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Growing Tomatoes

Seedless Tomato

rich_oh_gw McIntyre

12 years ago

Has anyone grown seedless tomatoes. In the Burpee catalog there is Sweet Seedless Hybrid,$5.95 for a packet (10seeds).

Comments (5)

Edymnion
12 years ago
"If they're seedless, how did they send you a pack of seeds for them?"

Yeah yeah, I know, seedless plants are sterile hybrids that do grow from seeds themselves. Stop ruining my joke/fun. =P
carolyn137
12 years ago
I haven't grown it myself and don't intend to but I have seen cut cross sections of the fruits and they do have a few mature seeds when the fruits are ripe as one would suspect if it were a parthenocarpic variety.

Such varieties can set fruits in the absence of pollination and can be useful in areas where the Springs are too cool to allow for fruit set the normal way. Dr. Baggett of Oregon State has bred many of them for the PNW.

Early in the season you see just no seeds or shreds of white immature seeds and then only later do you see some mature seeds.

You can accomplish the same thing by spraying with the product Blossom Set which does induce partheocarpy.

But there's a downside as well since such fruits that form withut normal pollination can be misshapen and mealy.

Carolyn
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They are hybrids, the parents are fertile so each batch of seeds requires the parents. Actually there have been several tomato cultivars that have been at least partially parthenocarpic, notably those developed by Jim Baggett at Oregon State.( Legend, Siletz, and Oregon Spring) You can also have seedless tomatoes in cool weather by using a hormone like Blossom Set.
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Yeah there is an ongoing discussion on it over on the Growing Tomatoes forum here. From what I have read there it isn't truly seedless, just less seeds than normal. Dave Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Forum
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I BELEAVE I HAVE WU U ARE LOOKING FOR IM INTERESED IN UR TOMATO SEEDS LET ME KNOW THANKS
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Not stupid questions at all! We all want to get the most out of all our gardening and canning work. Tomato juice and sauce - I never strain my tomato juice. I pre-cook the fruit just enough to soften, run them through my Victorio and can all the resulting juice. It makes for a much thicker, richer tomato juice. Sure it separates in the jar over time but that is easy to fix with just a light shake. When we make tomato sauce we do the same things except we first return all the juice to the pot and cook it down to sauce consistency. When we want flavored sauce we first cook all the tomatoes with onions, peppers, carrots, herbs, celery, etc. and then run it all through the Victorio and cook it down to sauce consistency for canning. We also can 70-80 jars of just plain Crushed Tomatoes. That way they can be used for making all sorts of things during the winter - spaghetti sauce, chili, soup, casseroles, etc. We also can dozens of jars of the BBB recipe for Stewed Tomatoes (contain onions, peppers, celery) for winter use. We pick varieties for flavor and production numbers. Color is only a secondary consideration. Seed numbers I ignore as the Victoric takes care of the seeds. Small fruit varieties and colored types can be used to make all of the above just like beefsteaks or oxhearts. We plant very few paste types as they are never noted for flavor, just bulk. Why sacrifice flavor just for bulk? The only paste-types we grow now are Viva Italia and San Marzano and they are primarily for drying. Your experience with San Marzano is unusual IME. Mealyness is an inconsistent soil moisture level issue, not a variety issue. But we never make our sauce/juice/canned tomatoes using paste-types only. Opalka is another excellent paste-type but its production numbers are low by comparison. Hope this helps. Dave
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rich_oh_gw McIntyre
Original Author
12 years ago
Thank you Carolyn;
The reason I was interested, my wife cannot eat any fruit with seeds.`
I will stay with the regular varieties and take the seeds out.
miesenbacher
12 years ago
If your looking for a variety with few seeds give Ashleigh a try. Red beefsteak, excellent flavor with fruits averaging over a pound. The first eight fruits off the vine when I grew it were all over a pound with a total seed count of 15!!!

http://www.glecklerseedmen.com/Ashleigh/p80687_5460823.aspx

Here is a link that might be useful: Ashleigh
carolyn137
12 years ago
Good idea Ami, on Ashleigh or any other dense fleshed beefsteak variety, or for that matter almost any heart variety as well.

Rich, just a bit of a personal comment here about your wife being told to not eat any small seeds. And this situation has come up here at GW many times.That used to be the case with regard to some intestinal problems that they thought were due to small seeds getting caught in the pouches of the GI tract, but is no longer true.

So you can Google the diagnosis that your wife has been given to check that out. And after that she might want to consider a consultation with a differesnt gastroenterologist.

Carolyn, who has some, ahem, knowledge of these things.

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