your business. Maintaining a balance between the two is the challenge, and that is exactly what you, as a tomato grower, want to achieve. Remember that while you want your plants to be productive, they need their “engine” (i.e., roots to take up water and nutrients and leaves to photosynthesize) to produce fruit.

You know your plant is too vegetative if it’s producing thick stems, curled, thick, and dark leaves, or elongated flower clusters with pale petals and large sepals that are not setting fruit. If you see any of this, it is time to take action! Some common environmental techniques to steer plants towards reproductive growth are: increasing the difference between the day and night temperature, quickly transitioning from day to night cooling, raising ambient temperature, reducing relative humidity, limiting irrigation frequency, and if applicable, increasing your CO2 supplementation. Practices contrary to these will help steer your crop towards vegetative growth. To help you remember this, visualize excessive vegetative growth as foliage plants that evolved in the “jungle” (i.e., under high humidity, high temperature, experiencing small differences between day and night temperature, and exposed to frequent rain).

3. Favor conditions that allow for effective pollination.

Understanding the effect of your growing environment is also crucial for good pollination. Optimum conditions to ensure successful pollination are 50 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, 50 to 80 percent relative humidity, and bright, sunny days. If it’s too hot, pollen grains can dry and will not germinate. If it’s too cold, development of the pollen tube will be slow and the pollen grain may run out of energy before reaching the ovary. High humidity may cause the pollen to become too sticky to release properly from the anthers, or it may lead to clumping of the pollen grains, resulting in the physiological disorder known as cat facing, caused by uneven pollination and fertilization. Low relative humidity may desiccate the pollen grains, or it may cause the stigma surface to become too dry for the pollen grains to stick. Lastly, overcast days can slow the development and germination of the pollen grains and result in poor fruit set. Pollen is normally shed from morning to afternoon. Thus, you want pollination to occur sometime during the middle of the day. Bumblebees are excellent pollinators and can provide huge labor-savings compared to manual pollination. Commercial hives can be purchased from many reputable bio control companies.

4. Properly prune the indeterminate tomato canopy.

Knowing how to properly prune an indeterminate tomato canopy is important to divert the plant’s energy into growing fruit. New suckers (a.k.a. side shoots) growing as axillary buds are removed once the apical meristem shows visible signs of a newly formed flower cluster, never before! This is to prevent removal of the growing tip before securing a flower cluster. Keep in mind that the apical meristem can be easily confused with a sucker (it happens to the best of us!) and accidental “de-topping” can occur. In that case, the “undesirable” axillary bud on the top of your canopy can save the day and become your new main stem. Sucker removal can be done by simply grasping a sucker with the tip of your fingers and bending it sharply downwards to give a clean break from the branch. Constantly removing suckers will help you maintain a non-bushy productive crop stand.

5. Prune leaves from the lower canopy.

Older leaves below the upcoming cluster-to-be-harvested are typically removed to allow for air movement into the lower canopy, a strategy that can help speed the maturation process and will help reduce humidity levels that can be inducive to disease. Lower-leaf removal facilitates ease of harvesting and spraying and helps control insect pests that like to lay eggs in the lower-leaf canopy. In addition, removing older leaves allows your tomato clusters to capitalize from the energy produced by the plant. As a rule of thumb, a tomato plant will add three leaves per week. Therefore, three leaves should be removed per week.

6. Thin the body of the canopy.

In addition to lower-leaf pruning, canopy thinning, a more general leaf pruning from the body of the canopy, is sometimes recommended to help balance vegetative and reproductive growth. However, take into account that the number of leaves left on your plant will depend on the time of year and the variety grown: high light = more leaves to shade the fruit; dry climate = more leaves to increase humidity; wet, cool winters = less leaves to reduce humidity and/or disease pressure; vegetative varieties = less leaves; reproductive varieties = more leaves. Leaves are either cut with a sanitized tool or popped off manually at the abscission zone. Be careful not to tear off leaves, as this can lead to a slow-healing wound that can become an entry point for disease. Extra tip: it is best to remove leaves in the morning when plants are turgid.

7. Prune tomato clusters.

Cluster pruning is another practice to consider when targeting a consistent harvest. Tomato clusters with large number of fruit are not desirable because they will indirectly reduce individual fruit size and may result in fewer marketable fruit set by the newly developed clusters. Recommended fruit load varies with environmental conditions, production practice, and variety. Thus, it is best to follow breeder recommendations for a particular scenario. As a general overview, higher light availability will allow you to maintain more fruit. The opposite is true for light-limited environments. Keep in mind that the vigorous root system of a grafted plant may allow a crop to support more fruit per cluster relative to ungrafted plants. Also, remember that excessive vegetative growth will sometimes lead to suckers growing out of the fruit clusters (and sometimes from leaves!). If that’s the case, remove the suckers and adjust your environment to steer the plant in the right direction.

Understanding how to make proper use of the environmental control system in your greenhouse will help you maximize production. In addition, maintaining a properly pruned plant will help support a healthy crop and ensure good yields.

Celina is an assistant professor in the Environmental Horticulture Department at the University of Florida, IFAS. cgomezv@ufl.edu