This was from the time Doug Heath was working for one of the large commercial tomato breeders in California. He had a small orange fruited tomato that was super sweet but lacking in other desirable traits for a commercial tomato. He bred in disease resistance, a better grape tomato shape, and some improvements to the flavor. A couple of times during the years he was working on it, the executives tried to release it but he kept telling them it was not yet ready. Finally about 10 years ago, he decided it was ready for prime time and released it as Zima. The only other info I have is that supposedly the small orange fruited parent was his children's favorite. A person who worked with him thought it was a holdover from a previous breeders work but he had no records showing the source.
I spoke with Randy Gardner about super sweet small orange fruited tomatoes about 5 years ago. He was of the opinion that it was a small orange tomato he and a few other breeders had worked with over the last @20 years.
I have Hibor which is a small pear shaped super sweet orange tomato. I've often wondered it it might have been the parent of one of the current generation of sweet orange cherry/grape tomatoes being grown commercially.
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