Types of Tomatoes: Deciphering the Many Varieties

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If you love tomato , you in all likelihood already know just how many varieties of these delightful summertime raw material there are . But do you know what reach each one unique ? Or how to train them count on your growing environment ? No ? Well then sit back and relish the read !

The pursuit is an excerpt fromThe Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower ’s Handbookby Andrew Mefford . It has been adapted for the web .

Tomato Variety Types

The huge grandness of tomatoes to greenhouse vegetable growing has resulted in an amazing diverseness of cultivars with specific greenhouse adaptations . There are variety show of almost any case you might want to grow available for protected mature . There are even a couple of types — the cluster tomato plant and truss cherry — that are specific to greenhouse culture .

Jointless varieties , for example , represent a modern introduction for cluster tomatoes . Jointless tomatoes miss the cutting off stratum where an individual Lycopersicon esculentum can be removed from the truss . This mean that they do not fall off the bunch as easy when being handled . This trait is also sometimes used in field tomatoes so the picked Lycopersicon esculentum do not retain their calyx , which can puncture other tomato during harvest .

Though the beefsteak was the lynchpin of the greenhouse tomato industry for a long time , smaller varieties have evolved alongside demand for nosh vegetables . If you told growers twenty old age ago that grapevine , cocktail , and clump tomatoes would be crucial categories in the near future , they probably would n’t have believed you — if they even knew what those types were .

Tomato Plants in a Greenhouse

Keep in head that smaller - fruit varieties will be lower yielding , more or less in symmetry to their size ( the small the yield , the lower the payoff ) .

Grape Tomatoes

True grape tomato are not just ellipse - determine cherry tomatoes . Grape Lycopersicon esculentum have a flavour and grain profile all their own due to being firm and having less gel and seeds than cerise love apple . They are also usually less prone to snap than cherry tree tomato . Even citizenry who do not value firm tomatoes may wish grape tomatoes as long as they are firm without being hard . Good grape tomatoes are one of my personal favorites for eating out of script .

grape vine tomatoes tend to have a very open , wispy - entrust plant habit that is conducive to airflow . They are unremarkably less affected by foliage mold than other types , though folio mold resistivity can still be useful where disease pressure is high .

Cherry Tomatoes and Truss Cherries

Like grapevine Lycopersicon esculentum , protected culture cherries have undecided plant eccentric , along with low yield load and yields when compared with larger tomatoes . They tend to be sweeter and have full flavor than the larger type .

One subtype of the cherry tomato is known as the truss cherry red . or else of harvesting individual fruits , you harvest the intact truss of tomatoes by clipping it off the works . Truss cherries are passably much sole to protect culture due to the difficultness of give rise a dead ripen truss of cherry tree tomatoes in the field . There is usually a target issue of fruit on the corbel , depending on how many can be amply filled out . If there are more yield set on the corbel than the plant can meet , you may need to snip off the last few fruit off the tip off the truss so every yield is perfectly filled out . The chief feature that differentiates a cherry red variety developed for truss harvest home from one for light harvest is that most truss cherries are jointless .

Important traits for truss cherry tomatoes admit fast ripening and good shelf life , so the first fruit to mature is not mush by the prison term the last yield is ripe . These type are usually commercialize in box seat to protect the delicate corbel and fruit . This change depend a lot on presentation , since the fact that it is on the truss evidence that it was nursery - grown .

Cocktail Tomatoes

Cocktail tomatoes interest a size class with child than cherry tomatoes and lowly than clump tomatoes . There are salmagundi for idle harvest and jointless varieties for clump harvest . This class of tomatoes is more popular in Europe than it is in North America . My impression is that North Americans like their tomato big or small but not in between , and this is an in - between variety .

Nonetheless , there is some market place for this type of tomato , which can have very good smell . It was originally popularize by a single variety , Campari , which is branded and sold under that name . It is sometimes market as a salad tomato , one that you may make two quick cuts to and throw on a salad .

Tomatoes on the Vine

clustering tomato plant , known in the industry as tomatoes on the vine ( TOVs ) , were spawn specifically for the greenhouse manufacture . They have originate to take their place as one of the main glasshouse tomato salmagundi type , along with beefsteak . In a crowded green goods marketplace , the nursery tomato manufacture was trying to differentiate itself from all the other tomatoes on the shelf , especially area love apple . The fully grown idea was that if you realize these beautiful good tomato still attached to a perfectly clean vine that might even still have a puff of air of love apple works olfactory property , the presentation would be so telling it would pose the tomatoes apart from others in the shop .

And indeed it ’s very hard to arise a perfect cluster of tomato plant in the arena . The possibility of disease causing spots on a tomato , or rainfall causing rent tomatoes , makes it much less likely that an full clump of tomato will make it out of the champaign in perfect consideration . The other difficulty of producing cluster tomatoes in the field is get them all to mature close to one another . Even though TOVs are selected for fast ripening , hold estrus to keep the tomato ripening as rapidly as possible is almost of the essence to get the last one to ripen before the first one gets overripe .

Unfortunately , TOVs represent yet another example of produce whose best qualities — freshness and flavor — have been bred out . Many of the most unremarkably grown tomatoes in the industry recently have been varieties that prioritize production over spirit .

Still , some TOV varieties are much better than others , and have the potential difference to be quite good . Most miscellanea are bred to get a cluster of four or five average - sized or six belittled tomatoes . The proficiency is to arise the total cluster until the all the Lycopersicon esculentum are ripening , and the one at the death ( the last one to ripen ) is at least starting to show some colouring material .

Growers with a long supply chain may blame the clump with the death Lycopersicon esculentum still quite light-green , whereas growers with a shorter supplying range may be able to let the end Lycopersicon esculentum get riper . At that point the cluster is clipped off the works and usually place into the cardboard flat they will be shipped in , to derogate the amount of handling .

Some of the New TOV motley are jointless to belittle the amount of love apple that fall off the cluster . Many middleman have very stringent standards and will only buy clusters with a certain number of tomato . Shelf life and “ unripe component part ” ( calyx and stem ) that stay green for an extended period of time are important development criteria for this case .

As someone who has visited greenhouses with Dumpsters full of tomatoes outside , I have seen at first hand that length of shelf life sentence is not just academic . If ledge life is a concern for you , you’re able to do one of the most basic trial of shelf spirit yourself . Take several varieties at the same grade of matureness , place them into boxwood , hold them in status similar to what they will be stored at , and see which ones moulder faster .

Beefsteaks

Beefsteak tomato used to be the principal nursery type , originally produce to contend with out - of - season field production . The limitations of growing field kind in greenhouses promptly led to the exploitation of dedicated greenhouse variety .

For multitude who are not intimate with the produce industry , I ’m sure it sound strange to say that one of the last things consider in the maturation of many new tomato varieties is flavour . But when you consider how many other breeding goals there are , you may sympathize how this has do to be , however unfortunate it is . Beefsteak varieties are now subject to the same rigors as other Lycopersicon esculentum varieties , namely to meet the highest criterion of appearance , yield , and shelf living .

One way that shelf aliveness is increase is by breed firm tomato , to the pointedness where some of them are somewhat hard even when completely ripe . There are a lot of beautiful nursery beefsteak tomatoes out there . Many of them face much ripe than they taste . Taste young variety to verify they are up to your flavor and texture standards before planting a lot of them .

One way that protected culture growers seek to differentiate their produce from airfield beefsteaks is to harvest with the calyx on . Since most field tomatoes are harvested loose into bins , the calyxes are removed by the pickers so the stems do n’t deflate the other fruit . The fact that glasshouse tomatoes are ordinarily harvested in a single stratum straight into the flatcar they are ship in means the calyx can be go away on without risk of puncturing other fruit .

If your harvest method acting involve piling tomatoes , it ’s possible for pickers to snip off the stems off and allow the calyx as they are harvesting . Even if consumers do n’t lie with what a calyx is , it does make for nice presentation to leave it on . Curved shears are utilitarian for cut the stem off flush with the top of the Lycopersicon esculentum .

The Greenhouse and Hoophouse Grower’s Handbook

Organic Vegetable Production Using Protected Culture

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