By Ruby E. Carlino
From 2005-2023 a world-wide, collaborative, all volunteer tomato breeding project called the Dwarf Tomato Project™ released about 160 new varieties. Those tomatoes work perfectly for folks who grow a container garden due to space or physical constraints.
The project provided dwarf varieties that offered a range of colors, sizes and flavors that previously were produced only on tall, sprawling heirloom plants. All were easy to grow in pots, or on balconies, and were ideal for urban gardeners whose space is limited.
This past summer, I grew a micro tomato variety called “Orange Hat.” It’s a Russian variety that’s no more than 12 inches tall and could fit on a window sill. It was not part of the project but it’s a compact tomato with a good number of orange cherry-sized fruit. It was a fun tomato to grow. If you’re looking for a tomato that would be perfect for a small indoor hydroponic system, the ‘Orange Hat’ would be worth a try.
Another tomato I grew this year is called “Midnight Roma.” It was available from Row7, a seed company that supports plant breeding research at universities like Oregon State, Wisconsin-Madison, and Cornell. The “Midnight Roma” is a uniquely dark purple-skinned, ovular shaped, sauce tomato developed by Oregon State University breeder Dr. Jim Myers. It is a cross between the “Indigo Rose” variety and the “Oregon Star,” a paste tomato developed to suit Oregon’s cool climate.
“Midnight Roma’s” purple color increases with direct sun, and this year it was mistaken by my neighbors for a plum growing in a large pot. It is probably the darkest tomato I have ever grown, and it rightfully earned its name as midnight. But that’s not the coolest part of this tomato. With “Midnight Roma,” Dr. Myers introduced potential health benefits into a paste tomato. The health benefits, which include anti-inflammatory properties, result from water-soluble pigments that give plants their red, purple, blue and black colors, as in berries and pomegranates.
While older purple tomato varieties have only one-tenth of the anthocyanin found in blueberries, newer varieties that are bio-engineered reportedly have levels comparable to those of blueberries. For example, the Purple Tomato™ reportedly is bioengineered for “health and nutrition.” This tomato makes anthocyanins in its fruit because two genes from snapdragon plants were added to its genetic makeup. This “turns on” the purple pigment throughout the fruit. The result reportedly is a tomato with much higher levels of anthocyanin than purple tomatoes developed through traditional plant breeding methods.
Another vegetable that was bred for the future is “Taegan” lettuce. At full maturity it has a large, mostly bronze-leafed head, with maroon coloration that gets darker with sun exposure. This is a Row7 variety bred by Rick Machado in Bakersfield, California. It was “inspired by Regina dei Ghiacci (“Ice Queen”) — an Italian lettuce with more robust flavor than conventional iceberg. He crossed the heirloom to a red leaf lettuce, hoping to combine the best of both. It was bred to endure unfavorable conditions. In my garden, this is not just a pretty veggie; in June when all my other lettuce have bolted and gone to seed, “Taegan” was still going strong and just as crunchy as ever.
Another Row7 offering which I am excited to plant next spring is the “Spinach Lettuce,” called a “revolutionary romaine.” It marries the best of lettuce and romaine to bring more flavor and nutritional content to everyday lettuce.
Vegetable breeder Michael Mazourek has developed a squash for multipurpose use with zero waste as the end goal. The ‘Tetra’ squash, a delicata, was bred for flavor with four ways to consume it: immature fruit (apparently noteworthy because of its delicate crunch when picked green), young stems (less fibrous and sweeter), edible blossoms, and the mature squash. Imagine a future where there are no kitchen scraps.
Meanwhile, in Maryland, a simple genetic change can have world-changing potential. Researchers at the University of Maryland recently discovered the gene that gives a rare wheat variety its unusual “triple-grain” trait. The gene helps wheat flowers produce extra grain-bearing parts when “switched on.” Farms with high-yield crops could help supply the growing global demand for food.
The goals of the plant breeders and scientists noted here vary from improving the nutritional content or taste of several plants to increasing a plant’s adaptability to changing climatic conditions. The new breeds are designed with the future in mind, but as resources such as land and water shrink, perhaps the future already is here.
In related news, researchers in Brazil and Germany have now developed a high-protein substitute for meat that is made from sunflower flour. This suggests a great potential for use in the growing plant-based food sector. Sunflower-based burgers may soon be coming our way.
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Ruby E. Carlino is a published writer with over a decade of blogging experience and a background as a technology analyst. She has lived in Sequim since 2018, after spending years in Asia, Central America, Europe, and the Washington, D.C. area. She can be reached at nextchaptercolumn@proton.me.
