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Growing Tomatoes

Burpee's Seedless Tomato

15 years ago

I received the new Burpees catalog today and it has a seedless tomato on the cover. I have seen and grown one or two almost seedless varieties before, but never 100% seedless.

I am curious the history on this one. Thanks

Here is a link that might be useful: My Square Foot Gardening Website

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Comments (9)

containerted
15 years ago
If it's truly a seedless, then from where did they get the seeds??? Sounds like an oxymoron to me.
:>)
:>)
carolyn137
15 years ago
If it's truly a seedless, then from where did they get the seeds??? Sounds like an oxymoron to me.
:>)
:>)

*****

Sounds to me like a typical parthenocarpic variety, many of which were bred by Dr. James Baggett of OSU, such as Oregon Spring, now retired.

But there are some naturally parthenocapric varieties as well.

What it means is that fruits can form in the absence of fertilization of the ovules in the tomato ovary by pollen. Each fertilized ovule becomes a seed under normal circumstances.

Parthenocarpic varities have few seeds with the first fruits, and you can see little white mishapen non-viable seeds, but as the season progresses, usually a few more seeds are produced that are viable.

App, you faked me out. I clicked on your link without really reading the title b'c I thought you were going to take me to Burpee to show me what was written, but instead, it took me to you own website. But that's OK b'c I didn't want to go to Burpee anyway.( smile)

Carolyn
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Hi t-bird, "...where do you get the clear pots?" They are available from many Internet sources. I ordered my square clear plastic orchid pots from Amazon, because I purchase from Amazon fairly frequently. I prefer the 3.25-inch size of orchid pots. I first started to order several of the 10-packs, but each 10-pack had a separate shipping charge which would have run the total shipping cost up well over the cost of the pots themselves. At that time the shipping cost of a 10-pack was the same as the shipping cost of an 80-pack, so shipping-wise, the 80-pack was a better deal, so I ordered an 80-pack of 3.25 Inch Square Clear Plastic Orchid Pots. At that time the 80-pack, the 30-pack, and the 10-pack were all being shipped in the same US Postal shipping box, so the shipping was the same for each. That may still be true. This is a picture of some of the seedless tomatoes I started in my clear pots last year. (Burpee's Seedless tomatoes are my favorites -- I'll be growing more of them this year.) You can just barely see the roots appearing at the bottom of the pots. As they become more rootbound you can clearly see the roots growing down the sides of the pots. When that happens, I repot to 5-inch black plastic square pots. If you needed lots more than 80 of the orchid pots, they are available from some Internet sources in case quantities of 500 pots per case, as I recall. On a per pot basis, that is the cheapest way to buy them. I wash the pots up and reuse them each year. If you forget and leave them outdoors in the Sun for several months (I accidentally did that with a few of mine), the ultraviolet light in the sunlight will make them brittle, even though they are UV-resistant. For use indoors under fluorescent lights, you can get many years of service out of them. "In watering from the bottom, is there a size plant/container which won't work?" Any size will work as long as you start your seedlings in smaller pots and re-pot them as they outgrow the pot. That way the plants always have at least some roots in the lower part of your pots. In your case, with the basil seedlings in a 6.5-inch deep pot, you did the right thing in watering from overhead. Overhead watering can be OK in a lot of situations. Greenhouses and nurseries do it all the time. "Should I always use the seaweed for watering? dilute more to do so? I'm thinking without the dome, and heated indoors, they will need water every day or every other day - use the emulsion 1xweek - more or less? " I don't use seaweed or Happy Frog potting soil, but the principles are the same. It is much better to feed your plants a very weak solution of fertilizer daily than to use a stronger dose weekly. And if you want to foliar feed your weak solution, that is fine, too. Just make sure that your fertilizer is very diluted. A plant doesn't use very much fertilizer in any given day, so it will be happy if the solution is much weaker than the label says. "Can you give some guidelines on what is needed size-wise for bottom watering to work?" As long as the pot and the plant aren't extremely mis-matched, bottom watering can work with any pot. For indoor gardening, it is much more convenient to flood the trays that the pots are in than it is to water the pots individually. I get 18 of the 3.25" square pots in each of my 11" x 22" PermaNest trays. It would be really tedious to water each pot individually. ZM (not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)
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I roll my eyes at the medical advice posted above in saying it is out of the loop to put patients on non seed diets when they have "pockets". Unless you have gone through the dizziness and soreness for days associated with diverticulitis until seeds or nuts are passed it would be good for some people to stay in the field they have degrees in. Your physician is quite sound in his protocol. To answer the question Peters Seeds does have seedless tomatoes in Oregon Spring. They are very nice and helpful people. For a variety of flavor, I personally use some seeded tomatoes and take the seeds out. Azoykcha is a fine yellow that seeds in pockets. Rose (Amish) is very meaty like German Johnson but has seeds in cells and Red Pear tomatoe I use a grapefruit spoon to remove them after slicing. There are diets which help diverticulitis in healing. I would recommend www.earthclinic.com and looking there for home remedies as many are good and work. Pockets are not fun for those who have had them develop and small seeds do cause discomfort as they seem to fester inside as low fiber diets lodge hard particle like even nuts inside them. God bless you and I hope that it all works out for your family:) Here is a link that might be useful: Seedless Tomatoes
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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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my wife as diverticalites (hope spelled right) and i am looking for a tomato for next year thats sweet,thick skins and not many seeds and meaty can anyone help me with this or at least few seeds and meaty that i can take the seeds out easy ***** Ty, the conventional advice for folks who have diverticulitis has been to not eat anything with small seeds such as strawberries, blueberries, even tomatoes and on and on. But there's been much research done that shows that small seeds are NOT the problem and you can find that information online by doing a Google search on diverticulitis. You can also get a second opinion from another gastroenterologist. my mother had diverticulosis, which means the condition exists, as do I. Hers proceeded to diverticulitis, mine has not. When inflammation occurs with symptoms then it's called diverticulitis, the itis part means inflammation. There are NO tomato varieties that have NO seeds, that's impossible and Burpees many claims for that variety border on the ridiculous in the opinion of many, but if you want to look at tomato varieties with the fewest seeds I'd suggest almost any heart variety as well as most paste varieties and a couple of the parthenocarpic varities bred by Dr. James Baggett which, b/c they are parthenocarpic, have few seeds. And I'd be glad to name some specific varieties. But I think the larger question here is one that you might want to pursue and that's that modern research has discounted small seeds as being a problem for people with diverticulitis. Hope that helps. Carolyn
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appmy
Original Author
15 years ago
Sorry for the fake out. I did just look and the Burpee page has been updated. It wasn't a couple of days ago.

Thank you for the answer!!!
HoosierCheroKee
15 years ago
They look mushy to me in the Burpee catalog. If I'm gonna eat a cherry tomato, I think I want one that's typical ... two or three wide open cells with lots of gel, juice and seeds. You know, the kind that are dangerous to eat at a sit-down dinner wearing a tie.
suze9
15 years ago
Carolyn and others, I think this might be the tomato the OP was referring to:

Sweet Seedless Hybrid

If so, is it just me, or are there a few seeds in those locules visible in that picture? :-) Especially visible in the enlarged version.

I have to say, I know some are into seedless or almost seedless tomatoes, but I have never found the amount of seeds to be a primary determining factor on whether I like the taste of a tomato or not. Expection - I think most of the parthenocarpic ones are usually yuk.

There are plenty I love that are very seedy and juicy, and also several I also love that have very few seeds.

Two vars I grew this spring that were almost seedless are Japanese Oxheart and Aunt Astrida's Latavian Oxheart. Both were outstanding to superb.
carolyn137
15 years ago
Tomato Sweet Seedless Hybrid

NEW The worldÂs first seedless tomato!

Burpee Exclusive.
WeÂve come to appreciate seedless watermelons and virtually seedless cucumbers Â now the worldÂs first seedless tomato!
Beyond the lack of seeds to digest, this tomato is first rate for taste. In fact, precisely because there are no seeds to store the sugars for later use, all the sweetness is immediately available for you to enjoy in every rich slice. This is a totally new tomato on every level Â the perfect balance of flavor and sweetness, meat and gel, solid firmness and juiciness. And to top it off, the indeterminate plants have a full package of disease resistance to ensure plenty of healthy yields.
68 Days.

*****

The World's First seedless tomato? I think not, far from it.

No seeds to store sugars for later use? The seed endosperm does have carbohydrate in it that's used for energy once the seed has germinated. That seed energy is used to grow the wee seedling until the first true leaves appear at which time photosynthesis takes over to make the energy compounds that allow for plant growth, fruit maturation, etc.

I think what I'm trying to say is that I'm a bit, shall we say, underwhelmed with the hype given in the blurb.

Growing one of the many known parthenocarpic varieties developed by Dr. Baggett will give you the same thing as I see it. Except his are OP, not hybrid. Varieties such as Oregon Spring, Siletz, Santiam, etc.

And nowhere do they speak to the often mushiness of almost all parthenocarpic varieties, but the tradeoff is fruit set at low temps in the absence of pollenization, as explained in an above post.

And that's why Dr. Baggett developed these varieties, for good fruit set in the PNW where spring temps often are too low for good pollenization.

Carolyn

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Parthenocarpic Tomatoes ( Google Search)
digdirt2
15 years ago
For the past several years Burpee's has thrown some supposedly "unique" "new" tomato on the front cover and then covered it with a bunch of Madison Ave. ad hype which is usually factually wrong and seldom lives up to the claims.

Personally, I think it's all a marketing effort to recover from much of the negative reviews that Burpee has gotten from experienced gardeners over the past several years.

Please note that there are many other preferable seed sources than Burpee - especially for tomato seeds.

Dave
jmhewitt
14 years ago
well, I'm a sucker!! planted some, will report on how they are....

surprisingly, seem to be almost the earliest mater in the garden, and I do have Early Girl and Fourth of July planted.

Michael
Hampstead, NC
pennyrile
14 years ago
A friend's father started a pack of the Burpee Sweet Seedless tomatoes this spring and gave me two plants. So, I'm growing one in a container to see what gives. The other one is growing in another friend's garden. Mine already has a few small green tomatoes on it that look very smooth and evenly green. It was one of the first plants to set fruit right behind Ditmarsher, Sun Gold and Indian Stripe, in that order.

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