The
tomato (
Solanum lycopersicum, syn.
Lycopersicon lycopersicum &
Lycopersicon
esculentum) is a
herbaceous, usually
sprawling plant in the
Solanaceae or
nightshade family that is typically cultivated for the purpose of
harvesting its
fruit for human consumption.
Savory in flavor (and accordingly termed a
vegetable; see section
Fruit or
vegetable below), the fruit of most varieties ripens to a
distinctive red color. Tomato plants typically reach to in height,
and have a weak, woody stem that often vines over other plants. The
leaves are long, odd pinnate, with 5–9 leaflets
on petioles, each leaflet up to long, with a serrated margin; both
the stem and leaves are densely glandular-hairy. The
flowers are across, yellow, with five pointed lobes
on the
corolla; they are borne in a
cyme of 3–12 together. It is a
perennial, often grown outdoors in temperate
climates as an
annual.
The tomato is native to
South America.
Genetic
evidence shows that the progenitors of tomatoes were herbaceous
green plants with small green fruit with a center of diversity in
the highlands of Peru
.
These early Solanums diversified into the dozen or so species of
tomato recognized today.
One species, Solanum lycopersicum, was
transported to Mexico
where it was
grown and consumed by prehistoric humans. The exact date of
domestication is not known.
Evidence supports the theory that the first
domesticated tomato was a little yellow fruit, ancestor of L. cerasiforme, grown by the Aztecs of Central
Mexico who called it xitomatl ( ), meaning plump
thing with a navel, and later called tomatl by other Mesoamerican
peoples. Aztec writings mention tomatoes were prepared with
peppers, corn and salt, likely to be the original salsa
recipe.
Many
historians believe that the Spanish explorer Cortez may have been the first to
transfer the small yellow tomato to Europe
after he captured the Aztec city of Tenochtítlan, now Mexico City
in 1521. Yet others believe
Christopher Columbus, an Italian
working for the Spanish monarchy, was the first European to take
back the tomato, earlier in 1493. The earliest discussion of the
tomato in European literature appeared in a
herbal written in 1544 by
Pietro Andrea Mattioli, an Italian
physician and botanist, who named it pomo d’oro, golden
apple.
The word
tomato comes from a word in the
Nahuatl language,
tomatl. French botanist
Joseph Pitton de
Tournefort provided the Latin botanical name, Lycopersicon
esculentum, to the tomato. The Latin name translates to "wolfpeach"
- peach because it was round and wolf because it was mistakenly
considered to be toxic due to its botanical connection to the
Solanaceae or nightshade family.
Aztecs and other peoples in the region used the fruit in their
cooking; it was being cultivated in southern Mexico and probably
other areas by 500BC. It is thought that the
Pueblo people believed that those who witnessed the
ingestion of tomato seeds were blessed with powers of
divination. The large, lumpy tomato, a mutation
from a smoother, smaller vegetable, originated and was encouraged
in Mesoamerica. Smith states this variant is the direct ancestor of
some modern cultivated tomatoes.
According to Andrew F Smith's
The Tomato in America, the
tomato probably originated in the highlands of the west coast of
South America. However, Smith notes there is no evidence the tomato
was cultivated or even eaten in Peru before the
Spanish arrived.
Two modern tomato cultivar groups, one represented by the Matt's
Wild Cherry tomato, the other by
currant
tomatoes, originate by recent domestication of the wild tomato
plants apparently native to eastern Mexico .
Spanish distribution
After the
Spanish
colonization of the Americas, the Spanish distributed the
tomato throughout their colonies in the Caribbean
. They also took it to the Philippines
, whence it moved to southeast Asia and then the entire Asian
continent. The Spanish also brought the tomato to Europe. It
grew easily in
Mediterranean
climates, and cultivation began in the 1540s.
It was probably eaten
shortly after it was introduced, and was certainly being used as
food by the early 1600s in Spain
.
The
earliest discovered cookbook with tomato recipes was published in
Naples
in 1692, though the author had apparently obtained
these recipes from Spanish sources. However, in certain
areas of Italy, such as Florence, the fruit was used solely as
tabletop decoration before it was incorporated into the local
cuisine in the late 17th or early 18th century.
In Britain
Tomatoes
were not grown in England
until the
1590s, according to Smith. One of the earliest cultivators
was
John Gerard, a
barber-surgeon. Gerard's
Herbal,
published in 1597 and largely plagiarized from continental sources
, is also one of the earliest discussions of the tomato in England.
Gerard
knew that the tomato was eaten in Spain and Italy
.
Nonetheless, he believed that it was poisonous (tomato leaves and
stems actually contain poisonous
glycoalkaloids, but the fruit is safe).
Gerard's
views were influential, and the tomato was considered unfit for
eating (though not necessarily poisonous) for many years in
Britain
and its North American
colonies.
But by the mid-1700s, tomatoes were widely eaten in Britain; and
before the end of that century, the
Encyclopædia Britannica
stated that the tomato was "in daily use" in
soups,
broths, and as a
garnish.
In Victorian times, cultivation reached an
industrial scale in glasshouses, most famously in Worthing
. Pressure for housing land in the 1930s to
1960s saw the industry move west to Littlehampton
, and to the market
gardens south of Chichester
. Over the past 15 years, the British tomato
industry has declined as more competitive imports from Spain and
the Netherlands have reached the supermarkets.
Middle East
The tomato was introduced to cultivation in the Middle East by John
Barker, British consul in Aleppo c. 1799 – c. 1825 Nineteenth
century descriptions of its consumption are uniformly as an
ingredient in a cooked dish. In 1881 it is described as only eaten
in the region, “within the last forty years.”
The tomato entered Iran through two separate routes . One route was
through Turkey and Armenia and the second route was through the
Qajar royal family's frequent travels to
France. The early name used for tomato in Iran was "Armani
Badenjan" (Armenian Eggplant).
The Spanish tomato dish, Paella, is called "Istanbuli Polao" (Istanbul
Pilaf) by Iranians.
Currently, the name used for tomato in Iran is "Gojeh Farangi"
(Foreign Plum).
North America
The
earliest reference to tomatoes being grown in British North America is from 1710,
when herbalist William Salmon
reported seeing them in what is today South Carolina
. They may have been introduced from the
Caribbean. By the mid-18th century, they were cultivated on some
Carolina plantations, and probably in other parts of the Southeast
as well. It is possible that some people continued to think
tomatoes were poisonous at this time; and in general, they were
grown more as
ornamental plants
than as food.
Thomas
Jefferson, who ate tomatoes in Paris
, sent some
seeds back to America.
Because
of their longer growing season for this heat-loving crop, several
states in the US Sun
Belt
became major tomato-producers, particularly
Florida
and California
. In California tomatoes are grown under
irrigation for both the fresh fruit
market and for
canning and
processing.
The University
of California, Davis
(UC Davis) became a major center for research on
the tomato. The C.M. Rick Tomato Genetics Resource Center at
UC Davis is a genebank of wild relatives, monogenic mutants and
miscellaneous genetic stocks of tomato. The Center is named for the
late Dr.
Charles M. Rick, a pioneer in tomato genetics research.
Research
on processing tomatoes is also conducted by the California
Tomato Research Institute in Escalon, California
.
Production trends
About 125 million tons of tomatoes were produced in the world in
2008.
China
, the largest
producer, accounted for about one quarter of the global output,
followed by United
States
and Turkey
. For
one variety, known as plum or
processing
tomatoes, California accounts for 90% of U.S. production and
35% of world production.
According to
FAOSTAT, the top producers of
tomatoes (in
tonnes) in 2007 were:
- {| class="wikitable" border="1" style="float:left;
clear:left;"
Cultivation and uses
The tomato is now grown worldwide for its edible
fruits, with thousands of
cultivarshaving been selected with varying fruit
types, and for optimum growth in differing growing conditions.
Cultivated tomatoes vary in size from tomberries, about 5mm in
diameter, through
cherry tomatoes,
about the same size as the wild tomato, up to "beefsteak" tomatoes
or more in diameter. The most widely grown commercial tomatoes tend
to be in the diameter range. Most cultivars produce red fruit; but
a number of cultivars with yellow, orange, pink, purple, green,
black, or white fruit are also available. Multicolored and striped
fruit can also be quite striking. Tomatoes grown for
canningand sauces are often elongated, long and
diameter; they are known as
plum
tomatoes, and have a lower water content. Roma-type tomatoes
are important cultivars in the
Sacramento Valleywhere a 120-acre Morning
Star cannery handles 1.2 million pounds of tomatoes an hour during
the harvest season where the fields yield about 40 tons to the
acre.
Tomatoes are one of the most common garden fruits in the United
States and, along with
zucchini, have a
reputation for outproducing the needs of the grower.
As in most sectors of agriculture, there is increasing demand in
developed countriesfor
organictomatoes, as well as
heirloom tomatoes, to make up for flavor and
texture faults in commercial tomatoes. Quite a few seed merchants
and banks provide a large selection of heirloom seeds. Tomato seeds
are occasionally organically produced as well, but only a small
percentage of organic crop area is grown with organic seed . The
definition of an heirloom tomato is vague, but unlike commercial
hybrids, all are self-pollinators who have bred true for 40 years
or more.
Varieties
- See List of tomato
cultivars
There are many (around 7500) tomato varieties grown for various
purposes.
Heirloom tomatoesare
becoming increasingly popular, particularly among home gardeners
and organic producers, since they tend to produce more interesting
and flavorful crops at the cost of disease resistance, and
productivity.Hybrid plants remain common, since they tend to be
heavier producers and sometimes combine unusual characteristics of
heirloom tomatoes with the ruggedness of conventional commercial
tomatoes.
A variety of heirloom tomatoes
Indian Vegetable Salad containing
Lemon, Tomato, Radish, Beetroot, Cucumber and Green Chillies
Tomato varieties are roughly divided into several categories, based
mostly on shape and size. "Slicing" or "globe" tomatoes are the
usual tomatoes of commerce;
beefsteakare large tomatoes often used
for sandwiches and similar applications - their kidney-bean shape
makes commercial use impractical along with a thinner skin and
being not bred for a long shelf life; globe tomatoes are of the
category of canners used for a wide variety of processing and fresh
eating; oxheart tomatoes can range in size up to beefsteaks, and
are shaped like large strawberries;
plum
tomatoes, or paste tomatoes (including pear tomatoes), are bred
with a higher solid content for use in
tomato sauceand
pasteand are usually oblong; pear tomatoes are
obviously pear shaped and based upon the San Marzano types for a
richer gourmet paste;
cherry
tomatoesare small and round, often sweet tomatoes generally
eaten whole in salads; and grape tomatoes which are a more recent
introduction are smaller and oblong used in salads;
campari tomatoesare also sweet and noted for
their juiciness, low acidity, and lack of mealiness; they are
bigger then
cherry tomatoes, but are
smaller than
plum tomato.
Early tomatoes and cool-summer tomatoes bear fruit even where
nights are cool, which usually discourages fruit set. There are
also varieties high in beta carotenes and vitamin A, hollow
tomatoes and tomatoes which keep for months in storage.
Tomatoes are also commonly classified as
determinateor indeterminate.
Determinate, or bush, types bear a full crop all at once and top
off at a specific height; they are often good choices for container
growing. Determinate types are preferred by commercial growers who
wish to harvest a whole field at one time, or home growers
interested in canning. Indeterminate varieties develop into vines
that never top off and continue producing until killed by frost.
They are preferred by home growers and local-market farmers who
want ripe fruit throughout the season. As an intermediate form,
there are plants sometimes known as "vigorous determinate" or
"semi-determinate"; these top off like determinates but produce a
second crop after the initial crop. The majority of heirloom
tomatoes are indeterminate, although some determinate heirlooms
exist.
Most modern tomato cultivars are smooth surfaced, but some older
tomato cultivars and most modern beefsteaks often show pronounced
ribbing, a feature that may have been common to virtually all
pre-Columbiancultivars. While
virtually all commercial tomato varieties are red, some tomato
cultivars - especially heirlooms - produce fruit in colors other
than
red, including
yellow,
orange,
pink,
black,
brown,
ivory,
white, and
purple, though such
fruit is not widely available in grocery stores, nor are their
seedlings available in typical nurseries, but must be bought as
seed, often via mail-order. Less common variations include fruit
with stripes (Green Zebra), fuzzy skin on the fruit (Fuzzy Peach,
Red Boar), multiple colors (Hillbilly, Burracker's Favorite, Lucky
Cross), etc.
There is also a considerable gap between commercial and
home-gardener cultivars; home cultivars are often bred for flavor
to the exclusion of all other qualities, while commercial cultivars
are bred for such factors as consistent size and shape, disease and
pest resistance, and suitability for mechanized picking and
shipping, as well as their ability to be picked before fully
ripening. The most commonly home grown tomato is the Beefsteak
variety.
Tomatoes grow well with 7 hours of sunlight a day. A fertilizer
with the ratio 5-10-10, often sold as tomato fertilizer or
vegetable fertilizer can be used for extra growth and production,
but manure or compost work well, too.
Diseases and pests
Tomato cultivars vary widely in their resistance to disease. Modern
hybridsfocus on improving disease
resistance over the
heirloom plants.
One common tomato disease is
tobacco mosaic virus, and for this
reason smoking or use of
tobaccoproducts are
discouraged around tomatoes, although there is some scientific
debate over whether the virus could possibly survive being burned
and converted into smoke. Various forms of
mildewand
blightare also common
tomato afflictions, which is why tomato cultivars are often marked
with a combination of letters which refer to specific disease
resistance. The most common letters are:
V-
verticilliumwilt,
F-
fusariumwiltstrain I,
FF-
fusariumwilt strain I & II,
N-
nematodes,
T-
tobacco
mosaic virus, and
A-
alternaria.
Tomato fruitworm eating unripe
tomato
Another particularly dreaded disease is
curly
top, carried by the
beet
leafhopper, which interrupts the lifecycle, ruining a
nightshade plant as a crop. As the name implies, it has the symptom
of making the top leaves of the plant wrinkle up and grow
abnormally.
Some common tomato pests are
stink bugs,
cutworms,
tomato
hornwormsand
tobacco hornworms,
aphids,
cabbage
loopers,
whiteflies,
tomato fruitworms,
flea beetles,
red
spider mite,
slugs, and
Colorado potato beetles.
Pollination
The flower and leaves are visible in
this photo of a tomato plant.
the wild, original state, tomatoes required cross-
pollination; they were much more
self-incompatiblethan
domestic cultivars. As a floral device to reduce selfing, the
pistilsof wild tomatoes extended farther out
of the flower than today's cultivars. The
stamenswere, and remain, entirely within the closed
corolla.
As tomatoes were moved from their native areas, their traditional
pollinators, (probably a species of
halictidbee) did not
move with them. The trait of self-fertility (or self-
pollenizing) became an advantage and domestic
cultivarsof tomato have been selected to
maximize this trait.
This is not the same as
self-pollination, despite the common claim
that tomatoes do so. That tomatoes pollinate themselves poorly
without outside aid is clearly shown in
greenhousesituations where pollination must be
aided by artificial wind, vibration of the plants (one brand of
vibrator is a wand called an "electric bee" that is used manually),
or more often today, by cultured
bumblebees.
The
antherof a tomato flower is shaped like a
hollow tube, with the
pollenproduced within
the structure rather than on the surface, as with most species. The
pollen moves through pores in the anther, but very little pollen is
shed without some kind of outside motion.
The best source of outside motion is a
sonicatingbee such as a bumblebee or the
original wild halictid pollinator. In an outside setting, wind or
biological agentsprovide sufficient
motion to produce commercially viable crops.
Hydroponic and greenhouse cultivation
Tomatoes
are often grown in greenhouses in cooler
climates, and there are cultivars such as the British 'Moneymaker'
and a number of cultivars grown in Siberia
that are specifically bred for indoor
growing.In more
temperate climates,
it is not uncommon to start seeds in greenhouses during the late
winter for future transplant.
Hydroponictomatoes are also available,
and the technique is often used in hostile growing environments as
well as high-density plantings.
Picking and ripening
Unripe tomatoes
Tomatoes are often picked unripe (and thus colored green) and
ripened in storage with
ethylene. Unripe
tomatoes are firm. As they ripen they soften until reaching the
ripe state where they are red or orange in color and slightly soft
to the touch. Ethylene is a hydrocarbon gas produced by many fruits
that acts as the molecular cue to begin the ripening process.
Tomatoes ripened in this way tend to keep longer but have poorer
flavor and a mealier, starchier texture than tomatoes ripened on
the plant. They may be recognized by their color, which is more
pink or orange than the other ripe tomatoes' deep red, depending on
variety.
A
machine-harvestable variety of tomato (the "square tomato") was
developed in the 1950s by University
of California, Davis's Gordie
C.Hanna, which in
combination with the development of a suitable harvester
revolutionized the tomato-growing industry. In 1994
Calgeneintroduced a
genetically modifiedtomato called the
'
FlavrSavr' which could be vine ripened
without compromising
shelf life. However,
the product was not commercially successful (see main article for
details) and was only sold until 1997.
Recently, stores have begun selling "tomatoes on the vine", which
are determinate varieties that are ripened or harvested with the
fruits still connected to a piece of vine. These tend to have more
flavor than artificially ripened tomatoes (at a price premium), but
still may not be the equal of local garden produce.
Slow-ripening cultivars of tomato have been developed by crossing a
non-ripening cultivar with ordinary tomato cultivars. Cultivars
were selected whose fruits have a long shelf life and at least
reasonable flavor.
Modern uses and nutrition
Tomatoes are now eaten freely throughout the world, and their
consumption is believed to benefit the heart among other things.
They contain
lycopene, one of the most
powerful natural
antioxidants. In some
studies lycopene, especially in cooked tomatoes, has been found to
help prevent
prostate cancerbut
other research contradicts this claim. Lycopene has also been shown
to improve the skin's ability to protect against harmful UV rays.
Natural genetic variation in tomatoes and their wild relatives has
given a genetic treasure trove of genes that produce lycopene,
carotene, anthocyanin, and other antioxidants. Tomato varieties are
available with double the normal
vitamin
C(Doublerich), 40 times normal
vitamin
A(97L97), high levels of
anthocyanin(P20 Blue), and two to four times the
normal amount of
lycopene(numerous
available cultivars with the high crimson gene).
Tomato consumption has been associated with decreased risk of
breast cancer, head and neck cancers and might be strongly
protective against neurodegenerative diseases.
Though it is botanically a
berry, a subset of
fruit, the tomato is nutritionally categorized
as a
vegetable(see
below). Since "vegetable" is not
a botanical term, there is no contradiction in a plant part being a
fruit botanically while still being considered a vegetable.
Tomatoes are used extensively in
Mediterraneancuisine, especially
Italianand
Middle Easterncuisines. The tomato is
acidic; this acidity makes tomatoes especially easy to
preserve in home
canningwhole, in pieces, as
tomato sauce, or paste.
Tomato juiceis often canned and sold as a
beverage; Unripe green tomatoes can also be
breaded and fried, used
to make
salsa, or pickled. The fruit
is also preserved by drying, often by sun, and sold either in bags
or in jars in oil.
Cultural impact
The town
of Buñol
, Spain, annually
celebrates La Tomatina, a festival centered
on an enormous tomato fight.Tomatoes are also a popular
"non-lethal" throwing weapon in mass protests; and there was a
common tradition of throwing rotten tomatoes at bad performers on a
stage during the 19th century; today it is usually referenced as a
mere metaphor (see
Rotten Tomatoes).
Embracing it for this protest connotation, the
Dutch Socialist partyadopted
the tomato as their logo.
Known for
its tomato growth and production, the Mexican state of Sinaloa
takes the tomato as its symbol.
In October 1965, Reynoldsburg Ohio City Council dedicated a plaque
commemorating a proclamation from the Franklin County Historical
Society that named Reynoldsburg as the birthplace of the commercial
tomato
Storage
Most tomatoes today are picked before fully ripened. They are bred
to continue ripening, but the enzyme that ripens tomatoes stops
working when it reaches temperatures below 12.5 °C
(54.5 °F). Once an unripe tomato drops below that temperature,
it will not continue to ripen. Once fully ripe, tomatoes can be
stored in the
refrigeratorbut are best
kept at
room temperature. Tomatoes
stored in the refrigerator tend to lose flavor but will still be
edible; thus the "Never Refrigerate" stickers sometimes placed on
tomatoes in supermarkets.
Botanical description
Tomato plants are vines, initially
decumbent, typically growing six feet or more above
the ground if supported, although erect bush varieties have been
bred, generally three feet tall or shorter. Indeterminate types are
"tender" perennials, dying annually in temperate climates (they are
originally native to tropical highlands), although they can live up
to three years in a greenhouse in some cases. Determinate types are
annual in all climates.
Tomato plants are
dicots, and grow as a series
of branching stems, with a terminal bud at the tip that does the
actual growing. When that tip eventually stops growing, whether
because of pruning or flowering, lateral buds take over and grow
into other, fully functional, vines.
Tomato plant vines are typically pubescent, meaning covered with
fine short hairs. These hairs facilitate the vining process,
turning into roots wherever the plant is in contact with the ground
and moisture, especially if there is some issue with the vine's
contact to its original root.
Most tomato plants have
compound
leaves, and are called regular leaf (RL) plants. But some
cultivars have simple leaves known as
potato
leaf(PL) style because of their resemblance to that close
cousin. Of regular leaves, there are variations, such as
rugoseleaves, which are deeply grooved,
variegated,
angoraleaves,
which have additional colors where a genetic mutation causes
chlorophyllto be excluded from some
portions of the leaves.
Their
flowers, appearing on the apical
meristem, have the anthers fused along the
edges, forming a column surrounding the
pistil's style. Flowers tend to be self-fertilizing.
This is because they are native to the Americas, where there were
no
honeybees(which are native to the
old world). Similarly, many plants of the
Americas are self-fertilizing, while others are pollinated by
flies, butterflies, moths, other insects, or other external forces
that present in the Americas, that made it possible for some new
world plants to originally require biotic pollination.
Tomato fruit is classified as a
berry. As a
true fruit, it develops from the ovary of the plant after
fertilization, its flesh comprising the pericarp walls. The fruit
contains hollow spaces full of seeds and moisture, called locular
cavities. These vary, among cultivated species, according to type.
Some smaller varieties have two cavities, globe-shaped varieties
typically have three to five, beefsteak tomatoes have a great
number of smaller cavities, while paste tomatoes have very few,
very small cavities.
The seeds need to come from a mature fruit, and be dried/fermented
before germination.
Botanical classification
In 1753 the tomato was placed in the genus
Solanumby
Linnaeusas
Solanum lycopersicumL.
(derivation, 'lyco',
wolf, plus 'persicum',
peach,
i.e.,"wolf-peach"). Other
species in that family are
potatoes,
chili peppers,
tobacco,
eggplantand the
poisonous
belladonna. However, in
1768
Philip Millerplaced it in its own
genus, and he named it
Lycopersicon esculentum. This name
came into wide use but was in breach of the
plant naming
rules. Technically, the combination
Lycopersicon
lycopersicum(L.)
H.Karst.would be more
correct, but this name (published in 1881) has hardly ever been
used (except in seed catalogs, which frequently used it and still
do). Therefore, it was decided to
conservethe well-known
Lycopersicon esculentum, making this the
correct namefor the tomato when it is placed in
the genus
Lycopersicon.
However,
geneticevidence
(
e.g.,Peralta & Spooner 2001) has now shown that
Linnaeus was correct in the placement of the tomato in the genus
Solanum, making the
Linnaean namecorrect; if
Lycopersiconis excluded from
Solanum,
Solanumis left as a
paraphyletictaxon. Despite this, it is likely that
the exact taxonomic placement of the tomato will be controversial
for some time to come, with both names found in the literature. Two
of the major reasons that some still consider the genera separate
are the leaf structure (tomato leaves are markedly different from
any other
Solanum), and the biochemistry (many of the
alkaloids common to other
Solanumspecies are conspicuously
absent in the tomato). The tomato can with some difficulty be
crossed with a few species of diploid
Potatowith viable offspring that are capable of
reproducing. Such hybrids provide conclusive evidence of the close
relationship between these genera.
An international consortium of researchers from 10 countries, among
them researchers from the
Boyce Thompson
Institute for Plant Researchbegan sequencing the tomato
genomein 2004 and is creating a database of
genomic sequences and information on the tomato and related plants.
A draft version of the full genome expected to be published by
2008. The genomes of its
organelles(
mitochondriaand
chloroplast) are also expected to be published
as part of the project.
Breeding
Active breeding programs are ongoing by individuals, universities,
corporations, and organizations. The Tomato Genetic Resource
Center, U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research
Service-Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN)
[448677], AVRDC, and
numerous seed banks around the world store seed representing
genetic variations of value to modern agriculture. These seed
stocks are available for legitimate breeding and research efforts.
While individual breeding efforts can produce useful results, the
bulk of tomato breeding work is at universities and major
agriculture related corporations. University breeding programs are
active in Florida, North Carolina, New York, Oregon, and several
other states as well as in numerous countries worldwide. These
efforts have resulted in significant regionally adapted breeding
lines and hybrids such as the Mountain series from North Carolina.
Corporations including Heinz, Monsanto, BHNSeed, Bejoseed, etc,
have breeding programs that attempt to improve production, size,
shape, color, flavor, disease tolerance, pest tolerance,
nutritional value, and numerous other traits.
Fruit or vegetable?
Botanically, a tomato is the
ovary,
together with its seeds, of a
flowering
plant: therefore it is a
fruit. However,
the tomato is not as sweet as those foodstuffs usually called
fruits and, from a culinary standpoint, it is typically served as
part of a salad or
main courseof a meal,
as are
vegetables, rather than at
dessertin the case of most fruits. As noted above,
the term
vegetablehas no botanical meaning
and is purely a culinary term. Originally the controversy was that
tomatoes are treated as a fruit in home canning practices. Tomatoes
are acidic enough to be processed in a water bath rather than a
pressure cooker as "vegetables" require.
This argument has had legal implications in the United States. In
1887, U.S.
tarifflaws that imposed a
dutyon vegetables but not on fruits caused
the tomato's status to become a matter of legal importance.
The
U.S.
Supreme
Court settled the controversy on May 10, 1893 by
declaring that the tomato is a vegetable, based on the popular
definition that classifies vegetables by use, that they are
generally served with dinner and not dessert (Nix v.Hedden(149 U.S. 304)).The holding of the
case applies only to the interpretation of the
Tariff Act of March 3, 1883, and the court
did not purport to reclassify the tomato for botanical or other
purpose.
Tomatoes have been designated the state
vegetable of New
Jersey
.Arkansas
took both sides by declaring the "South Arkansas
Vine Ripe Pink Tomato" to be both the state fruit and the state
vegetable in the same law, citing both its culinary and botanical
classifications.In 2006, the
Ohio House of
Representativespassed a law that would have declared the tomato
to be the official state fruit, but the bill died when the
Ohio Senatefailed to act on it. However, in
April 2009 a new form of the bill passed, making the tomato the
official fruit of the state of Ohio. Tomato juice has been the
official beverage of Ohio since 1965.
A.W.Livingston,
of Reynoldsburg, Ohio
, played a large part in popularizing the tomato in
the late 1800s.
Due to the scientific definition of a fruit, the tomato remains a
fruit when not dealing with US tariffs. Nor is it the only culinary
vegetable that is a botanical fruit:
eggplants,
cucumbers, and
squashesof all kinds (such as
zucchiniand
pumpkins) share the same ambiguity.
Pronunciation
The pronunciation of
tomatodiffersin
different
English-speaking
countries; the two most common variants are and .
Speakers from the
British
Isles
, most of the Commonwealth, and older generations
among speakers of Southern
American English typically say , while most American and
Canadian speakers usually say .
The word's
dual pronunciationswere
immortalized in
Iraand
George Gershwin's 1937 song "
Let's Call the Whole Thing
Off" (
You like and I like / You like and I like ) and
have become a symbol for
nitpickingpronunciation disputes. In this
capacity it has even become an American and British slang term:
saying when presented with two choices can mean "What's the
difference?" or "It's all the same to me."
Safety
Plant toxicity
The leaves, stems, and green unripe fruit of the tomato plant, as a
member of the plant genus
Solanum(nightshade), contain the poison
solanine, which is toxic to humans and animals.
Children have been poisoned by a tea produced from the leaves of
the tomato plant. The fresh fruit is, however, harmless.
2006
On October 30, 2006, the U.S.
Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention(CDC) announced that tomatoes might have
been the source of a
salmonellaoutbreak
causing 172 illnesses in 18 states.
The affected states included Arkansas, Connecticut
, Georgia
, Indiana
, Kentucky
, Maine
, Massachusetts
, Michigan
, Minnesota
, North
Carolina
, New Hampshire
, Ohio
, Pennsylvania
, Rhode
Island
, Tennessee
, Virginia
, Vermont
and Wisconsin
.Tomatoes have been linked to seven
salmonella outbreaks since 1990 (from the
Food Safety Network).
2008
A 2008
salmonella outbreakcaused the removal of tomatoes from stores
and restaurants across the United States and parts of Canada. As of
July 8, 2008, from April 10, 2008, the rare Saintpaul
serotypeof
Salmonella entericacaused at least
1017 cases of
salmonellosisfood
poisoning in 41 states throughout the United States, the District
of Columbia, and Canada. As of July 2008, the
U.S.Food and Drug
Administrationsuspected that the contaminated food product was
a common ingredient in fresh salsa, such as raw tomato, fresh
jalapeño pepper, fresh serrano pepper, and fresh cilantro. It is
the largest reported salmonellosis outbreak in the United States
since 1985. New Mexico and Texas were proportionally the hardest
hit by far, with 49.7 and 16.1 reported cases per million,
respectively. The greatest number of reported cases occurred in
Texas (384 reported cases), New Mexico (98), Illinois (100), and
Arizona (49). There were at least 203 reported hospitalizations
linked to the outbreak, it caused at least one death, and it may
have been a contributing factor in at least one additional death.
The
CDCmaintains that
"it is likely many more illnesses have occurred than those
reported." Applying a previous CDC estimated ratio of non-reported
salmonellosis cases to reported cases (38.6:1), one would arrive at
an estimated 40,273 illnesses from this outbreak.
Tomato records
The
heaviest tomato ever was one of 3.51 kg (7 lb
12 oz), of the cultivar 'Delicious', grown by Gordon Graham of
Edmond,
Oklahoma
in 1986.The largest tomato plant grown was
of the cultivar 'Sungold' and reached 19.8 m (65 ft)
length, grown by Nutriculture Ltd (UK) of Mawdesley, Lancashire,
UK, in 2000.
The
massive "tomato tree" growing inside the Walt Disney
World Resort
's experimental greenhouses in Lake Buena
Vista, Florida
may be the largest single tomato plant in the
world.The plant has been recognized as a Guinness World
Record Holder, with a harvest of more than 32,000 tomatoes and a
total weight of 1,151.84 pounds (522 kg). It yields thousands
of tomatoes at one time from a single vine.
Yong Huang, Epcot
's manager
of agricultural science, discovered the unique plant in Beijing,
China.Huang brought its seeds to Epcot and created the
specialized greenhouse for the fruit to grow. The vine grows golf
ball-sized tomatoes which are served at Walt Disney World
restaurants. The world record-setting tomato tree can be seen by
guests along the
Living With the
Landboat ride at Epcot.
On
August 30, 2007,
40,000 Spaniards gathered in Buñol to throw of
tomatoes at each other in the yearly Tomatina festival.Bare-chested tourists also included
hundreds of British, French and Germans.
Types
Varieties commonly grown by home gardeners include :
- 'Beefsteak VFN' (a common
hybrid resistant to Verticillium,
Fusarium, and Nematodes)
- 'Big Boy' (a very common determinate hybrid in the United
States)
- 'Black Krim' (a purple-and-red cultivar from
the Crimea
)
- 'Brandywine' (a pink,
indeterminate beefsteak type with a considerable number of
substrains)
- 'Burpee VF' (an early attempt by W. Atlee
Burpee at disease resistance in a commercial tomato)
- 'Early Girl' (an early maturing globe
type)
- 'Gardener's Delight' (a smaller English variety)
- 'Juliet' (an oblong cherry tomato)
- 'Marmande' (a heavily ridged variety from southern France; similar to a small
beefsteak and available commercially in the U.S. as UglyRipe)
- 'Moneymaker' (an English greenhouse strain)
- Mortgage Lifter (a popular
heirloom beefsteak known for gigantic fruit)
- 'Patio' (bred specifically for container gardens)
- 'Purple Haze' (large cherry, indeterminate. Derived from
Cherokee Purple, Brandywine and Black Cherry)
- 'Roma VF' (a plum tomato common in supermarkets)
- 'Rutgers' (a commercial variety but considered an
heirloom)
- 'San Marzano' (a plum tomato
popular in Italy)
- 'Santa F1' (a Chinese grape tomato hybrid
popular in the U.S. and parts of southeast Asia)
- 'Shephard's Sack' (a large variety popular
in parts of Wales
)
- 'Sungold F1' (orange cherry variety with distinctive candy like
sweetness)
- 'Sweet 100' (a very prolific, indeterminate cherry tomato)
- 'Yellow Pear'' (a yellow,
pear-shaped heirloom cultivar)
- 'Cherry' Small, cherry shaped
Many varieties of processing tomatoes are grown commercially, but
just five hybrid cultivars grown in California constitute over 60%
of total production of processing tomatoes.
Heritage and heirloom varieties include:
- 'Aunt Ruby's German Green' (spicy green beefsteak type)
- 'Azoykcha' (Russian yellow variety)
- 'Andrew Rahart Jumbo Red' (red beefsteak)
- 'Backfield' (deep red indeterminate beefsteak type)
- 'Black Cherry' (black/brown cherry)
- 'Box Car Willie' (red beefsteak)
- 'Brandywine' (red beefsteak,
Sudduth strain)
- 'Cherokee Purple' (purple
beefsteak)
- 'Crnkovic Yugoslavian' (red beefsteak)
- 'Earl’s Faux' (pink/red beefsteak)
- 'Elbe' (orange beefsteak)
- 'German Johnson (sweet beefsteak type)
- 'Great Divide' (red beefsteak)
- 'Ispolin' (pink Siberian strain)
- 'Lucky Cross' (bi-color red/orange)
- 'Marianna’s Peace' (red beefsteak)
- 'Mortgage Lifter' (red
beefsteak, various strains)
- 'Red Pear' (pear shaped salad cherry type with beefsteak
flavor)
- 'Rose' (very large sweet Amish beefsteak type)
- 'Urbikany' (Siberian variety)
Gallery
Image:unripe tomatoes.jpg|Unripe tomatoes on a vine, good for
pickling.Image:Small tomatos.jpg|Small cherry tomatoes in
Korea.Image:Tomatoes-on-the-bush.jpg|Tomatoes on a
vine.Image:Tomato slices.jpg|Tomato
slices.Image:Tomatplanta.JPG|Young tomato plant.Image:Tomatos in
vegie garden.jpg|Tomato plants in the garden.Image:Tomato
Flower.jpg|Tomato Flower.Image:Organicsalsa.jpg|Heirloom tomatoes
in
Pico de gallo.Image:Tomato grass
backdrop.jpg|Tomato fruit.Image:Tomato400ppx.png|Vine Ripened
Tomato
Image:Bluetomato.jpg|'P20 blue tomato from OSU'
See also
Culinary uses
Pa amb tomàquet
References
- Smith, A. F. (1994). The Tomato in America. University of Illinois Press.
ISBN 0-252-07009-7.
- Peralta, I. E. & Spooner, D. M. (2001). Granule-bound
starch synthase (Gbssi) gene phylogeny of wild tomatoes
(Solanum L. section Lycopersicon Mill. Wettst. Subsection Lycopersicon).
American Journal of Botany 88 (10): 1888–1902 (available
online).
Footnotes
- "Molecular phylogenetic analyses have established that the
formerly segregate genera Lycopersicon, Cyphomandra, Normania, and
Triguera are nested within Solanum, and all species of these four
genera have been transferred to Solanum." See: Natural History Museum, Solanaceae Source:
Phylogeny of the genus Solanum.
- Acquaah, G. (2002). Horticulture: Principles and
Practices. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
- Tomato history
- The Tomato in America: Early History, Culture, and
Cookery, Andrew F. Smith, 1994, p.17, webpage: books-google-TTp17.
- Syria under the last five Turkish Sultans, Appletons' journal
Published by D. Appleton and Co., 1876, p. 519 [1]
- The Friend, 1881, p. 223
- Hartz, T. et al. Processing Tomato Production in
California. UC Vegetable Research and Information Center.
-
http://faostat.fao.org/site/567/DesktopDefault.aspx?PageID=567
- In the August 2008 issue of Smithsonian magazine, page
56: "This 120-acre facility is the largest of its type in the
world. During the three months of the local harvest, it handles
more than 1.2 million pounds of tomatoes every hour."
- In the August 2008 issue of Smithsonian magazine, page
57: "...five tons to the acre, or about one-eighth of a Morning
Star harvest from one acre."
- In the August 2008 issue of Smithsonian magazine, page
60: "The definition of an heirloom is somewhat vague, but all are
self-pollinators that have been bred true for 40 years or
more."
- In the August 2008 issue of Smithsonian magazine, page
56: "The Heinz 2401 is also bred for resistance to tomato
pathogens, of which there are many: beetles and nematodes, fungi
such as fusarium and verticillium, and viruses such as yellow leaf
curl and spotted wilt, which are carried in the wind, the soil or
the mouths of pests such as whitefly and thrips. Because it doesn't
really matter what processing tomatoes look like, they require
fewer applications of pesticides than do fresh-market varieties.
The Romas I saw being harvested had been sprayed only once."
- In the August 2008 issue of Smithsonian magazine, page
57: "The plants are still growing, and Brait will be happy if they
yield as little as five tons to the acre, or about one-eighth of a
Morning Star harvest from one acre."
- http://www.plants.am/wiki/Tomato#Early_tomatoes
- http://www.plants.am/wiki/Tomato#Novelty_tomatoes
-
http://www.ufseeds.com/All-About-Tomatoes_a6fd3933f91c4.html
- Tomato-Tobacco Mosaic Virus Disease
Extension.umn.edu. Retrieved June 30, 2006.
- Slugs in Home Gardens
Extension.umn.edu. Retrieved July 14, 2006.
- Zhang CX, Ho SC, Chen YM, Fu JH, Cheng SZ, Lin FY. Greater
vegetable and fruit intake is associated with a lower risk of
breast cancer among Chinese women. Int J Cancer. 2009 Jul
1;125(1):181-8.
- Freedman ND, Park Y, Subar AF, Hollenbeck AR, Leitzmann MF,
Schatzkin A, Abnet CC. Fruit and vegetable intake and head and neck
cancer risk in a large United States prospective cohort study. Int
J Cancer. 2008 May 15;122(10):2330-6.
- Rao AV, Balachandran B. Role of oxidative stress and
antioxidants in neurodegenerative diseases. Nutr Neurosci. 2002
Oct;5(5):291-309.
- Fall PA, Fredrikson M, Axelson O, Granérus AK. Nutritional and
occupational factors influencing the risk of Parkinson's disease: a
case-control study in southeastern Sweden. Mov Disord. 1999
Jan;14(1):28-37.
- Suganuma H, Hirano T, Arimoto Y, Inakuma T. Effect of tomato
intake on striatal monoamine level in a mouse model of experimental
Parkinson's disease. J Nutr Sci Vitaminol (Tokyo). 2002
Jun;48(3):251-4.
External links
- Overview of the entomological threats to tomato
cultivation.
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