Bi-Coloured Tomatoes & the "Pitfalls" of Heirlooms

What I see as the problem with heirloom, is the different growing regions. Heirloom is great as long as it is grown where it originated. Once it is taken away from that too many things change and  IMO it isn't the heirloom vegtable or fruit or possibly even the animal it once was when it was "home"

What you're doing, Darko, is raising the whole issue of terroir; that is, the characteristics an organism inherits from where it is grown or raised.

To a certain degree, the concept of terroir supports you contention. But the open question becomes, how do you define it georgraphically. Certainly not the way Europe does: Those classifications are political, not geographical.

But, that aside, the real questions is, if a, say, tomato is adapted to growing in Mississippi, and you plant seeds in, say, Oregon, does the effects of terroir truly change the basic varietal identity? After being heavily involved with heirlooms for a quarter century, I would have to say you are overstating the case. True, there are some varieties that are super sensitive to local conditions. But, all in all, most veggies readily adapt to local conditions without loosing their essential identities.

   Interesting stuff...thanks Darko and Brook!

One thing about this discussion is that Ron picked it up in the middle. What he and I had been discussing was the effects of population dynamics on heirlooms.

This has just come up again, in our investigations into the foodways of the Germans From Russia. Just as we know that most true bi-colored tomatoes were originally Germanic, almost all of the original black tomatoes come from the Crimea and south Russia.

Logic would tell us, therefore, that there should be GFR families in the Dakotas, Montana, and the lower plains, growing black tomatoes from seed that was passed down from their immigrant forebears.

Just what I need; yet another investigation.

Personally, I've never run into a sterile hybrid; although I know they're talked about a lot. Or used to be.

I've concluded that "sterility" was one of the things instituted by the seed industry to further protect their proprietary vegetable creations.

Don't want to bore everyone with how hybrids are created, but, in short, two or more in-bred varieties are crossed to produce a plant with desired characteristics.

If you save seed from those plants (the F2 generation) they revert to the genetic make-up of all the parents. So, for instance, you might wind up with six or eight different tomatoes, none of which resemble the one you started with.

The problem isn't that you get a lot of bad tomatoes, or whatever. The real problem is that one of them might be slam-dunk the best you've ever eaten. But you can't grow it again, without going through a massive, multi-year stabilization program.

I once ran into that due to impure squash seed I'd been sent that produced five different squashes, one of which I would have loved to stabilize. But doing so with squash makes doing it with tomatoes look like a cakewalk, so I sadly passed.