So I finally bought some kumatos. I normally go with various other tasteless grocery store 'maters during the "off season". On a whim, I picked up some kumatos. These things are pretty darn tasty. Darn near as good as home grown and far better than anything else in the store.
Anyway, on to my question. Surely, if you could grow these at home they'd be even better. I read the wikipedia entry on these and see that they're a hybrid and the produce of the variety is controlling the seeds. But surely by now, somebody has messed around with these, right? What's the status?
I did some searches for people that grew them alongside heirloom blacks and browns, and the consensus, which was by no means 100%, was that they are sweet and tasteless when homegrown -ripe, and many brown/black heirlooms were prefered, but in the supermarket they are better than winter tomatoes.
They have a gene, Fgr, that boosts the fructose to glucose ratio, and fructose is extra sweet (e.g. high fructose corn syrup). That is probably why they can be eaten as almost any stage of ripeness.
I think that they would be interesting to grow and you could do worse.
They have a gene, Fgr, that boosts the fructose to glucose ratio, and fructose is extra sweet (e.g. high fructose corn syrup). That is probably why they can be eaten as almost any stage of ripeness.
I think that they would be interesting to grow and you could do worse.