Rutgers Researchers Focus On Flavor Of New Tomato
August 12, 2015 
Three tomato varieties are in the running for Rutgers University’s new Rutgers tomato. Photo credit: Peter Nitzsche/NJAES
Rutgers University has developed a new tomato that includes the flavor of an heirloom with the reliability of grocery store varieties.
According to an article on Rutgers Today, the university’s New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES) has tested hundreds of plants to try to create a new version of the tomato that carried the Rutgers name and was popular from the Depression through the 1960s.
“What people remember as the Jersey tomato was really the Rutgers tomato,” Tom Orton, a professor in the Department of Plant Biology and Pathology, told Rutgers Today. “It was ubiquitous. People grew it in their backyards. It had a high flavor that explodes in your mouth and makes you say, ‘Wow, that is really good.’ ”
As the university’s 250th anniversary approaches, researchers are working to come up with a new and improved Rutgers tomato, reviving a variety that was thought to be lost to history.
Since the project began in 2010, researchers have narrowed their search to three possibilities. The public will get its first chance to taste the competitors for the new Rutgers tomato on Aug. 15 during an open house at the EARTH Center in South Brunswick, home to the Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Middlesex County.
The varieties being considered will be also available to sample Aug. 20 from 8:30 a.m. to noon at the Margate Farmer’s Market and during the Great Tomato Tasting at Snyder Farm in Pittstown on Aug. 26.
Although the official name of the new tomato has not been chosen, it will be selected to honor Rutgers’ 250th anniversary, said Orton, who oversees the university’s tomato breeding program as a specialist with NJAES.
Click here to read the full story.
Source: Rutgers University, Andrea Alexander
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