You Say Tomato. They Say Phony.

From today's Wall Street Journal - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... ifestyle_5

I'm much more in favor of a "Heirloom Hybrid" than some of the offenses done in the name of organics. If we can find flavor characteristics and crossbreed, or genetically engineer "Pineapples" with fusilarium resistance, or "San Marzanos" without blossom end rot, or sturdier stems, container growers... what's the problem?

So long as the heirllooms are still out there to provide source material, why not go out there and improve things any way we can?

Obviously don't label them as "Heirlooms" but if we can get good taste with better yields... well, it's the history of agriculture.

Some of the issue here is semantics - it's not like the "heirlooms" are the ubertomato. I imagine it's sort of a moving target, like the word "antique." (or, for that matter, "healthy")

What I do like about the current craze for heirlooms is that we now have a much wider range of choices in hybrids - biodiversity is good. I'm with Joel.

it's all good as long as we can free-ride on the folks who preserve seed genetics.

Mhays wrote:Some of the issue here is semantics - it's not like the "heirlooms" are the ubertomato. I imagine it's sort of a moving target, like the word "antique." (or, for that matter, "healthy")

This is very true - I think "Hybrid vs. Open Pollinating" is a more accurate comparison than the "Hybrid vs. Heirloom" terminology they're using. All heirlooms were hybrids at some point, they've just been around long enough to be genetically distinct and identifiable. They ignore Genetically Modified plants altogether, which is what many commercial plants today are.

I have no problems with Hybrid plants, but I think they gloss over some of the inherent problems of producing hybrids to meet their stated goals - i.e. it is nearly impossible to produce a tomato with the softer texture of many heirloom tomatoes, and also have it be tough enough to handle commercial processing/shipping. Achieving a good taste with a tomato that has the shelf life required for commercial production is also difficult.

This is an interesting topic. I've learned a lot about gardening over the past three years and have tried to remain open and not "fall" into one camp or another but I think there is something valuable in retaining heirloom seeds.

Personally, I've tried heirloom, hybrid and one or two genetically modified varieties. I think it's the individual gardener's prerogative and situation that should determine what they want to grow and variety is a very nice option. Over the years, a gardener will finally understand what grows well in their climate or microclimate. For me, on my roof, some things did very well and others did not. I learned that just because I can order a seed from Italy, doesn't mean that plant will grow well in Chicago. Many "local" heirlooms are valuable in this regard. If you talk to the home "farmer/gardeners" in Central IL, Southern WI, and Western IL, I'm sure they will have a favorite tomato or pepper that has done well by them over the years. Hybrids can work well too but sometimes need a few years to really find out if they work in your climate. For me, I'll try a new heirloom every year but stick to one hybrid that was designed for our climate. Last year, I planted Diva cucumbers (from seed in the Earthbox) because I had a hard time getting my plants pollinated by bees. I believe this is a gm hybrid but I may be wrong on the gm part. Either way, the three plants produced over 15 lbs of great tasting cucs. If the taste wasn't there, I wouldn't plant them again but they've made my list of "go-to" city plants.

For those of you that find this interesting, here's a good article that addresses some of these topics: http://chiotsrun.com/2009/12/17/say-no-to-gm-vegetables/. I don't take a political side but understand why some people don't want a seed monopoly but rather have a choice in what they want to grow.

As far as I know there are no commercially available genetically modified vegetable seeds.

I've got no problem with GM seeds. The primary use is either resistance to herbicides (e.g. "Roundup Ready") or containing BT toxin (harmless to people, kills larvae).

I don't tend to use chemicals on my lawn and garden, so the herbicide resistance isn't so useful for me (and I dread the day someone distributes Roundup-Ready turf grass, and makes it impossible to get out of your sidewalk cracks), but BT-containing tomatoes might be useful. The primary objection to BT is that corn pollen can spread BT into adjacent roadsides, killing caterpilars. With tomatoes, that risk should be negligible, being insect-pollinated (BT only affects a limited number of insect species).

Hi everybody...let me avoid my Friday work deadline by jumping into this.

The key excerpt in Tyrus' link was...

Unfortunately, with all this controversy floating about, sometimes home gardeners don’t realize that hybrids has nothing at all to do with genetic engineering, which is a very different thing.

As teat says, pretty close to no veggies are gm. Twenty or so years ago there was a flavor saver tomato that was a dismal failure. It could be picked ripe and then not rot as quickly. Trouble came in shipping a ripe tomato.

Think of heirlooms as a super race type concept. For open pollinating plants you've got to grow them separate from the rest of the plant world (if their progeny are to remain the same generation after generation) or they'll take in genes from their neighbors.

Hybridization is I think about 70 yeras old. The concept is that the progeny have traits from two complimentary but different parents. Stictly a conventional breeding concept. Interestingly, hybridization ( like pasteurization) was not legal in parts of Europe for many years.

The "heirloom" varieties that modern society embraces today, are products popularized and developed by industrial agriculture 50 or whatever yeras ago. Industry moved passed these products for many reasons, many of those dictated by the grocery stores.

We plant heirloom tomatoes and we like replanting a variety or two each year. But we appreciate the fact that conventional products are there to feed us the other 10 mos. of the year.