Page 71 - Simply Vegetables Winter 2021/22

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A Tomato Revolution
– with AutoPot Watering Systems
Lance Turner of Tomato Revolution describes the experience of a truly characterful tomato in revelatory terms. “It hits your palate and
rings with a complex intensity that stays there for a few minutes.” The tomato is undoubtedly a fruit with unambiguous potential for flavour. Yet, despite clear consumer demand, shop bought varieties often fall a long way short.
It’d be all too easy to waste time bemoaning supermarkets and the like for producing bland-but-profitable fruit. Instead, by selectively breeding and innovating with their growing techniques, Tomato Revolution are actively demonstrating a different vision for the future.
They develop and sell
utterly unique seeds and
fruit worldwide from
their Wiltshire base. It all
begins with the choice of
varieties.
For really diverse tomatoes Lance looks to crosses. “We often cross two excellent flavoured tomatoes together. This doesn’t mean the result will be an amazing outcome but that’s the target. It’s a bit like breeding two fast horses hoping you will get a very fast horse.” But before you can ride that flavoursome filly you need to stabilise the seed.
Stabilisation requires the kind of investment in time that mainstream producers cannot afford. “It can take a number of years to stabilise a tomato variety. Only when you have consistent colour, shape, and size for at least two years can you consider releasing it. The initial work takes a minimum of
With years of development at stake in each crossed tomato, a reliable, responsive watering system is required
plants indiscriminately, increasing workload and overheads. “Because of the way the plants receive just enough water with the AutoPot system it has been easy to manage the nutrients perfectly. The colour, yield and health of the AutoPot plants are far superior.”
“Currently we have forty-two easy2grow modules in one tunnel and another thirty-seven of the same in the other”. Each module holds two pots
so that’s a total of 158 plants. The pots are each filled with a 25 mm lava rock base beneath the substrate for good drainage. The substrate in question
is a 70:30 mix of compost and perlite. Feeds and supplements are supplied via the reservoir and pipework to the trays below the pots.
Such set-ups may sound complex but are in fact deceptively simple — being as they are power-free and without
the need for running water. It’s easily possible to capture the magic of Lance’s seeds on a much smaller scale. A compact reservoir, a module or
two, and a few of Tomato Revolution’s excellent seeds are all that is required to enjoy the sweet taste of success.
Tomato Revolution’s Insta feed @ tomatorevolutionseeds features not only tomatoes under development, available seeds, and growing tips, but also some intriguing and brilliant partnerships - well worth a look. To buy those exquisite seeds visit tomatorevolution.co.uk, and revolutionise your tomatoes.
Whilst attractive
looking shapes, colours
and sizes are fun to grow,
flavour is the key criteria
for Tomato Revolution.
Tomato flavour profiles
have, as Lance explains,
five basic categories.
“Mild (supermarket
and some bi-coloured
varieties), Tart (yellow varieties and some green ones), Sweet (cherry and black top varieties), Balanced (Tomato Revolution’s target area - with a zing of acidity and sweetness on the finish), and the ultimate: Intense” (of which Lance has only experienced a few).
Crossing normally starts with pollen taken from a regular leaf variety and crossed to a potato leaf variety
three years leading up to that, so five years in total.”
“Crossing normally starts with pollen taken from a regular leaf variety and crossed to
a potato leaf variety. Regular leaf varieties are dominant over potato leaf varieties so we grow out some crossed seed in the same year and if the seedlings show regular leaves we know the cross has taken. The following year we only need to
save seed from one tomato, the year after that is when we get to something stable to work with. The seeds from these fruits are the backbone of potential stabilisation. Years three and four will determine how stable your cross is.”
With years of development at stake, a reliable, responsive watering system has been essential as far as Lance
is concerned. “The AutoPot system has been a game-changer for us for
a number of reasons including ease of watering, feeding, and the radical improvement in the health and yield of our plants. Previous irrigation systems have created a number of growing issues which we then had
to fix.” By Lance’s reckoning, other systems have either not watered responsively enough — starving the plants of irrigation and nutrients —
or else have wasted vast quantities
of water and feeds by supplying the
A sample of the goods, Tomato Revolution’s Purple Hearthrob
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