Source for Santa Grape Tomato Seeds

I'm trying to find a source for ordering grape tomato seeds. I buy these at the grocery store all the time and have become addicted to them and would love to grow them. It's my understanding they are in short supply.

Would anyone have thoughts on the chance of getting a true plant by saving seeds from the tomatoes? They are a F1 hybred. Has anyone tried this before?

Comments appreciated.

Hi Loon - The Territorial Seed catalog has a green grape tomato. I don't know if that's what you're looking for - it's a cherry tomato.

Blessings, Grits

Hello Loon Totally Tomatoes P.O. Box 1626 Augusta, Ga 30903-1626 has Riesentraube which is not a hybrid, but an heirloom which will come true from seed. It is described as a grape tomato, red 1" across. Haven't grown it yet, so can't vouch for it, but have seeds planted now.

The word "grape" is being used in a very confusing way in grocery stores, and by some seed houses.

Green Grape, for instance, is a variatal name, but it does not refer to the size of the tomato. Green Grape, the only true green cherry tomato, is the result of a controlled cross of Yellow Pear and Evergreen. Tom Wagner, of Tater Mater Seeds originated it in the early 1980s.

Grape as a size fits between current tomatoes and cherry tomatoes. Risentraube is not a grape tomato in that sense. It translates, depending on who you talk to, as some variation of "Giant Bunch of Grapes." This refers to its growing habit---it appears in bunches of 20-40 fruits. But it is a true cherry tomato.

To the best of my knowledge, most, if not all, of the grape tomatoes are hybrids, and growing them from seed is not recommended.

Thanks for your responses. The variety I purchase in the store is called Santa F1. I am curious to know why growing hybrids from seed is not recommended. What percentage would not grow true?

I have had hybrid purple wave petunias self sow and come back about 90% true and then there were some funky looking ones. Wouldn't it be the same for the Santa tomatoes?

I know less then nothing about flowers, so can't say why they grow true to type. But with veggies things are different.

To create a hybrid vegetable, you start with two highly inbred varieites. The inbreeding is so they are genetically homogenous, with a desired characteristic being re-enforced and dominent. Then you cross them to get the desired characteristics in the F1 generation.

If you plant seeds from the F1, there are several possibilities. One, nothing at all will grow, because hybrids are often designed to be sterile (although this is less true than it used to be). More usually, however, what you get is a combination of the two parents, one or more "new" varieites resulting from the gene mix; and some that seem to be true to type. Or any mathematical variation on these possibilities.

It might be that one (or both) of the parents are varieties that you like. But usually this doesn't happen because at least one of them has been chosen strictly for a particular characteristic. Let's say disease resistence. All the other characteristics of that variety might be negative. You could wind up with an ugly, tasteless vegetable of small size, for instance, that is very disease resistant.

If you get some that seem true to type, you have to stabilize them (sometimes this is called "dehybridization) because the genetic map of the F1 is still there. Which means if you plant seed from the F2 "true to type" you will likely get many that revert back to the original parents. So you rouge them out, save seed from those that appear true to type, and do the whole thing again the following year. And the year after that.

Depending on the type of plant and the F1's parents, it can take as long as 20 years to stabilize. Or as short as three.

Dehybridization is an interesting project. I'm going through that right now with a squash variety. But it is not a short-term project, by any means. Even with hand pollinating, we're figuring on about 5 years.

Easiest thing is to just keeping buying the Santa F1s. The downside to this is that sure as shooting they'll disappear from the market just because you like them so much.

Hi Loon!! You should check out tomatogrowers.com, my faddah, the 'King of Tomatoes' has ordered from them for years, they have a number of grape tomatoe varieties, and boast that they have the seeds of over 500 varieties of tomatoes and peppers. They put out a great catalog too. I myself grew 'Juliet' this past summer(touted as 'big sister' to 'Santa') and liked it so much I plan on planting even more different types of smaller tomatoes this summer, and I dislike cherry tomatoes, the flavor, the texture, the way they explode in your mouth, yuck!! I've never tasted 'Santa' but 'Juliet' is a real winner!! Cheers!

Ironically, they list Juliet that way, but don't list Santa---at least not on-line.

Just to be clear, though, we were not talking about growing tomatoes from commercial seed, but from seed you had saved yourself.

Hi Marlowe! I'll check out tomatogrowers.com and see if they have the SantaF1. I guess I'm just hell bent on getting this variety. I've had and grown many cherry tomatoes but none as good as these. It is my understanding that the folks who developed this have a patent and are holding onto it. I do know that as soon as they hit the supermarkets folks snap them right up so I'm not the only one hooked on them. In time I guess they'll be more readily available.

Brook, good luck with your squash. I learned alot from your post. Breeding (is that what it's called?) is a complicated business I guess, but could be very rewarding when you hit a winner, not to speak of profitable.

Loon,

I'm not looking to commercialize it. Just that by accident I got this wonderful table squash---just the right size, great taste, and pretty too. Plus it seems to keep fairly well. So, if I can stabilize it, I'll have something to really be pround of.

If it works, I might list it with SSE. And offer seeds to others at places like this. But that's as far as I'll go.

If any of the other folks involved in the project (we are, literally, spread over the globe) want to try and commercialize it, they are welcome to do so.

BTW, somebody holding a patent doesn't preclude seed availability. Depends on their marketing strategy. Somebody is growing the tomatoes for the produce market, and it probably is not the patent holder. Whoever is growing it for the market pays a royalty to the patent owner.

So, they might be licensing it for home-garden growing, too.

I looked all over tomatogrowers.com and couldn't find it, though.

Yea, its not in the new catalog either, my Da just got his and I got him to pour thru it for me, there is one that their calling a 'Grape' tomatoe, new for this year, but thats it. Mmmm, I like squash, good for you Brook!! Don't give up Loon, if not this year maybe next, everything becomes available eventually, cheers!!

>everything becomes available eventually<

Sorry to disappoint you, Marlowe, but the exact opposite is true. Things tend to disappear more rapidly than they become available, especially in this throw-away world we live in.

That's one of the reasons so many of us are concerned with bio-diversity. Everytime a vegetable variety goes extinct, we throw away a valuable gene package. Everytime we take a step closer to uniformity, we are that much closer to disaster.

Doc Malthus waits in the wings; and he always gets the last laugh.

Interesting thought Brook, and as my thing is roses, not as much veggies. you may well be right. With roses there is a constantly broadening availablility of new and different cultivars, and in the past 10-15 years a resurgance in Old Garden Roses, that were completely unavailable before, you can thank David Austin for the revival. I've also seen the same in a way with tomatoes, all the heirloom varieties that are available now were a short time ago much more difficult to obtain, now we can buy heirloom tomatoes in Walmart. People crave diversity, and no doubt some varieties do get set by the wayside, and their biodiversity is lost, sad but true. It is my hope that something as obviously popular and widely commercially grown as 'Santa' would become available to the public at some future time, as I have seen happen with many other cultivars, gee, do you call veggies cultivars? Wow this is cool, I got to be the optimist this time! Once again, good thoughts for you in your endeavers Brook. And I'll say it again, 'Juliet' is a real winner, definately worth a try!

"Cultivar" is technically correct, Marlowe, but we usually just say "variety."

Get's even hairier sometimes, because some veggies fall into multiple groups and categories. Alliums for instance.

So you could have a softneck (as opposed to hardneck) garlic variety that belongs to such & such a group. Scientifically, however, it would still just be Allium sativum.

Here's an example: Gravel Switch Garlic (Allium sativum), softneck, silverskin, probably in Creole group. "Softneck," "Silverskin," and "Creole" are all ways to differentiate one garlic from another.

Flower growers often add the cultivar name to the scienfific name, but this is rarely done with veggies. Which is why scientific names do not always work well with heirloom collectors.

I suspect, though, that if DNA typing ever gets to be common, a new nomanclature will have to be devised.

Green Grape

Brook, I am on another list with a person Andrew Chu, Claims to be the orginator of the Green Grape.

He can't say much, cause this is in court.

Byron

Marlowe,

I did call Tomato Growers and while they had SantaF1 last year, they do not have it available this year. She did not say why. She did say that the Grape Tomato was grown right next to Santa and is a virtual exact duplicate of it in every way. I'm not sure if patent problems played a part in the name change or why this plain Grape tomato is now available when Santa is not, but I went ahead and ordered the Grape Tomato seeds. I have 20 seeds and the description is exactly the same as for Santa. Here is what the seed packet says.

#6721
Grape Tomato
55 days. Indeterminate. This is the tomato that has become wildly popular in supermarkets and produce markets, and now you can grow your own at home. Long, grape-like clusters of brilliant red elongated cherry tomatoes have sweet, complex flavor that is delicious and addictive!

While on my search I did come across a chat post on another forum about this Santa variety and most agreed that it is better than the Juliette. I couldn't say as I've grown neither. I am going to give this a try and will let you all know if it's the same or not. I did see an auction on Ebay for Santa, but the description had a 75 day growing period as opposed to the original Santa with 55 days, so I wonder if it really is the same? I didn't bid on it.

Oh the search for the perfect tomato goes on. I hope I've landed on it. One thing is sure, they are addictive.

As far as the chat about hybridizing and commercialization I remember reading a story a while back in a gardening magazine where a very popular rose (forget which one now) was found and grown by accident in a backyard of a regular gardener. While it can take many years and hundreds if not thousands of trials to get the perfect rose, this backyard gardener happened on it per chance. I thought it was a great and inspiring story and happy for this person to have produced a real winner that went on to be a favorite in the markets. Kind of like winning the lottery!

Good for you Loon!!!! I guess I'm not nuts, I had a fleeting memory in my 'steel sieve' of a brain that 'Santa' had been in their catalog last year, tore this place apart trying to find it, didn't want to say anything without it to back me up!! And wow, if its better than 'Juliet' it must be one heck of a tomatoe!! The rose you might be talking about is 'St. Patrick' one of only 2(I think) that has won AARS standing that was bred by an amateur, its yellow with a greenish cast to it, quite pretty. When you hit on something like that it sure is like winning the lottery! Good growing to you!

re: St. Patrick rose.

Just goes to prove, once again, that skill, talent, hard work, and perserverence don't hold a candle to blind luck. :-)

I should be so lucky with my Serendipity squash. But I don't think it's gonna happen that way.

Byron,

I'm curious as to why, if it's in court, that Chou even brought it up? And what, if any, relationship he and Wagner may have had? Is Green Grape patented, do you know? And if so, by whom? And...... well, you see where I'm going. Unless we know all the details it's kind of foolish to take a position on this question. For right now, Wagner is recognized as the person who introduced them. If it turns out that the courts say otherwise, then so be it.

Point of my post on this, though, was that the word "grape," as applied to tomatoes is being used in a number of ways. Green Grape as a variety---no matter who originated it---is not a grape tomato. It's a cherry. Grape tomatoes as a class are smaller, but not as small as current tomatoes.

There is a source for the Santa F1 grape tomato in case anybody would like to order some. Check out the price!!! Ouch!

http://www.thompson-morgan.com/seeds/us/sindex.html?idx=vegetable_tomatoes&PN=1

Pete2