Interesting. I checked out your article, applestar, and it seems clear, but if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, it is dated July, 1995. Here is what myfolia tomato database says about it:
Its scientific name is Solanum lycopersicum 'Endless Summer'. 'Endless Summer' is considered a patented hybrid cultivar. Plant produces harvests of red globe shaped fruit. Fruit was mainly bred for commercial growers as it has been
genetically modified to ripen more slowly so it can be transported long distances easily1 2. Regular leaf. Indeterminate.
https://myfolia.com/plants/10-tomato-sol ... ess-summer
However, if you check out the footnotes in above article, it is a book reference. You can't copy from the page but it says "prevented DNA Plant Technologies from fully marketing their product and Endless Summer Tomato was
discontinued"
https://books.google.com/booksid=gT7Saz6 ... to&f=false
they also footnote the wiki article on genetically engineered tomatoes which says
A genetically modified tomato, or transgenic tomato is a tomato that has had its genes modified, using genetic engineering. The first commercially available genetically modified food was a tomato engineered to have a longer shelf life (the Flavr Savr).
Currently there are no genetically modified tomatoes available commercially .... DNA Plant Technology (DNAP), Agritope and Monsanto developed tomatoes that delayed ripening by preventing the production of ethylene,[10] a hormone that triggers ripening of fruit.[11] All three tomatoes inhibited ethylene production by reducing the amount of 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC), the precursor to ethylene. DNAP's tomato, called
Endless Summer, inserted a truncated version of the ACC synthase gene into the tomato that interfered with the endogenous ACC synthase
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneticall ... ied_tomato
The plot thickens... Golden Harvest Organics has a very interesting article called "Failure of the first GM foods" (
https://www.ghorganics.com/failure%20of% ... 0foods.htm ) that chronicles a lot of the history of this. It contains this:
Several other companies are trying to develop GM tomatoes: Agritope, Aventis, DNA Plant Technologies, and Seminis. DNA Plant Technologies and Monsanto sued each other over patent infringements. Before Monsanto triumphed, DNAP test-marketed a tomato called Endless Summer in New York, but was then bought by ELM in 1996. However, neither company has marketed GM tomatoes since. Agritope, gained approval from the FDA in 1996 for a GM tomato but is not ready to market it.
3. Health Concerns: Concerns over the safety of GM foods from the public and scientists, on top of many business management errors (see next section), resulted in the eventual failure of both GM tomato products.
So applestar's article was some kind of marketing hype from 1995, but by 1996 the GMO Endless Summer tomato was discontinued.
So then the question is what does glassonion have? Tatiana's tomato database which lists thousands of tomato varieties has NO LISTING for it. myfolia tomato database has only the listing for the discontinued GMO one.
Apparently someone else is using the endless summer name, but unregistered? Seems kind of creepy somehow.
glassonion ... your response popped in there while I was doing all this. Read it before you get totally relieved.