Quote:
Originally Posted by amideutch
The point is he has grown this variety for 25 years at a latitude of 64 deg North which the variety has become acclimated to.
To quote Tom Wagner from his post in the above mentioned thread;
[Anytime someone keeps a variety isolated from others for an extended time, the tomato variety should be considered unique in many ways.
As a plant breeder, I have deep respect for varieties grown in a particular region for a long time. Acquired characteristics, adaptation, bottle necking of the germplasm, small mutations, elimination of the original bulk population diversity, the template of Fairbanks, Alaska growing conditions is a valid point of identity.]
Now of the many varieties you have that will go down to 35 deg F., how long will they stay at that temperature and will they grow in Fairbanks Alaska to maturity outside, unprotected!
Ami
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Ami, I went back and read that SSE thread a couple of more times.
First, Trip-L Crop was not an heirloom, it was bred by the Porter Seed Co and woould have been available many years ago as Keith mentioned about seeing it in a Burgess catalog, etc.
Second, I don't know what is meant by keeping the bloodline pure, which are the words used. obviously that's meant to indicate perhaps isolation of some kind but Bill also asked Tom about what if...in terms of other varieties tha that might have been grown by using Green Zebra as an example.
Fish says they've changed color as he's grown them and suggested that it might be due to acclimation. I think a more reasonable suggestion would be a change from pink to red due to an epidermis mutation.
He says that they can now take 35 F whereas before they were much more sensitive to low temps. That' possible. But it's still 35 when there are those claims out there for either Siberia or Siberian, I can't remember which and those wrods have been repeated thru the years in the YEarbook and elsewhere and quite frankly I don't know how true that is.
But given that they can take 35F without being covered, as he said, can be said about many other varieties as well. To take it means that they can survive a temp of 35 F and then go on to grow and produce and that's the context in which I'm answering the question.