Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

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Daniel Ricks
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Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

#1

Post: # 31776Unread post Daniel Ricks
Sat Oct 03, 2020 10:03 pm

Hi there everyone,

I wanted to find out if people know of cherry tomato varieties that definitely have the tangerine genetics (ie. they are orange-fruited with flower anthers that are at least a bit more orange than most tomato flowers, indicating the homozygous recessive tt).

I’m able to search and find lots of orange cherry tomatoes online, but for the most part pictures of the flowers aren’t there or the genetics aren’t clearly spelled out. As far as orange tomatoes go, there can be the recessive apricot orange with a pink blush in the middle of the fruit, or two different dominant types: Beta and Delta.

I’m interested in getting more varieties like this because they accumulate more tetra-cis lycopene instead of all-trans lycopene, which has been shown to be about 5-8x more bioavailable than normal red tomatoes when eaten fresh. At least 95% of the tomato cherries my family eats are fresh off the vine, so it seems to just make sense to me to add more of these to our growing plans.

So far I’ve identified and ordered Datlo, and I’m considering buying Golden Grape from TomatoFest because an awesome organization in New Zealand has tested the Golden Grape they got from Trade Winds Fruit and were able to show that it had good tetra-cis lycopene levels. I’ll load up more information about that later, the initials for the organization are HFCRT (awesome resource, I know [mention]OhioGardener[/mention] was talking about this in another thread. I would pay for seeds directly from them, but I think with the new regulations around international seeds, I might not be able to anymore.

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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

#2

Post: # 31779Unread post Shule
Sat Oct 03, 2020 10:33 pm

You might try Olga's Round Yellow Chicken Egg. It's a bit bigger than a cherry, though (4-6oz). I've read it's high in tetra-cis.

Well, I checked my Galapagos Island tomato, which isn't supposed to be tangerine as far as I know (it's gold, but extremely ripe fruits look kind of orange), but it's the closest thing to an orange cherry I'm growing this year. Sorry. The anthers looked goldenrod, and not significantly more orange than a random other tomato flower.

I plan to grow at least one orange cherry next year, granted it's unstable (SunOrange F2). So, if I remember, I should be able to comment again.

I'm growing at least one or two high tetra-cis tomatoes, this year, but no cherries. None of them produced much for me, though! I don't think they like alkaline soil, or something. I'll have to check out their anthers to see how different they look to me.
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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

#3

Post: # 31783Unread post Daniel Ricks
Sun Oct 04, 2020 2:34 am

Shule wrote: Sat Oct 03, 2020 10:33 pm You might try Olga's Round Yellow Chicken Egg. It's a bit bigger than a cherry, though (4-6oz). I've read it's high in tetra-cis.
I'll check into that one. The one and only high tetra-cis I've grown so far is Tangella, which I think is around the same size as Olga's, but Olga's keeps coming back up as a high tetra-cis and might be worth exploring whether it's better than the Tangella for me in that size bracket.. it could totally be the placement and my management practices, but every Tangella fruit cracked and the skins were sometimes pretty thick. Good tomato-ey flavor though.
Shule wrote: Sat Oct 03, 2020 10:33 pm Well, I checked my Galapagos Island tomato, which isn't supposed to be tangerine as far as I know (it's gold, but extremely ripe fruits look kind of orange), but it's the closest thing to an orange cherry I'm growing this year. Sorry. The anthers looked goldenrod, and not significantly more orange than a random other tomato flower.

I plan to grow at least one orange cherry next year, granted it's unstable (SunOrange F2). So, if I remember, I should be able to comment again.
It might get its orange color from the Beta-carotene accumulation pathway-- at least the Galapagos is one of the places I heard the tomato researchers became aware of Beta from. Thanks for checking the flowers :)
What's interesting is that even on the Tangella I grew, there was still quite a bit of variation in the darkness of orange vs. yellow anthers on the flowers. At the beginning I thought maybe there had been a mix-up, but I eventually saw some distinctly orange anthers and that put me at ease. :lol:
Shule wrote: Sat Oct 03, 2020 10:33 pm I'm growing at least one or two high tetra-cis tomatoes, this year, but no cherries. None of them produced much for me, though! I don't think they like alkaline soil, or something. I'll have to check out their anthers to see how different they look to me.
What two were these out of curiosity? I'm contemplating getting Woodle Orange as a tangerine-type larger (but not too large) tomato, as well as Orange Roma as a tangerine paste type. Hopefully they've got good taste along with that nutrition :geek:

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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

#4

Post: # 31784Unread post patihum
Sun Oct 04, 2020 5:02 am

Check out Peachy Keen at Heritage Seed Market. It's a 2oz not a cherry but is prolific with no splitting and grows well in heat and humidity. High in beta- carotene.

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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

#5

Post: # 31794Unread post Daniel Ricks
Sun Oct 04, 2020 9:59 am

patihum wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 5:02 am Check out Peachy Keen at Heritage Seed Market. It's a 2oz not a cherry but is prolific with no splitting and grows well in heat and humidity. High in beta- carotene.
Thanks patihum!

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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

#6

Post: # 31799Unread post OhioGardener
Sun Oct 04, 2020 11:59 am

Daniel Ricks wrote: Sat Oct 03, 2020 10:03 pm So far I’ve identified and ordered Datlo, and I’m considering buying Golden Grape from TomatoFest because an awesome organization in New Zealand has tested the Golden Grape they got from Trade Winds Fruit and were able to show that it had good tetra-cis lycopene levels. I’ll load up more information about that later, the initials for the organization are HFCRT (awesome resource, I know @OhioGardener was talking about this in another thread. I would pay for seeds directly from them, but I think with the new regulations around international seeds, I might not be able to anymore.
Are you a researcher or tomato breeder? I've been growing out some of the highest tetra-cis-lycopene varieties sourced from the tested strains for our family's personal use. I'm assuming you've seen the new reports posted on the Heritage Food Crops site?
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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

#7

Post: # 31813Unread post bower
Sun Oct 04, 2020 4:46 pm

Aside from the NZ organization that several have mentioned, I've never been able to find a handy list of the genetics of orange fruited varieties. So the only real clue you can get is by growing them and looking for the flower color. Datlo I've grown and confirm it's tangerine, but I don't know of any other cherries. (Datlo is a nice tasting fruit btw, so good choice!).
Growing Zolotoy Zapas this year, it is a tangerine with medium sized fruit this year, last time I grew it the fruit were small. Determinate but has a tendency to be a very large plant, with a long number of leaves then a couple of clusters before the tip. I saved some seeds for Carolyn's tribute if anyone wants to try it.
The only other tangerine tomato I have tried and would grow again is Yellow Clusters from Ukraine. But that is a beef type tomato.
There was one small fruited yellow I grew, that turned out to be a yellow-tangerine, I've actually forgotten the name of it, but I do remember the fruit were not memorable enough to grow again.
A lot of the orange fruit I've grown have turned out to be Beta genetics, so they would be rich in beta carotene not the tetra cis lyc.

I would love to hear more about the varieties that have been identified as tangerine orange.
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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

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Post: # 31816Unread post Labradors
Sun Oct 04, 2020 5:42 pm

Last year, I grew Moonglow, Persimmon and Orange Strawberry, all have tetra-cis-lycopene.

Moonglow was compact and was very productive with perfect orange orbs. I found them more acidic than I would like, but they were great for sauce.
Persimmon had large which I found very acidic.
Orange Strawberry was a large productive heart which I thought tasted amazing.

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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

#9

Post: # 31817Unread post OhioGardener
Sun Oct 04, 2020 5:54 pm

I've grown the following tetra-cis-lycopene varieties:

Orange Crimea
Amish Yellowish Orange Oxheart
Golden Light
Olga's Round Yellow Chicken Egg
Brandywine Yellow
Amana Orange
Persimmon
Orange Roma
Golden Queen (I think this may be incorrectly listed as Golden Green on HFCRT site)

I have to say all of them had good flavor and there wasn't one that I didn't like. Orange Roma and Golden Light are both roma types suitable fresh of for sauce. Amish Yellowish produced an insane amount of oxhearts with few blemishes. Orange Crimea was probably the most intensely orange to the point where when washing the seeds during collection it looked like I was decanting away orange juice. However, it's a little more prone to concentric and radial cracking than the others if it gets irregular watering. Persimmon was delicious with very large fruit, though only moderately productive. Amana had a wonderful flavor with excellent productivity and blemish-free fruit though it was quite tall. Olga's is similar to Orange Crimea though slightly smaller and slightly less intense in color, but with much better crack resistance. I would recommend them all!

I also attempted to cross one of my tangerine tomatoes this year for my first breeding project, so I'm anxiously awaiting 2021 to be able to grow out what will hopefully be a F1.
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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

#10

Post: # 31840Unread post Daniel Ricks
Sun Oct 04, 2020 10:06 pm

OhioGardener wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 11:59 am Are you a researcher or tomato breeder? I've been growing out some of the highest tetra-cis-lycopene varieties sourced from the tested strains for our family's personal use. I'm assuming you've seen the new reports posted on the Heritage Food Crops site?
Hi Debbie, glad you could join in the conversation. I'm a scientist by profession, though nothing to do with plants as yet. I'm hoping to start my first tomato breeding experiment next year in our backyard with one of the objectives being an excellent-tasting high tetra-cis lycopene cherry/grape-size tomato, with some other ideas hopefully blended in. Then I realized that of course before embarking on a multi-year path like stabilizing a cross would entail, I should do my best to explore the current tangerine cherries and have them for my family in the meantime.

I've really enjoyed going through basically everything the Heritage Food Crops Research Trust has on their site, and would have liked to source seeds directly from them, but looked into the feasibility and realized I probably wouldn't be able to get them across the border anymore. You mentioned something to this effect in your 2020 growout thread, but that you were able to make it happen just in time. Am I right that I probably couldn't get any from them anymore (to be shipped here to the US, that is)?
OhioGardener wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 5:54 pm I've grown the following tetra-cis-lycopene varieties:

Orange Crimea
Amish Yellowish Orange Oxheart
Golden Light
Olga's Round Yellow Chicken Egg
Brandywine Yellow
Amana Orange
Persimmon
Orange Roma
Golden Queen (I think this may be incorrectly listed as Golden Green on HFCRT site)

I have to say all of them had good flavor and there wasn't one that I didn't like. Orange Roma and Golden Light are both roma types suitable fresh of for sauce. Amish Yellowish produced an insane amount of oxhearts with few blemishes. Orange Crimea was probably the most intensely orange to the point where when washing the seeds during collection it looked like I was decanting away orange juice. However, it's a little more prone to concentric and radial cracking than the others if it gets irregular watering. Persimmon was delicious with very large fruit, though only moderately productive. Amana had a wonderful flavor with excellent productivity and blemish-free fruit though it was quite tall. Olga's is similar to Orange Crimea though slightly smaller and slightly less intense in color, but with much better crack resistance. I would recommend them all!

I also attempted to cross one of my tangerine tomatoes this year for my first breeding project, so I'm anxiously awaiting 2021 to be able to grow out what will hopefully be a F1.
Wow, you have grown a lot of them-- awesome! Due to the nutritional benefits, my goal is to have these form a much larger part of my family's tomato consumption, so I'm planning on ending up with at least one tetra-cis type spread across the different sizes and purposes. Good thing my favorite color is orange. It's encouraging to hear you say you enjoyed the flavors.. if I were to get you to choose between Orange Roma and Golden Light as a recommendation, which would you say?

It sounds like as far as the tomato breeding, you are one year ahead of me on my first breeding experiment too, also to include a high tetra-cis. This stuff is too much fun ;)
Last edited by Daniel Ricks on Mon Oct 05, 2020 9:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

#11

Post: # 31841Unread post Daniel Ricks
Sun Oct 04, 2020 10:20 pm

Bower wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 4:46 pm Aside from the NZ organization that several have mentioned, I've never been able to find a handy list of the genetics of orange fruited varieties. So the only real clue you can get is by growing them and looking for the flower color. Datlo I've grown and confirm it's tangerine, but I don't know of any other cherries. (Datlo is a nice tasting fruit btw, so good choice!).
Growing Zolotoy Zapas this year, it is a tangerine with medium sized fruit this year, last time I grew it the fruit were small. Determinate but has a tendency to be a very large plant, with a long number of leaves then a couple of clusters before the tip. I saved some seeds for Carolyn's tribute if anyone wants to try it.
The only other tangerine tomato I have tried and would grow again is Yellow Clusters from Ukraine. But that is a beef type tomato.
There was one small fruited yellow I grew, that turned out to be a yellow-tangerine, I've actually forgotten the name of it, but I do remember the fruit were not memorable enough to grow again.
A lot of the orange fruit I've grown have turned out to be Beta genetics, so they would be rich in beta carotene not the tetra cis lyc.

I would love to hear more about the varieties that have been identified as tangerine orange.
Hi Bower, I was hoping you'd join in the conversation-- I read some of what you'd wrote on anther colors over on Tomatoville (not a full member, but I could read what had been said). That's also where I got the tip regarding Datlo, which I'm really glad I did.

For others who may be interested, Tatiana's Tomatobase has awesome pictures that Vladimir provided where you can see the darker anthers and the long flat trusses: http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Datl ... neral_Info

Also, since Sungold has become something of a point of reference for cherry flavor for many people (including me), how would you say the flavor or Datlo compares? Of course it may not have that unique whatever-it-is that Sungold has, but I'm wondering if you think they could even be considered close to the same league.

Thanks for letting me know what you'd gathered so far, it is too bad there isn't already a place listed out detailing the genetics of the different oranges.. I'm glad HFCRT is doing what they are doing, that's for sure.

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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

#12

Post: # 31843Unread post Daniel Ricks
Sun Oct 04, 2020 10:25 pm

Labradors wrote: Sun Oct 04, 2020 5:42 pm Last year, I grew Moonglow, Persimmon and Orange Strawberry, all have tetra-cis-lycopene.

Moonglow was compact and was very productive with perfect orange orbs. I found them more acidic than I would like, but they were great for sauce.
Persimmon had large which I found very acidic.
Orange Strawberry was a large productive heart which I thought tasted amazing.

Linda
Linda, thanks for your response! I'm looking closer at Moonglow, in part because of the good shape. Catfacing etc is a real downer sometimes, so I am trying to shift more of our growing to varieties with nice reproducible and appealing shapes.

I'm also checking out that Orange Strawberry.. you're not the only person I've read that has said that it has an excellent flavor.

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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

#13

Post: # 31849Unread post bower
Mon Oct 05, 2020 6:44 am

Great thread, lots of info coming together here! Nice to hear about these breeding projects as well. :)
[mention]Daniel Ricks[/mention] I would say that Datlo has a sweeter profile overall cw Sungold. Datlo has less of the tangy side which is so perfectly balanced with sweetness in Sungold. They were tasty though and nice to eat. Very firm. Cute shape. Prolific. Not many seeds in my greenhouse conditions, that was 2015.
I haven't sampled as many 'pro-lycopene' tomatoes as others here, but I have the impression that it adds a very subtle, melon-like sweetness to the profile, while the Beta I associate with a more intense fruity flavor. I could be wrong though. There are so many components of tomato taste, and I'm sure there's a huge range of variation in the tetra-cis-l varieties too.
One of the cool things about tangerine, is that it can be expressed in either a red or a yellow background. So that expands the range of crosses that are possible and different colored fruit.
I made one cross with Datlo, to a determinate black cherry F3 (from Napoli a Fiaschetto X Black Cherry). Haven't grown it yet, but I wonder what tangerine will look like in a black background. Probably horrible. ;) May be tasty though.
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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

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Post: # 31851Unread post Clkeiper
Mon Oct 05, 2020 7:23 am

Why only cherry tomatoes? as you may have noticed all these suggestions are rather large tomatoes none of them are true cherries. Juanne flammee grows like a cherry tomatoes but it is not a cherry by any stretch of the imagination. clusters of HUGE perfect orange 3-4 oz tomatoes on trusses of 12 or so tomatoes.

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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

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Post: # 31861Unread post Daniel Ricks
Mon Oct 05, 2020 9:35 am

Bower wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 6:44 am Great thread, lots of info coming together here! Nice to hear about these breeding projects as well. :)
@Daniel Ricks I would say that Datlo has a sweeter profile overall cw Sungold. Datlo has less of the tangy side which is so perfectly balanced with sweetness in Sungold. They were tasty though and nice to eat. Very firm. Cute shape. Prolific. Not many seeds in my greenhouse conditions, that was 2015.
I haven't sampled as many 'pro-lycopene' tomatoes as others here, but I have the impression that it adds a very subtle, melon-like sweetness to the profile, while the Beta I associate with a more intense fruity flavor. I could be wrong though. There are so many components of tomato taste, and I'm sure there's a huge range of variation in the tetra-cis-l varieties too.
One of the cool things about tangerine, is that it can be expressed in either a red or a yellow background. So that expands the range of crosses that are possible and different colored fruit.
I made one cross with Datlo, to a determinate black cherry F3 (from Napoli a Fiaschetto X Black Cherry). Haven't grown it yet, but I wonder what tangerine will look like in a black background. Probably horrible. ;) May be tasty though.
Thanks for the Datlo details/review and for your other thoughts.

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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

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Post: # 31863Unread post Daniel Ricks
Mon Oct 05, 2020 9:49 am

Clkeiper wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 7:23 am Why only cherry tomatoes? as you may have noticed all these suggestions are rather large tomatoes none of them are true cherries. Juanne flammee grows like a cherry tomatoes but it is not a cherry by any stretch of the imagination. clusters of HUGE perfect orange 3-4 oz tomatoes on trusses of 12 or so tomatoes.
Hi clkeiper, I’m asking about cherry tomatoes specifically because it seems like there’s a lot less information available out there on high pro-lycopene cherry-sized varieties. The HFCRT has a huge list with mostly medium-to-large varieties, and of the handful of smaller-sized ones they have tested, one was a Beta and a couple of others are selections they have been doing on their own. Golden grape looked like a good option that I found to be available in the US. With new US seed regulations for tomatoes, it looks like I can’t really access their seed, but maybe I could reach out to them and see if they are able to provide disease-free certification with it to make it possible.

More on the motivation for cherry-size: since other larger sizes end up in sauces and pastes more often, they get cooked, which in the case of red tomatoes ends up converting some of the trans bonds into cis bonds for absorption when we eat it. 95% or more of the small-sized tomatoes my family eats are fresh, not cooked, which means that if I want to ‘level up’ our lycopene nutrition a bit, getting some high tetra-cis cherries growing (in addition to some larger varieties) should help achieve that aim. When they’re in season, my family practically inhales the cherries we’ve grown so far.

I believe Juane Flammee is a Beta because it blushes to red, but the amazing way you describe it sure makes me want to grow it too! Ha.

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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

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Post: # 31867Unread post Labradors
Mon Oct 05, 2020 10:19 am

Here's another thought. In discussions about high-lycopene varieties somewhere on Tomatoville, somebody mentioned that we nutso tomato-growers eat more than our fair share of tomatoes as it is, and do we really need to worry about high-lycopene? I'd rather eat tons of great-tasting tomatoes than varieties that don't taste so great. However, I don't mind trying a few in case there are any good ones out there :).

BTW I grew Jaune Flammee (a french tomato, not mexican) once, and found it acidic :(.

Linda

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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

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Post: # 31868Unread post bower
Mon Oct 05, 2020 11:02 am

Just a quick comment about cherry sized fruit - it is easy easy to recover cherry size from any cross with a cherry. Size wants to default to cherry. Larger size much harder to recover. So it would work well for that project to use a tangerine parent of any size, if the other parent is a cherry.
I would avoid using any Beta parent, because that would complicate your results unnecessarily (which orange is which?)
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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

#19

Post: # 31870Unread post OhioGardener
Mon Oct 05, 2020 11:54 am

I know at the time I imported my seeds, tomatoes and peppers were just being taken off of the USDA small seed lot import permit. In fact, mine got held up at USDA and they made one time decision to let them through because the change was just being implemented. There's apparently a new disease, brown rugose virus, which started out in the Middle East and spread to China, Europe, Mexico and briefly to the USA which caused the change, but was absent in New Zealand. Otherwise, the small lot permit is still good for other garden species, just not tomatoes or peppers at this time. If I recall correctly, the commercial option for importing is still open, but it requires expensive testing and certification which isn't practical for most gardeners and the research center probably isn't going to be willing to put in the time and expense on their end. I'm happy to do seed swaps with the varieties I have. I've carefully sourced them to match the strains actually tested because, as a Biologist and former dog exhibitor, I understand that there may be significant differences between selection lines even within a specific variety (i.e. one vendor's "Amana Orange" may differ to some degree from another vendor's "Amana Orange" depending on who did the seed saving and how they made their selection). HFCRT might still appreciate a donation also, even if they aren't able to share their seeds at this time so they can keep on with their work.
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Re: Favorite tangerine cherry? (does it have orange anthers?)

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Post: # 31872Unread post OhioGardener
Mon Oct 05, 2020 12:04 pm

Labradors wrote: Mon Oct 05, 2020 10:19 am Here's another thought. In discussions about high-lycopene varieties somewhere on Tomatoville, somebody mentioned that we nutso tomato-growers eat more than our fair share of tomatoes as it is, and do we really need to worry about high-lycopene? I'd rather eat tons of great-tasting tomatoes than varieties that don't taste so great. However, I don't mind trying a few in case there are any good ones out there :).

BTW I grew Jaune Flammee (a french tomato, not mexican) once, and found it acidic :(.

Linda
The main difference is that the red form of lycopene is not readily absorbed and actually requires cooking to alter the structure to a more bioavailable molecule. From what I've read in research papers though, it's still not as optimal as the tetra-cis orange which is similar to the form of lycopene naturally found in human blood and can be absorbed without cooking.

Regarding flavor, I can only speak for the varieties I've grown, but I have noticed a variation in flavor profile, but not unlike I'd expect to find in red tomatoes. In fact, I'd describe my favorite tetra-cis varieties as tasting like my favorite reds or pinks if I sampled them with my eyes closed because they seem to have more complexity and acid balance than the regular oranges which are often described as "mild" or "non-acidic." Jaune Flamme of course is an exception. It's a beta-carotene orange, but was quite assertive for me which I actually like.
Debbie

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