I should grow out the USDA accession that I have
Craig, I know your concerns about growing out old varieties from various seed banks and the USDA accessions. It would be our wish that there are no exceptions in the verities of any historic variety.
I used to grow out PI numbers of tomatoes, stuff from SSE, the Ames, Iowa collections growing in the field, etc. My goal was to use them in breeding, not to maintain them.
The variation, off types, seed mixtures, outcrosses or segregations were beyond my role to establish prototypes. I have had my hands busy with crosses, so I would cherry pick selections for whatever traits I wished to keep, true or not.
Your desire to have the true type for a particular variety is commendable. I never felt I would have any, and I mean any, support for my take on a variety of antiquity.
Earliana in my day was probably the most advertised tomato variety for early tomatoes. Old Capper's Weekly ads included. That the pedigree is unknown is not surprising. Few people were doing extensive crossing like I have done in the past 50 years during the late 1800's and early 1900's. One of the things I hate is that I have sought a way to publish the pedigree info on my established varieties out of my breeding program and simply have not found a way that satisfies me. I think it would make interesting history.
Tom Wagner
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