Just imagine a crew of blind men, just a feelin' up the tomatoes and selecting the sweet tangy ones just by feel. You mean to tell me that large growers would be better off if they would hire the blind to pick Green Zebra? Yes, the breeder said a bite of Green Zebra when it is time is like a bite of heaven - tangy to the point of getting a kick from the old Zebra.Ĭonversely a bite of Green Zebra before or after its time is _. Then the grower would have to grope the tomatoes to feel for a bit of "give" or maybe use the old olfactory nose, Of course, it would help it the durn grower was totally blind! That is like looking for a shadow in total darkness! On top of that try picking for amber Green Zebras in the shadier areas. I hope growers of Green Zebra tomatoes aren't color blind. Somebody needs to go talk with the breeder of the Green Zebra and find out what he or she thinks. What? It just magically turns the epidermis yeller when the fruit is ripening. What color is the epidermis when the fruit is not ripe. The flesh color of green coming through the yellow epidermis looks amber. Oh, somebody nudged me and said the reason a ripe Green Zebra looks amber pun intended, is that the epidermis of a Green Zebra has a yellow (say amber) skin if you would peel the fruit. You'd have to pick up your thoughts off the ground, brush off the dirt and start over! Illustrate your thoughts if somebody says to pick Green Zebra when the fruits turn Macaroni and Cheese or Atomic Tangerine! If I know anything about colors, adding those colors to a ripe Green Zebra tomato would look mighty strange. If I look at a color chart for amber, I find these color shades for amber. So it must mean that when a green Green Zebra turns ripe it becomes an Amber Green Zebra? What do you call a Green Zebra when it is not ripe?Ī green Green Zebra is still green when it is ripe. Tomatoes are supposed to be red, period, end of story! What's with this guy who developed such a tomato? Oh, wait a minute, did someone say tomato? Go to Trader Joe's and look for one in the produce isle. If you said black on black, you'd be wrong. Maybe a Green Zebra is a newspaper published by the Greenies?īTW, what colors are the stripes on a Black Zebra? You'd think that whoever came up with that name was lacking imagination!Īnswer: Outside of a newspaper it could be a Red Zebra. For additional information visit Tom Wagner's blog.Who would've come up with a name like that? He may be contacted at (425) 894-1123 at Tater-Mater Seed, 8407 18th Ave. Most of his clones have either unique colors and flavors, or abilities to withstand pathogen/insect damage. He utilizes many heirlooms to develop a complex pedigree, and grows out over one hundred thousand seedlings and/or clones each year in potatoes alone. I released the first seed in 1983 within my Tater-Mater Seed catalog, and the 60% striping level was called 'Green Zebra' at that time.Įditor's note: Tom Wagner's business is breeding "heritage" type varieties of tomatoes and potatoes. The lines were in different groups of 5%, 10%, 60%, 80% striping intensities. Several generations of bulk harvesting of sister clones were evaluated repeatedly in the field followed by a generation in the greenhouse to get the tangiest green flesh with various levels of striping. The hybrid of these lines created a hybrid F-1 that was red, and no little or no stripes. I had to reselect for the green stripe (red and yellow when ripe) until I had better crack resistance and flavor by the F-6 selection. The other parent was a cross of a green-striped red tomato that was a mutant out of an old market variety of the 1940's, and another heirloom that Gleckler's seed company had in an old catalog of the 1950's. The hybrid was red to start with, but an improved green evolved by the F-5 filial generation. The first breeding line was between 'Evergreen' and a crack-resistant red. 'Green Zebra' has 4 heirloom-type tomatoes in the pedigree.
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