A Jersey tomato you'll love

By JUDITH W. WINNE

Courier-Post Staff

Just in time for summer, a beloved Jersey tomato will make a mouth-watering comeback.

After years of testing, Rutgers scientists say they have developed a 21st century variety that resurrects a tomato of long ago: a moist and tangy salad-topper worthy of the Garden State name.

It is the Ramapo F-1 Hybrid, a delectable globe-shaped beauty home gardeners and farm stand growers will nurture on tall stakes this summer.

"It has a soft, mellow taste," said Michelle Infante-Casella, Gloucester County's agricultural agent and a key person in Ramapo's testing in South Jersey. "It's very juicy."

With the current emphasis on reducing energy costs and boosting flavor, the revived Ramapo makes perfect sense, Infante-Casella said.

"The new organic trend is the buy-local trend," she said.

At least initially, the Ramapo is likely to be eaten and grown close to home, or in states like Arkansas, where the summers are Jersey-like -- hot and humid.

Some 572,000 seeds are available through the Rutgers Web site, www.njaes.rutgers.edu. So eager are gardeners to try the next new horticultural thing the state agriculture office handling the seeds received about 600 checks in one week.

In a state where tomatoes are a source of home-grown pride, agriculture scientists believe a new growth in tasty tomatoes will sprout.

For too long, agriculture scientists heard the ongoing unhappiness with many existing Jersey tomatoes, said Jack Rabin, associate director of farm programs at Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station.

"Gardeners for years have been dissatisfied," Rabin said. "Chefs had been dissatisfied."

Ramapo, Rabin said, is designed to "bring the flavor back."

Rabin is a member of the team that resurrected Ramapo, a variety that disappeared two decades ago when farmers jumped on the vegetable wagon of tomatoes with higher yields.

Rabin said the Ramapo is hardly a panacea for Jersey farming. For starters, it comes too late in the season for pairing with sweet corn at Fourth of July picnics. And as an F-1 Hybrid -- it comes from two parent seeds -- the Ramapo's seeds cannot be saved and replanted by home gardeners.

But agricultural scientists hope the Ramapo will be one in a portfolio of tasty varieties for New Jersey growers. Rabin envisions the Ramapo as especially attractive to commercial greenhouses. There, businessmen can nurture the plants and sell them to home gardeners who can't, or won't, grow their own plants from seedlings.

In the Garden State's $82 billion agricultural and food industry, the Ramapo could be a tasty addition.

"Ramapos have the flavor of an heirloom while having the vigorous horticultural characteristics of a commercially performing variety," Rabin said.

Scientists know the trendy and stupendous heirlooms -- intense-flavored "throwback" tomatoes ranging from purple to yellow -- are popular with gardeners. But they can be pesky to grow.

"All you need is a rainy weekend in South Jersey, and the heirlooms crack and they have fungal pathogens," Rabin said.

Even in a state flush with tomatoes, the Ramapo is likely to have its fans, including those who recall the earlier Ramapo.

"They were a real nice tomato," said John Szymanski, a Pitman gardener.

Farmer Kim Batten of Lumberton remembers the Ramapo, too.

"It was a very juicy tomato," she said.

Mikey Azzara, who heads the Northeast Organic Farming Association in Pennington, is pleased the Ramapo is pesticide-free.

"We're thrilled they've gone the extra step to make it organic," he said.

Reach Judith W. Winne at (856) 486-2441 or jwinne@courierpostonline.com

Published: February 08. 2008 3:10AM