You'll Like These New Mini Tomatoes

You'll Like these new Mini Tomatoes AG WORLD Ag World 14-1-24 Salad eaters will love these new "Micro-Tom" tomatoes, developed at the University of Florida, that are less than half the size of cherry tomatoes. You'll be able to sprinkle the new mini tomatoes on salad just like croutons. No more squirting juice like you get when you cut into a cherry tomato. Dr. Jay Scott and Dr. Brent Harbaugh, at the University of Florida research station in Bradenton, started work on the new variety in the early 1980's. They produced it by cross-breeding a dwarf Florida tomato variety with an Ohio variety that had small leaves and fruit. An average tomato plant is 20 times larger than a Micro-Tom plant, which will be ideal for indoor growth in pots. "Micro-Tom tomatoes are unusual because all the parts of the plant have been reduced in size. Other dwarf tomato plants are short but their leaves remain relatively large compared to the rest of the plant," says Scott, noting that Micro-Toms can be grown out-side in all parts of the country. Scott and Harbaugh are negotiating with several seed companies that want to begin selling seed for the open-pollinated variety. Seed may be on the market by fall of 1990. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Dr. Jay Scott, University of Florida Research Station, Bradenton, Fla. 34201 (ph 813 755-1568).

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