I would assume trade originally brought tomatoes to the Cherokee Indians from present day South and Central America. It only took like a year for the chile pepper to go from Columbus's boat to most every corner of Europe and Asia.

I've never heard of a determinate CP personally, sorry I'm not any help. But I have read posts stating the CP vines are typically shorter than many other indeterminate varieties. Also a few have said Indian Stripe is a variety that has fruit that tastes the same but has taller vines if you're looking for a definite solution.

Cherokee Purple is an indeterminate. Seed for it were given to Craig LeHoullier by John Green of TN who was told that it was a variety grown by the Cherokee. No other information is known.

There's also a strain of it called Indian Stripe which was located in Arkansas and quite a few folks like that one as well. it differs from CP in having more fruits to the cluster and the fruits are somewhat lighter in color than CP and smaller than CP fruits but the taste is the same. it also yields very well.

Carolyn

This is very interesting, since I've been wondering about my two Cherokee Purple plants. I bought them both as 4 inch starts from Berkeley Horticulture, the nursery down the street from me. They have a pretty good selection usually and I was glad to see CP starts. I planted them the second week of May in the same raised bed, next to each other, but for the past 6 weeks they have become as different as night and day. One plant is about 5'3" and the other is topping out at 3'2". The tall one flowered and fruited early (I've picked two and there are about 28-30 fruits of regular CP size, a few turning already), compared to about 10 fruits on the short one (though 7 of those 10 have ripened and have been eaten!). Also, on the tall one, the first two fruits to ripen were the size of big beefsteaks (about 2.5 times bigger than the subsequent fruits that set), were pinkish red in color even when fully ripe, and had NO hint of green shoulders whatsoever. Meanwhile the short one's fruits are classic CP: dark green shoulders and dark fruit. Taste-wise, the huge fruits from the tall plant were a bit bland and just a tad mushy, while the the short one's normal-sized fruits were sweet, tangy, savory, with a certain intensity that wasn't overpowering. Even weirder to me, the subsequent fruits that have set on the TALL plant are normal sized and have green shoulders and deep red coloring.

Oh here's a photo where you can kind of see what I mean. In the middle is the first fruit (I call it the mutant) from the tall CP plant. The three fruits with green shoulders (not the plum shaped one which was a Black Trifele) are from the short CP plant. Even weirder is the fact that subsequent fruits from the tall CP plant look just like these three from the short CP plant.

Is this a cross or hybrid or spontaneous mutation situation?

What constitutes a strain? So far I haven't seen any evidence that Indian Stripe and Cherokee Purple were ever closer to each other than a hundred miles or so. That is walking by foot through rough country on dirt paths a century ago 100 miles. Are all pink potato leaf, or yellow tomatoes, etc. grown by Amish farmers strains of each other? Amish had as much contact with "the world" as the Cherokee did at that time.

What constitutes a strain? So far I haven't seen any evidence that Indian Stripe and Cherokee Purple were ever closer to each other than a hundred miles or so. That is walking by foot through rough country on dirt paths a century ago 100 miles. Are all pink potato leaf, or yellow tomatoes, etc. grown by Amish farmers strains of each other? Amish had as much contact with "the world" as the Cherokee did at that time.

****

There are two meanings to what a strain is. There used to be many so called different strains of Brandywine listed in the SSE Yearbook , Ided with just a person's name, but when a few folks grew them all out there was very little difference except for some, the Sudduth strain seemed better in terms of smoothness of fruits and production and I agree with that having grown quite a few of the Brandywine name strains.

The same thing occurs with Mortgage Lifter and its many strains although some, like the pale leaf Mullen's strain really are different.

A strain to many means that there's a noticble difference between the original variety and the slightly altered one, but the strain can still be IDed as related to the original. Yellow Brandywine and Yellow Brandywine (Platfoot) is one example. The Platfoot one came to me from Gary Platfoot of Ohio.The original Yellow Brandywine was found by Charlie Knoy of Indiana who gave seeds to Barbara Lund of Ohio who first listed it in the SSE Yearbook. The Platfoot strain has much smoother fruits than does the original and is higher yielding. And Linda at TGS wouldn't list both if she and others didn't see the same difference.

There are several other examples of strains, but overall there aren't that many.

As for CP and Indian Stripe, Donna Nelson, a friend of mine from TX was visiting relatives in SW Arkansas and in a nearby garden owned by Clyde Burson she found what he called Indian Zebra or Indian Stripe. Donna is a very experienced tomato grower. Mr. Burson was then in his 80;s and had been growing it forever, as he told Donna.

I think it's an excellent example of a variety that was grown in isolation for many years and so various subtle changes occurred. And the Cherokee were known to have a presence in SW Arkansas as well.

It's dicey to say that only 100 miles separates Indian Stripe from the CP that John Green of TN gave to Craig b'c John never could find out where the person who gave him the seeds got it from. it could well have been N or S Carolina, GA or FL, all original places where the Cherokee Nation were from.

As to the Amish, as far as I'm concerned there's no way to know if all pink PL or yellow tomatoes were distinct or different without knowing the backgrounds and without growing them out and comparing a few in the same season.

I do think that the Amish and Mennonites shared varieties in the same area b'c when I was giving a workshop on heirloom tomatoes for Organic Gardening one of the participants was Jim Weaver, a Mennonite, whom I got to know quite well and we talked about this and Jim also wrote an article for Off the Vine, a newsletter about heirloom tomatoes that Craig and I used to publish/

I think another example are all the gold/red bicolors found in so many places in the SE. Different names sometimes, but all are pretty much the same which is why there's well over 100 different varieties listed in the SSE Yearbook.

Doug from MN sent me seeds for two varieties he found at an Amish Farm in MN. We named them Amish Potato Leaf and Todd County Amish b'c they came to him unnamed and were just known as non-acid and acid by the family. And they are different as well, not just b'c of the leaf form, but also as to taste and yield, in my experience.

Another example of so called strains is the variety Ukrainian Heart but here it's a matter of a specific person's name being attached as to whether it's the TNMUJ strain or the O'Neill strain, for e4xample.

I think I've said enough for now. ( smile)

Carolyn

are tomato strains the same thing as clones in wine grapes (for example, the Pinot Noir varietal has several clones, including Dijon 667, Dijon 777, Pommard, etc.)?

are tomato strains the same thing as clones in wine grapes (for example, the Pinot Noir varietal has several clones, including Dijon 667, Dijon 777, Pommard, etc.)?

*****

I'm not familiar with the use of the word clone as regards grapes, but a clone is a vegetatively derived plant from the original and it's the exact dupicate of the original.

When one takes a cutting of a tomato to root, that's cloning and the rooted cutting is an exact duplicate of the plant from which is was taken.

So I guess I don't understand the "clones" of Pinot Noir as you mentioned above if they are indeed different from the original Pinot Noir. ( smile)

Carolyn

We've been through this before. But somehow the story keeps shifting ever so slightly.

Sometimes Indian Stripe comes from south central Arkansas. Now it comes from Southwest Arkansas. Regardless ... south central or southwestern ... that puts it's origin at least 450 miles from Cherokee Purple's origin.

Second point ... supposedly, tomatoes were introduced to the southern Appalachia by Europeans, not via "trade routes" from South or Central America. And in 1838/39 when the Cherokee Nation was split up by the forcible move from western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee across the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma, tomatoes grown in North America were not the smoothly formed fruit with dense, meaty interiors we find today exhibited by either Cherokee Purple or Indian Stripe. In fact, some tomato historians claim smooth tomatoes developed around 1870 after years of careful selection by early tomato breaders like Livingston. Before that, American tomatoes were lumpy and hollow, they say.

So, there is no evidence that Cherokee Purple or Indian Stripe preexisted smooth and uniform tomatoes like Paragon. There is no evidence that the Cherokee People, whether in the Eastern Nation or the Western Nation were growing and sharing a tomato like Cherokee Purple or Indian Stripe either with European-Americans or between their own eastern locations in Appalachia or their western Nations in Okahoma (or among stray individuals in south central or southwestern Arkansas).

There is no verification of a genetic match between Indian Stripe and Cherokee Purple that proves a closer genetic relationship between them any more than between one of them and any other similarly shaped and colored variety.

In fact, the anecdotal "evidence" presented for the possibility of either Indian Stripe or Cherokee Purple even originating with the Cherokee Purple is only second and third hand heresay. Yes, it makes great copy. But it's only fanciful speculation.

Now, as the the original question of this thread ...

Yes, I have grown a determinate Cherokee Purple vine. In 2006, one vine had growing tips that terminated in flower clusters and the vine got very bushy and no taller than about 4.5 feet. I saved some seed, but have not grown them out again yet to see whether they would run true to that single plant.

All the other Cherokee Purple plants I have grown from 2005 - 2008 have been long vine indeterminates that grew 6 feet tall or taller.

On the other hand, and in response to some comments above regarding Indian Stripe, I grew 10 plants in 2006 and 4 plants this year. All the Indian Stripe plants, while possitively indeterminate, have been more compact than any of the Cherokee Purple plants other than the single determinate Cherokee Purple freak in 2006. But while indeterminate, no Indian Stripe plant I've grown ever got over five feet maybe five and a half feet tall.

For me it does not matter one iota whether Cherokee Purple or Indian Stripe are related or were grown by Native American people. And I could care less whether they are strains of the same tomato or totally separate varieties. What matters to me is they both are great tomatoes, and I'm having a really hard time this year deciding which I like the best. They both have their own special attributes that tug me both ways from week to week. But I do have one particular Indian Stripe vine this year that I think is the best ever in many regards ... so once again, I think Indian Stripe is going to win out between the two similar varieties.

As to this last statement ... I didn't know where else to put it in the post. But I think both Cherokee Purple and Indian Stripe are tomatoes that, like so many other truly great tomatoes that currently enjoy fanciful histories, evolved in home gardens over 3 - 4 generations from original seeds bought from 19th Century seed vendors.

We've been through this before. But somehow the story keeps shifting ever so slightly.
Sometimes Indian Stripe comes from south central Arkansas. Now it comes from Southwest Arkansas. Regardless ... south central or southwestern ... that puts it's origin at least 450 miles from Cherokee Purple's origin.

*****

Bill, I was typing from memory and put SW when indeed it is South central Arkansas which you could have confirmed by reading my blurb about it in your SSE Yearbook.

When my memory is authenticated as being perfect I'll start a thread here and announce it. LOL

I don't know where Cherokee Purple originated from, per your 450 mile comment, and I don't think anyone does know where, geographically, it came from as I wrote above.

All we have are John Green's comments to Craig as passed on to John from the person who gave hime the seeds and he's been unable to find and contact that lady to find out more as Craig has asked him to do.

And yes, we have been through this before, and yes, each time you've challenged the history. And yes, I've offered to share links about the Cherokee migration and the presence of them in Arkasas as well as the link I have to a thread from GW where someone of Cherokee descent in Arkansas was confirming that the Cherokee were there and still are b'c the woman who wrote that here at GW was Cherokee.

For someone who says he really doesn't care about where Cherokee Purple and Indian Stripe came from you certainly do argue about it a lot. LOL

I don't think Craig was "fanciful" to use your word when he repeated what John Green had told him and I don't think I was being fanciful in repeating what had been told to me by Donna Nelson via Mr. Burson.

((As to this last statement ... I didn't know where else to put it in the post. But I think both Cherokee Purple and Indian Stripe are tomatoes that, like so many other truly great tomatoes that currently enjoy fanciful histories, evolved in home gardens over 3 - 4 generations from original seeds bought from 19th Century seed vendors.))

*****

If you could point me to any varieties offered by 19th Century seed vendors that mimic the basic traits of CP and IS I'd certainly be wiling to consider your explanation, but I can't remember any such offerings.

In the end your opinion is yours to which of course you are entitled and Craig and I have passed on the information given to us. And that includes the comment by John that CP had been grown by the Cherokee for about 100 years. Now who can confirm that? No one.

We also have the several varieties introduced by Dr. John Wyche whose Cherokee ancestors traveled the Trail of Tears and ended up in OK. So we know that in the great migration seeds were carried west.

And Cherokee history also shows that there was not just one trail to OK and that there were splinter groups that peeled off from those several trails west.

So what say we leave it at this without my spending the time to discuss some other points that you wrote above and have written before. ( smile)

Carolyn

"I don't think Craig was 'fanciful' to use your word when he repeated what John Green had told him and I don't think I was being fanciful in repeating what had been told to me by Donna Nelson via Mr. Burson." [Carolyn]

Maybe, maybe not. But what I mean is taking 3rd hand hearsay and then adding to it with speculation.

"In the end your opinion is yours to which of course you are entitled and Craig and I have passed on the information given to us. And that includes the comment by John that CP had been grown by the Cherokee for about 100 years." [Carolyn]

Yes, my opinion is that as a story is repeated over and over again from memory rather than from documentation, it becomes garbled and "fanciful." For example ... here is exactly what J.D. Green wrote in his note to Mr. LeHoullier:

"I talked with the lady that gave me the purple tomato seed. She got them from her neighbors several years ago. The only thing they know about them is that the tomato has been in their family about 100 yrs and they were gotten from the Cherokee Indians."

Not that the Cherokee grew them for about 100 years ... but that the "neighbors" of the "lady" from whom J.D. Green got the seeds had grown "the purple tomato" for about 100 years and they were obtained from Cherokee Indians according to either "the lady" or "the neighbors."

So, the "fact" that the tomato originated with the Cherokee people comes from a man who heard if from a lady who heard it from a member of a family who heard it from another member of the family who heard it from his mom, uncle, grandpa, or whomever. Excuse me if I find that "fanciful."

As to the Trail of Tears seeds ... I guess some of those cultivated varieties have been documented in fact, but Indian Stripe is not one of them. So, until it is, again please pardon me if I find the stretch of imagination used to include it in the group of Cherokee Nation garden varieties a bit fanciful.

All that aside, Indian Stripe is a great tomato and thanks for bringing it into general circulation.

Not that the Cherokee grew them for about 100 years ... but that the "neighbors" of the "lady" from whom J.D. Green got the seeds had grown "the purple tomato" for about 100 years and they were obtained from Cherokee Indians according to either "the lady" or "the neighbors."

*****

I don't think that John or Craig or anyone ever said that it was grown by the Cherokee for 100 years, just that it had been around for about 100 years, which is different.

*****
So, the "fact" that the tomato originated with the Cherokee people comes from a man who heard if from a lady who heard it from a member of a family who heard it from another member of the family who heard it from his mom, uncle, grandpa, or whomever. Excuse me if I find that "fanciful."

******

Yes, that's the story as we have it and no excuses needed if you find that fanciful. LOL

******
As to the Trail of Tears seeds ... I guess some of those cultivated varieties have been documented in fact, but Indian Stripe is not one of them. So, until it is, again please pardon me if I find the stretch of imagination used to include it in the group of Cherokee Nation garden varieties a bit fanciful.

*****

yes, Bill, it's true that some of the varieties have been authenticated, whatever that means b/c I don't know, especially those given to SSE by Dr. Wyche. I don't know what autheticated means in this regard and I have no idea of the status of Indian Moon or Manyel or any of the other varieties that have been suggested to be of indigenous Indian origin.

Look at Black Aztec Corn, for instance, SAID to have been grown originally by the Iroquois in NYS. No documentation. Or the Mayflower bean which came to the US on the Mayflower. It's always said to, said to.

And then there's the Radiator Charlie version of Mortgage Lifter and the Estler family history of Mortgage Lifter.

And let us not forget the tomato variety Oos Oos Pei, said to have been recovered from an Egyptian tomb of yore maybe several thousand years before the Spanish even disseminated tomatoes to the East and the Mediterranean basin. Sigh/

For sure there are some colorful, fanciful histories given that are quite improbable and none of them autheticated.

Mr Burson never made the claim that IS was Cherokee in origin, just that he had been growing it all his life and he was about 80 at the time. It was Donna who had grown CP many times who saw the resemblence and I sent seeds to Craig as well and asked his opinion and he agreed that they looked closely related and I'm sure you can see the resenblence yourself as others do.

*****
All that aside, Indian Stripe is a great tomato and thanks for bringing it into general circulation.

I know how excited Donna was when she first saw it and I was just as excited when I grew it for the first time as well.

So you're welcome.

I once counted up the new varieties I'd first listed in the SSE Yearbook and I think it came to close to 400 and of those some became winners and others didn't, but the important thing is to get them out there and let others grow them and try them and preserve the variety by saving seeds. Since most of the commercial seed sources got many/most of their seed starts from the YEarbook I like listing new varieties there that might then be picked up by them. But you also know that for many years I've sent seeds for what I thought were good ones to several places I trust, for trials. I never did that until I checked with Kent Whealey first and he thought it was a fine idea since greater distribution of seeds should lead to greater preservation of varieties.

Carolyn, happy b/c the plumber just came and reset the safety switch on the water reservoir in the basement b'c when the well pump is running and the power goes out the safety switch turns off the water. Penta Sigh. LOL I love my power Co. I called at about 11PM last night when I found the power was off only to be told by a robotic voice, yes, there is a power outage in your area and 382 people are without power and estimated time of restored power is 2 AM, and it was back on at 2 AM. QED.

"I don't think that John or Craig or anyone ever said that it was grown by the Cherokee for 100 years, just that it had been around for about 100 years, which is different." [Carolyn]

No, I don't think J.D. Green or Craigh LeHoullier ever said Cherokee Purple was grown by the Cherokee for over 100 years. That was exactly the point of my posting the link to J.D. Green's note to LeHoullier above in this thread.

However, someone did say "and that includes the comment by John that CP had been grown by the Cherokee for about 100 years," and that someone was you. [see post by carolyn137, on Fri, Aug 15, 08 at 3:20; paragraph 11]

All I'm asking for is documentation and fact rather than speculation and fable. And I find it ironic that in all these arguments regarding Indian Stripe/Cherokee Purple it has been someone who majored in art and practices in politics asking a PhD who taught and practiced science to stick to the facts. LOL

Yours forever in debate, Bill

However, someone did say "and that includes the comment by John that CP had been grown by the Cherokee for about 100 years," and that someone was you. [see post by carolyn137, on Fri, Aug 15, 08 at 3:20; paragraph 11]

****

Facts are one thing and an imperfect memory is something else. I already fessed up to giving the wrong geographical location for IS when it was correct in my SSE listing, so give me a break Bill, I do not operate from a position of perfection. ( smile)

******
All I'm asking for is documentation and fact rather than speculation and fable. And I find it ironic that in all these arguments regarding Indian Stripe/Cherokee Purple it has been someone who majored in art and practices in politics asking a PhD who taught and practiced science to stick to the facts. LOL

So obviously you mean both Craig (CP) and myself (IS) in terms of not posting FACTS b'c as I'm sure you know he also has a PhD, whatever that might have to do with supposed tomato histories. ( smile) Now that he's retired I'm sure Craig will be interested in your comments since he has more time to contemplate such issues.

He and I did the best we could in getting the histories we got and it's a heck of a lot more than the majority of varieties listed in the YEarbook which have no history at all and I don't think there's anything we or anyone can do about documentation which also pertains to most of the histories listed in the SSE YEarbook as far as that goes..

So believe what we say or not, b'c there's not one more darn thing either of us can do about it. You've chosen not to believe and that's OK with me.

Whatever.

Carolyn, off to read the AM paper and doing so very late. Sigh.

"Facts are one thing and an imperfect memory is something else. I already fessed up to giving the wrong geographical location for IS when it was correct in my SSE listing, so give me a break Bill, I do not operate from a position of perfection." [Carolyn]

I'm not asking for perfection, Carolyn. Anyone who can read can understand I am only asking for documentation and truth rather than faulty memory and make believe.

With regard to listings in the SSE Yearbook, I am not operating from a position of proximity to that "fact" source as everything I have posted in this thread has been posted from a computer eight miles distant from my stack of Yearbooks.

"So obviously you mean both Craig (CP) and myself (IS) in terms of not posting FACTS b'c as I'm sure you know he also has a PhD, whatever that might have to do with supposed tomato histories. ( smile) Now that he's retired I'm sure Craig will be interested in your comments since he has more time to contemplate such issues." [Carolyn]

No, I meant you and not Mr. LeHollier. Again, I think anyone who can read and comprehend reasonably well could've ascertained that my reference to PhDs had more to do with a professional or scientific approach to determining facts rather than growing tomatoes. However, if LeHoullier wishes to add something to the current "history" of either Cherokee Purple or Indian Stripe, he obviously is free to do so. Until he does, and with regard to Cherokee Purple, I believe its "history" is encapsulated clearly in the single note from J.D. Green to LeHoullier. But I don't think LeHoullier has ever come forward with any more historic information beyond

"He and I did the best we could in getting the histories we got and it's a heck of a lot more than the majority of varieties listed in the YEarbook which have no history at all and I don't think there's anything we or anyone can do about documentation which also pertains to most of the histories listed in the SSE YEarbook as far as that goes ..." [Carolyn]

Yes you both did. But again, as can be read above in more than one of my posts as well as all the other discussions we've had regarding Cherokee Purple, Indian Stripe and Yellow Brandywine for example, all I am asking is for documentation and fact rather than speculation and myth. Is that so much to ask? It seem to be the same doggone thing you ask for each time you point out the errors anyone makes in spelling a variety, showing a picture of a tomato that you feel obviously contradicts the variety, or giving information you feel is not correct for the variety whether at Amishland Seeds, for example, or any other venue where tomatoes are discussed.

"So believe what we say or not, b'c there's not one more darn thing either of us can do about it. You've chosen not to believe and that's OK with me." [Carolyn]

Thanks for the permission slip, Teach.

"Carolyn, off to read the AM paper and doing so very late. Sigh." [Carolyn]

Enjoy! I noticed you were up very early this morning. Have a nice cup of decaf with cream and Splenda and maybe a chocolate chunk and nut brownie. And thanks again for distributing Indian Stripe to the rest of us. It's a great tomato that proved itself again this morning by presenting five more beautiful, table ready lovelies off one of my vines.

Bill, who is hoping in the pickup and shootin' over to Louisville. Maybe I'll spin up to Pekin for a peek at Alan's patch.

I love CPs but also find that they poop out about a month earlier than my other varieties. This year I'm trying Black Russian which so far compares nicely with the CPs in color, flavor, texture, and size (some are bigger than CPs). I'm anxious to see how long BRs last. But no matter as CPs will remain one of my favorites too.

Bill, Craig repeated what John Green had told him about Cherokee Purple and I repeated what Mr Burson told Donna about Indian Stripe. So we are both are lacking in documentation in the same way, according to you.

Craig tried to find out more information about CP but he wasn't able to do so b'c Green couldn't contact his seed source. So no authentification/documenation or trails to follow.

I got all the info that Mr. Burson gave Donna to do one heck of a lot of online research and came to the conclusion I did, so no authentication or documentation or trails to follow either.

And to be honest, I'm not so sure I know what kind of authentification/documentation would be desired and who would make such a decision.

So we both have gone as far as we could with the information we were given and as I said above, it's a lot more information about two varieties than most of the SSE listed varieties where the majority of them don't' even have a country of origin or within the US no State of origin and it's been estimated that only maybe 5 % of the varieties have any histories at all.

I remember when I was writing my book that my editor asked where the histories were for some varieties in my book. I replied that I didn't chose the varieties based on whether or not they had histories,they were chosen for different reasons but not whether they had histories and he then understood.

There's really nothing more I wish to say.( smile)

Carolyn

Bill,

Where would someone go to find viable/reliable info about the landraces or introduced agricultural crops grown by the Cherokee--or any other nation?

T--Ute ancestry and now interested in these landraces.

Where would someone go to find viable/reliable info about the landraces or introduced agricultural crops grown by the Cherokee--or any other nation?

T--Ute ancestry and now interested in these landraces.

obviouly I'm not Bill but I can tell you what I did for researching Cherokee agriculture, migrations, etc., and that's to spend hours upon hours online. Googling Cherokee first then getting links from one website that sent me to another, etc.

So you might want to try that approach to your ancestry re Ute.

The definition of landraces also has different interpretations whether you go to Google at large or Wikepedia, etc.

I'm comfortable with what I've decided for the definition of a landrace, and just wrote a part of a chapter on heirloom tomatoes for an academic book and this whole subject of landrace came up there as well.

But I won't go into the details unless you want me to. ( smile)

Carolyn

Trudi, I just had to Google something else unrelated to tomatoes, etc, and entered Ute Indians at Google and found there's lots of information about them and have linked to that Google search below.

Note one that has to do with food and perhaps others do as well but I didn't take the time to read the actual links.

Good searching. I actually enjoyed doing my search on the Cherokee and I'm sure you will with your Ute search as well.

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Ute Indians

"Second point ... supposedly, tomatoes were introduced to the southern Appalachia by Europeans, not via "trade routes" from South or Central America."

I didn't say... I stand corrected, sorry. I thought the tribe was much older to tell you the truth. This is the first time I've gone through this so I apologize if that comment stirred it back up.

Well, at least you're correct about not being Bill.

Why is it so hard to see what I'm asking with regard to following some sort of protocol to arrive at a verifiable determination rather than "googling" peripheral or irrelevant cultural information and forcing extremely limited data to match some preconceived notion?

Same or similar nonsense:

1) Astronomer finds planet in distant solar system. Planet appears to be approximately same size as Earth and approximately same distance from its sun which also appears to be the same size and age as our sun. The distant planet has a single moon approximately the same size as ours and in same or similar orbit as our moon. There appears to be a good deal of water on the distant planet and spectral analysis indicates an atmosphere same or similar to our atmosphere. The astronomer declares a high likelihood there are human beings inhabiting the distant planet ... hogwash!!!

2) Chef loves a particular wild mushroom and uses it frequently in a signature dish. He relies on a professional mushroom gatherer to provide him with the wild mushrooms, but one day the chef finds a clump of mushrooms in his back yard that look almost identical to the mushrooms he loves ... only they are somewhat smaller on average and have some almost inperceptible other differences. Chef assumes they are the same or similar mushrooms as his favorite kind and serves them up in his signature dish ... dead customers!!!

Okay ... just trying here to think of some rediculous comparisons to finding two similar tomatoes in two remote locations 500 miles distant from one another and having very limited data to determine any relationship other than visual comparisons and two stories where third parties are relying on anecdotal "evidence" regarding the origin of the two tomatoes which boils down to "they've been grown 'round these parts for 80 - 100 years, and we heard they come from the Indians," or "a particular tribe was known to have had a presence" in both areas from which the two different but similar looking tomatoes came ... therefore they are the same thing just grown in isolation.

Now a couple more things to consider ...

Both Cherokee Purple and Indian Stripe were 80 to 100 years removed from their supposed Native American origins when they each came as seeds to the gardens of the persons who eventually set them into the SSE collection. During that 80 - 100 years that both Indian Stripe and Cherokee Purple grew independently and 500 miles distant of each other in the gardens of European-Americans, does anyone suppose that no changes occurred in each variety other than the ever so slight size difference and cluster counts? Is everyone assuming the two separate tomatoes we're talking about really remained stable and true to type for 80 - 100 years? Do we know that no cross pollination occurred? No mutations? No evolution of any sort?

Come on folks ... in the 10 - 20 years these two types have been in common circulation, at least one of them (CP) has some changes in appearance and exhibitions of instability ... i.e. Cherokee Black, Cherokee Green, and Golden Cherokee.

I'm not a scientist. Can someone here who is a scientist please explain the protocol that should be followed when trying to prove that two independent but closely similar cultivars are of the same genetic stock (if that's the right term) ... you know ... to where one can with something approaching certainty say that one of the cultivars "is an excellent example of (the same) variety that was grown in isolation for many years" other than simply because "(a particular ethnic group) were known to have a presence in (both regions from which the two separate cultivars came)."

Okay, that's it for me. Y'all feel free to wander off into other "google-formed" fairytales, or take the discussion into irrelevant territory again.

Bill said:I'm not a scientist. Can someone here who is a scientist please explain the protocol that should be followed when trying to prove that two independent but closely similar cultivars are of the same genetic stock (if that's the right term) ... you know ... to where one can with something approaching certainty say that one of the cultivars "is an excellent example of (the same) variety that was grown in isolation for many years" other than simply because "(a particular ethnic group) were known to have a presence in (both regions from which the two separate cultivars came)."

Bill, I'm not a biologist nor an expert on this, but I think this is an area where the truth can be determined, although it might take a while before somebody gets around to it.

IBM and National Geographic has been doing this very thing with human beings for some years now, in what they call the Genographic Project. I was looking just now for a short explanation of how it works and I can't find one, so I'll risk making a fool of myself and try to paraphrase the explanation that was in the materials that came when I donated to it.

Let's say you take a picture of something, say this page of text, and you copy it on a copying machine, then copy that copy, then copy that copy, and so on, for several generations. Over the course of time, small flaws will accumulate in the copy. Like, a hair might get on the copying machine one time and be reproduced onto the copy. All subsequent copies will then carry a picture of that same hair. And the same thing may happen with a piece of lint or a dead fly, etc..

If later on, you were given a pile of these copies, all shuffled up, you could probably determine which copies came first, and which ones came from some subsequent batch, by looking at the flaws. For instance, you might find copies with the hair and the dead fly, and some with just the hair, but none with the fly and no hair. Thus, you would conclude that the mutation that produced the copy with the hair came before the fly. With enough information gathered this way, you can assemble a rough family tree.

(Maybe you guys know all this already, but some people don't, and they might think it's interesting, so forgive me if I'm explaining something you already know.)

It seems reasonable that the same thing could be done with tomatoes, although I think the expense at this point might be prohibitive. That's one reason why the groundbreaking of the Genographic Project is so exciting. Think of all the weird arguments that begin, "Where the hell did that tomato come from?" that could be resolved in a scientific way.

So there's a definitive scientific yes/no answer within reach, although we may not get the answer to it anytime soon.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Genographic Project (video)

Bill,

It is our human nature to build and improve. So it very likely that regardless of the nationality of the grower they did the right thing--the human thing--and saved seeds from the best of the best. AFIC, "true-to-type" is a luxury and improving of sustainable stock is the fact. Prior to WWII money and transportation were in short supply; continual selection of the best performing plants was a necessity--you didn't save seeds from crappo plants with crappo fruits because they weren't going to feed you well or produce a reliable crop that you could sell or barter.

We now live in a society with advanced transportation and (to a degree) an excess income that gives us the ability to let others choose the better plants and distribute the seeds. We can order in catalogues, we can shop in stores, we can exchange seeds online or in person. Our excesses remove the dire need to save from the best of the best for our survival. For many of us our tomato seed collections can fill numerous files and the desire to have more of the different varieties fuels seed saving--the multitude of names in our files is (with some) more important than the quality of the plants--a variety with limited distribution can go into wide distribution when its seed are saved and traded/gifted. Sadly, having the most, or the thrill of being able to distribute a rarity, increases the chance that the best of the best will not be saved; the focus of seed saving changes from necessity to personal satisfaction.

Landraces are indigenous lines developed by a regional early culture. Colonization introduces new agriculture ways and plant varieties to regions. Over decades and centuries to come the introduced varietes become the future landraces--but this is now a global world with instant news and super rapid transportation. It will not take millennia to develop better stable lines--it does not take centuries or even decades; it can take a wee few years to create stable lines of the best of the best.

It falls upon us all to look at every plant in our garden and select seeds from the very best of the very best. It's a harsh ideology, especially to those who are interested in filling their files with hundreds to thousands of different varieties. Sadly, many will continue to save seeds from crap plants to continue the plant line and they will distribute these same seeds saved from these crap plants--crap plants will be globalized for the sake of their names.

As seed savers we need to look at our plants and say the crap stops here. We need to adopt the ideology that our own gardens become the source of our own landraces--saving the best of the best is the level we need to achieve. Our ancestors looked at their gardens and did the same; in our new millennia of zroom zroom technology that gets us there and back again in an instant we must control the spread of inferior plants--this is very simple--don't save seeds from inferior plants.

Save seeds from the best and eat all the rest. This simple ideology is the way of our ancestors, it is our heritage.

When we have developed our own stable lines and have a need to name them, it can't be done willy-nilly. We need to be sensitive to racial issues--native Americans are a conquered people and there imagery has been used for a century to sell a product. In this new century third-person hearsay isn't acceptable sourcing to name a tomato after a native group. The various Cherokee forms were obviously derived by selection from accidental crosses or mutations; perhaps in the future the genetic lines can be traced to prove specific ancestral lines and we can genuinely say that the Cherokee tomato was indeed grown by the Cherokee, but until then--because of the hearsay--we may be dealing with a tomato that was innocently named "Cherokee" simply because native names are attractive.