Market Shipper x Heritage Flavor Challenges

[PVP]

At the welcome forum, GOBmaters said:

Mar 13, 2010 8:10:51 GMT -5 gobmaters said:

I have never seen any sides in the tomato variety issue, only challenges. Why don't we take this discussion to the Breeding forum to talk about how we can overcome the deficiencies in quality and flavor of tomatoes produced for the shipping market? I think we could all learn a lot from such a discussion. As Will Rogers said and I often paraphrase, "everyone is ignorant, just about different things."

There are as many superior qualities in modern market/shipping tomatoes as there are deficiencies. We all recognize both. The challenge, I think, is to incorporate specific and wide spectrum disease resistance, and shipping/handling qualitities into heritage varieties with superior flavor.

In my very limited experience with these challenges, the problem has been maintaining a high degree of flavor!

A couple of years ago, DarJones sent me seeds for Amelia and Daniels hoping that someone could cross the two and come up with something like what we're looking for. Unfortunately, my crosses did not take.

But I was able to obtain one cross of (Brandywine x Neves Azorean Red) x Bolseno, an Italian F1 indeterminate with tomato spot wilt virus resistance. Bolseno also has a distinctly tart flavor, so I had high expections for an F1 with intense flavor. I was a bit disappointed in 2009 when the F1 did not have anything near the high flavor profile of any of its three parents.

The F1 was hugely productive of well formed, blemish free, red salad tomatoes averaging baseball size.



They do have one obvious defect seen on the blossom end - that depressed blossom scar - a trait carrying over from Bolseno.



The enterior is typical salad/canner, also a trait carrying over from Bolseno and overriding the meatier, more solid interiors of Brandywine and Neves Azorean Red.



All in all, I was modestly satisfied with the F1. Could've been much better. But the tomatoes hold very well both on the vine and on the counter. The flavor is acceptable, not outstanding. And the vines held up very well in an unusually wet and cool summer when Septoria was rampant in the garden. Also the vines did not overtop the 6-foot cages, a trait I believe to have carried over from Neves Azorean Red, as Bolseno is a monster rampant vine.

Hopefully, the F2s and beyond will yield something with more flavor and a meatier interior.

That's the extent of my Heritage x Disease Res/Shipper projects at this time.

I know DarJones and Mule are working on a Big Beef x Eva's Purple Ball, I think it is, and I hear with some success. Tell us about it, fellows.


Bill

[gobmaters]

I think it is imperative to go with an indeterminate to get better flavor. This is based on physiology of the plant. A high level of acids and sugars combined is needed for good flavor in all fruits (apples, strawberries, peaches, pineapples, citrus, tomatoes, etc.). Adding to this is the volatiles which give aroma and provide the really distinctive flavor of different varieties of all fruits. An indeterminate plant provides a higher foliage/fruit ratio than determinate growth habit because of having more leaves between clusters. This increased foliage is necessary to provide a high level of photosynthate to go into acids, sugars, and volatiles. This is a major reason for thinning apples and peaches, which not only gives larger size but better flavored fruit. Research in tomatoes has shown that indeterminate isogenic lines of determinate varieties have higher soluble solids level than the determinate varieties from which they were derived.
The fasciated trait likely adds to flavor. This thinking is based on the fact that most of the large fruited heirlooms considered to have really good flavor are fasciated types, and most of these have more limited fruit set than the normal fruited types, which would allow the photosynthate going to each fruit to be increased.
The fasciated heirloom varieties lack disease resistance and are mostly soft, rough shaped, and susceptible to cracking and other fruit defects. What they have to offer is superior flavor and desirable texture. The challenge then is to develop improved varieties which combine the disease resistance, carrying ability, and other desirable fruit traits of the commercial shipping varieties with the desirable texture and flavor of the best heirlooms.
Breeding in firmness increases shelf life and allows for less delicate handling of the fruit during harvest, packing and shipping. Greater firmness results in less flavor and takes away the desirable melting texture found in a lot of the good heirlooms. The juicy texture of the heirlooms results from having cells that burst easily and release the acids, sugars, and volatiles. In addition, softer fruit generally have more locular tissue and gel, and this is where most of the acids reside. Firmness in tomatoes results from decreasing the locular tissue and thickening the walls of the fruit as well as lessening the breakage of the cells when disrupted. All of this runs contrary to improving flavor.
What I see is the possibility of developing types intermediate to the shipping and heirloom varieties, which combine a desirable level of traits from both types. These varieties will likely not have all the firmness and refined cosmetic features of the shipping varieties but could have multiple disease resistance combined with enough firmness and shelf life to allow shipping of vine ripe fruit and the reduction of defects such as cracking and splitting, which often lead to rapid decay. Getting flavor and texture approaching the heirloom varieties combined with multiple disease resistance and enough reduction in defects and increased shelf life is the challenge.
I have a lot of material with good resistance to multiple diseases and am working toward combining what I have mentioned above.
I would like to hear the thoughts of others before I pursue any more dissemination of other ideas I have toward reaching the goal.

[PVP]

This is all good information. Thanks, GOBmaters!

The indeterminate vine with staggered fruit development and greater ratio leaf to fruit makes good sense.

And while I'd heard of the acids residing in the gel (Mule mentioned it a few times), I'd never heard tell of the softer fruit cells bursting more easily and releasing the acids, sugars and volitiles. Now that's something to really consider especially when many people tend to shy away from softer fruit for whatever learned response ... for instance, I don't really care for softer fruit like the mushy but tasty Juane Flamme. But something to take into account when shooting for the better flavor profile.

After a few other members have commented on the ideas you've already put forward, GOBmaters, please comment on the incorporation of flavor enhancing genes used in Mountain Glory, Fabulous, Scarlet Red and some of the more recent flavor enhanced determinates. How can those be used to offset the flavor-developing deficiency in determinates and how they might be used to boost flavor in indeterminates where shipping/holding traits may otherwise drag flavor down when crossing into heritage types.

[jcm05]

I agree. Makes very good sense and I've heard it from mule from time to time. Clearly explains why Lucky Cross tastes so good being an indeterminate with heavy foliage cover and below average production.

Firmness to me means absolutely nothing in my breeding goals. I understand the need for it for market sellers and such, but its of no interest to me. Texture itself is an important part though and flavor above everything else. Last year I grew Smarty F1, which I believe GOB is familiar with, looking to use the br(brachytic) gene in some of my crosses. The smarty fruit itself i really didn't care for though. Texture was very mealy and flavor wasn't there for me either. I did cross it with a couple varieties. Will see where those lead. Vines were nice and compact and did not exceed 5 feet. Disease resistance seemed to be there as well. I also grew Bolseno F1 last year with similar results to PV. Flavor was good and a little on the tart side. Managed to cross it with Lucky Cross.

I purchased a couple Big Beef x Eva Purple Ball F2 plants last year from Darrel. Plants were beautiful and seemed to hold up better in the disease ridden year better than others. Productive and blemish-free fruit was above avg in taste, but not great. Maybe on par with its EPB parent but not as good as its other parent Big Beef.

Disease resistance in my opinion should be a part of everyone's goals and I think once I get into the breeding more, I will begin to look closer at that. I already have a couple varieties that I plan to grow and use as parents this year that possess late blight resistance.

[landarc]

I agree with you JT that in terms of what most backyard gardeners would like is an OP tomato that possesses the eating properties and the disease resistance characteristics of a hybrid tomato. I think the shipping characteristics would be second to that combination. I am not convinced that the idea of a good OP shipping tomato with flavor and texture similar to an heirloom is all that desired in the marketplace. Other than the small sector of local fresh market growers who are looking to occupy the small grocer market, there seems little incentive for a compromised tomato. At the larger scale grocer scale, most loss due to decay or damage is thrown back on the grower in any event. I would suspect that improved disease resistance in OP heirloom-appearing fruit would offset this loss with a simpler goal to achieve.

I do wonder how much of the F1 resistance seen in commercial hybrids is attributable to thicker skin that is present on tomatoes that have been bred specifically for industrial growing and processing. In Bob-logic terms, it seems that disease resistance should have already been more apparent in OP tomatoes unless there is some undesirable genetic tie between the traits of disease resistance and unfavorable flavor or texture characteristics which would result in backyard and small market growers selecting away from disease resistance purely by selecting for desirable taste and texture.

[gobmaters]

The reason the older op tomato varieties and heirlooms don't have disease resistance has nothing to do with selection away from disease resistance in developing good flavor and texture. These tomatoes never had disease resistance. Modern, disease resistant varieties developed in breeding programs have disease resistance genes derived from small- fruited, wild tomato species. These varieties were developed mostly for shipping markets to produce high yields of marketable grade fruit and to meet USDA grade standards. Working in a determinate background with limited range for improving flavor combined with all the cosmetic and shelf life traits necessary to combine with disease resistance genes resulted in varieties with acceptable, but not superior flavor and texture.