As with certain other kinds of seeds, certification service for tomatoes has now been set up in several states. Certification is a most useful incentive toward care in breeding and handling and affords valuable assurance to the buyer. It is necessary to know just what is guaranteed by the certificate. It is at the same time wise to be informed as to the inclusiveness and methods of the certification.
The Ideal Variety
In breeding for better varieties of tomatoes, the following are some of the characters to be sought:
(1) A vigorous vine which is necessary to produce abundant fruit and to protect from sunscald.
(2) Resistance to disease especially to fusarium.
(3) High productiveness with moderate number of fruits per cluster—say, [5 to 8].
Figure 7.—Types of tomato interiors. 1, 5. Small fruited sorts. 2, 6, 9. Bonny Best. 3, 7, 10. Chalk Jewel. 3, 7, 11. Stone. 4, 8. Earliana. 12. Ponderosa.
(4) Evenness of maturity. This is somewhat out of line with the nature of the tomato but much could be accomplished toward the goal of varieties that make their crop and are gone, eliminating long picking periods and the drag of inferior fruit toward the end of the season. The so-called determinate habit of some varieties such as Pritchard is a step in this direction.
(5) Size suitable for expected use and for market demand. Greenhouse tomatoes are generally smaller than those for cannery. Uniformity of size is increasingly important with wide-spread use of the lug-box pack and of small consumer cartons.
(6) Globular to oblong shape is desirable for market but is less important for cannery. Form should be symmetrical, even and smooth.
(7) Color should be deep and rich, fully and evenly developed, inside and out. Red is generally preferred to pink. The difference between red and pink tomatoes does not reside in the flesh but in the presence of yellow pigment in the skin of the former while the skin of the latter is without pigment. Yellow tomatoes are also [extan]t.
Figure 8.—he Earliana tomato. A picture of a single fruit cannot adequately describe a variety. 1-3. Rough types, common in older strains. 4. Typical interior. 5, 6. Stem end. 7-9. Good type resulting from selection. 10-12. Pointed-round type occurring frequently in improved strains. A. Unusually large cluster. B. Typical Earliana cluster showing compound branching. C. Unbranched cluster of Bonny Best for comparison.
(8) Skin should be thick and tough. This safeguards against damage on the way to market and favors ease of peeling. Those saladists who serve sliced tomatoes with skins unremoved, may call for a thin, tender skin but this practice finds no encouragement from discriminating partakers.
(9) Flesh should be abundant in thick walls with a minimum of watery pulp surrounding seeds. In general, a structure of many small cells is desirable.