6-4 IAN Idaho Tomatoes
During the 1970s, former University of Idaho horticulturist Art Boe set out to develop short-season tomatoes for northern Idaho’s high-elevation sites. In Parma, colleague Bill Simpson had been developing tomatoes for dramatically different conditions—commercial production in southern Idaho’s relatively long seasons—since the 1950s. Most of Boe’s and Simpson’s tomatoes are short and productive, with small, tasty and early fruit, says Agenbroad. “Some of the Master Gardeners told me their University of Idaho tomatoes were the first to produce last year, out of all of the ones they were growing.”
This spring, University of Idaho Extension Educator Ariel Agenbroad of Canyon County is coordinating a Master Gardener seed grow-out and limited sales of about 200 of these 10 or so open-pollinated varieties. Agenbroad and the Ada and Canyon County Master Gardeners methodically multiplied much of the seed last year. Here’s Ariel: “We’re hoping there were some valuable qualities to these tomatoes and that they’re worth bringing back into the public and we found they were ugly ducklings. The plants were not beautiful but yields were very high. The plants were bearing before 4th of July and the flavor was very good.
