Rutgers team works to revive history’s sweet Jersey tomato

photo by William Thomas

Rutgers team works to revive history’s sweet Jersey tomato
Friday August 23, 2013, 12:23 AM
BY  STEFANIE DAZIO
SPECIAL TO THE RECORD
The Record

Will the real Jersey tomatoes please stand up?

That Garden State staple you’re slicing, dicing, salting and serving may have been grown in our soil, and it may have its own allure, but it’s likely not one of the luscious, tangy-sweet, vine-ripened summer-in-a-fruit varieties that years ago caused the state to forever be associated with tomato. The quest to reinvent that greatness has begun.

Dom Nizza’s famous 2lb tomatoes

Rutgers University’s New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station has been working to bring back the Jersey tomatoes of yesteryear, such as the Rutgers tomato introduced in the 1930s, and the 1968 Ramapo tomato. Over the years those varieties got crossed with other varieties and eventually died out, replaced by seeds bred for warmer climates with longer growing seasons. Those seeds, along with most of the tomatoes in our supermarkets, are grown in California and Florida nowadays. But even if the tomato is grown in New Jersey, it may not be the same.

Dom Nizza  bigger than a $1 bill

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/Rutgers_team_works_to_revive_historys_sweet_Jersey_tomato.html#sthash.rpXxnb4q.dpuf