Freshtomatoespile gamey in grocery stock garden truck sections 12 months out of the year . But for Lycopersicon esculentum lovers , they ’re only good for a time of year . ( Or maybe not ever , if you ask most . ) Grocery storehouse tomato have long had a reputation for being bland , mealy , too firm , tasteless and just not juicy enough .
There are scientists working to save foodstuff store tomatoes — and not just by encouraging people to garden or shopfarmers market . Through skill , an honestly good grocery store tomato may be on the market within five years . Harry Klee is a professor of horticultural science at the University of Florida , and he puts his heat for tomatoes into the foresightful workplace of developing a better tomato for the mint market . " We ’re not going to consider our program a success until all grocery store store tomatoes taste practiced , " he says in a recent interview .
According to Klee , the No . 1 complaint about garden truck in America is the look of foodstuff entrepot tomatoes . It ’s a problem that ’s been around for decennium — Klee remembersa 1977 essayin The New Yorker about how hard it is to line up unfeignedly ripe , fresh love apple .
How Did Tomatoes End Up Tasting So … Blah?
The problem lie in the intact market mountain range .
" Farmers are n’t paid on sapidity , " Klee manoeuvre out . " They ’re paid on the pound sterling of Lycopersicon esculentum they put in a corner . raiser will tell you they ca n’t command flavour . " What the market economic value motivates growers to prioritize fast growth , high payoff , disease resistance and a long ledge liveliness . Breeders have been developing tomatoes in response to those qualities that agriculturalist are looking for . Tomatoes do n’t have to taste good for any of that to hap .
" Flavor ’s been neglected for decades , " Klee says . " Over time , neglect lead to decline in quality . So the flavor loss is n’t knowing on the agriculturalist ' part , or anyone ’s part . " Klee compare it to a symphony . If one instrument is missing , you probably would n’t note . If two or three instruments bow out , an experient musician might notice . And if , one by one , legal instrument pull up stakes the orchestra , eventually you ’ll notice something ’s missing . And in the case of fruit like tomatoes — well , in Klee ’s words , " Flavor , over fifty years , has go to hell . "
The growers who do get paid on flavor focus on local sales agreement to customers who live nearby and provide repeat line of work — both home cooks and restaurant . Those are the agriculturalist who can pick tomatoes once they ’ve ripened on the vine , and they do n’t have to transport them far and peril damage .
Julie Dawson is a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin - Madison , and she does tomato mixture trials include varieties from a figure of different public and private sector breeder . Some multifariousness in the trial come fromSeed Savers Exchange , an organization that ’s devoted to preserving America ’s diverseness in intellectual nourishment and garden plants by collecting , sharing and saving seeds — and by encouraging people to grow them . " We go for our trials help breeders modernize form that have the spirit that make people want to corrupt and wipe out more , " she read .
" There ’s a gene that makes the tomato plant mature all at once , a uniform ripen gene , and ingest that also impacts sugar accumulation in the tomato , " she say , as an good example of how flavor gets breed out . But Dawson also points out that not only has flavor been bred out of innovative food market store tomatoes , handling is another part of the equivalence . " The bigger part of why they do n’t savor good is due to how people handle them , such as picking them green . A lot of the ripening on the flora creates sugars and explosive compounds that make the tomato taste good . They ’re well-situated to transport when they ’re underripe , but they will never develop all of those flavors . " Ripening tomatoes commercially withethylene gasis no backup for the work nature does on the vine . " It just turns them red ; you do n’t get all the volatiles and lower-ranking compounds that make it smack like a tomato plant and taste good . "
What’s Being Done to Make Delicious Market Tomatoes
So now , Klee and numerous horticultural scientists are work out to bring look back . But , grower — and supermarkets — still need the qualities of a modern tomato . " Breeding is now a reconciliation act because growers still want a good payoff and disease impedance , " Klee says . " We have to keep key piece in . " At the University of Florida , the horticultural science department is produce over 100 salmagundi of tomatoes and uses a tasting dialog box of over 100 people to help identify what makes a Lycopersicon esculentum taste good . They ’ve come up with a list of compounds that impact flavor , and the try out panel assist identify what people like , and then determine how much of each chemical compound is in the tomatoes that get approval from the panel . The process bring on a scientific recipe for a great tomato .
" desoxyribonucleic acid sequencing has become cheap , so we ’ve sequence the genomes of 500 different varieties of tomatoes , " Klee says . They can name genes that make good - sample modern tomatoes , trace where those gene amount from , and bring them back . It produce a raising roadmap . "
decent now , Klee and his team are working on nine different genes to put into modern Lycopersicon esculentum , creating fruit with the yield , disease resistivity and shelf life that growers and grocery want , but with the flavour that tomato plant lovers crave .
Better Tomatoes Are a Few Years Away
The challenge with creating better fruit and vegetables is that it takes time . In Florida , Klee and his squad can only maturate two generations of love apple a year . But , good Lycopersicon esculentum are on the horizon . Klee says savor panel in summertime 2019 will help them finalize a tomato that ’s vex it all . Once that ’s done , the challenge is getting growers to take a chance on planting and deal them . " Realistically , it will be several years because raiser require to adopt new plant cautiously , " Klee says . The university is working with several commercial seed companies that want to be first in the grocery with good tomatoes .
Consumers have a part to play in getting better love apple to market , too : buy them . " Some people are willing to pay more for nifty flavor , but most masses are price sensitive . If you pay minuscule , you get what you pay off for , " Klee said . " People need to abuse up and pay for better tomato . "
