Smart Stuff with Twig Walkingstick:Tomato Splatability

Twig Walkingstick lives in and around the Wooster campus of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. His alter ego is Kurt Knebusch, one of our super-talented writers and editors on campus. Each month, look for Twig to answer a reader questions and some additional interesting facts below. After Twig's post, we will be providing some ideas and suggestions on how to incorporate the info in Twig's column into fun science learning for your students and children.

Q. Dear Twig: Why do some tomatoes splat more when I throw them at my brother?

A. Everything else being equal - the ripeness of the tomato, how hard you throw it, what you throw it at - the type of tomato is the main thing: fresh market vs. processing.

"Your average ripe fresh-market tomato splats better than your average ripe processing type," says David Francis, a tomato breeder and geneticist at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center who seems to have something in his hand there, behind his back.

"Processing tomatoes don't splat well because they're high in dry matter and soluble ["soll-you-bull"] solids," he explains while offering me some sort of visual aid that flies past my head very quickly. "What you need for a good splat is water content."

Processing tomatoes need to be dryish. They go to make ketchup, salsa and tomato sauce. You don't want that stuff runny.

Fresh-market types, though, are better when juicy. They go into salads, for instance.

"Here!" Professor Francis says as he sends another visual aid (he's very helpful) in my direction. "See for yourself!"

Splatee,

Twig

P.S. Fresh-market tomatoes are usually the kind that you cut up and put on a hamburger.

Notes:

• Common fresh-market tomato varieties include Beefsteak and Better Boy.
• A common processing variety is Roma, though tomato breeders such as Professor Francis continue to develop new and better varieties based on flavor, soluble solids (more soluble solids and less water makes it easier and cheaper to process a processing tomato) and how well the plants resist diseases (greater resistance can mean less or even no need to spray fungicides). Read about the work he does.
• Soluble solids are materials (from tomatoes, in this case) that can be dissolved by or mixed into water - important if you're making, say, tomato juice and want it smooth.

Check out this fun lesson-plan for incorporating tomatoes into your healthy diet.

Smart Stuff with Twig Walkingstick; The Biggest Tomato Ever

Twig Walkingstick lives in and around the Wooster campus of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. His alter ego is Kurt Knebusch, one of our super-talented writers and editors on campus. Each month, look for Twig to answer a reader questions and some additional interesting facts below. After Twig's post, we will be providing some ideas and suggestions on how to incorporate the info in Twig's column into fun science learning for your students and children.

Q. Dear Twig: What's the biggest tomato ever?

A. The biggest tomato ever in weight – the heaviest, that is – weighed an amazing 7 pounds, 12 ounces. That's actually just a little bit more than the average weight of a newborn baby born in the United States! 

Whoa. Big tomato ...

Scientists at Cornell University say tomatoes come in a huge range of sizes. One wild type grows tiny fruit that weigh less than a tenth of an ounce: way less than even a blueberry or cranberry.
Other types – ones bred especially to crank out whoppers – grow tomatoes that weigh nearly a thousand times more than that!

The variety called Brandywine, for instance, grows fruit that weigh about 2 pounds each. Dutchman and Gian Beligan tomatoes can tip the scales at up to 5 pounds. The record tomato, the baby-sized one, came from a type called Delicious.

Giant tomatoes tend to look like soccer balls with the air half let out. Big, but caved in on tom. Also juicier.

Kickingly,

Twig

P.S. Plant scientists call the tomato a fruit. But in general we call it and use it as a vegetable.


Notes: The record tomato was grown by Gordon Graham in Oklahoma in 1986. Read about him and it in Southern Living. Learn more about growing giant tomatoes in Organic Gardening. Sources included Guinness World Records 2006 and "Dissecting the Genetic Pathway to Extreme Fruit Size in Tomato ..." by Lippmann and Tanksley, Cornell University. Note, too, the "World's Largest Tomato" (artificial category),  Leamington, Ontario, Canada, which Twig in fact has had the pleasure of staring in open-mouth wonder at.

Using this information in the classroom:

Want to have more fun with tomatoes? Have dun growing them together with your students in your classroom or home.

AgBCs: Terrific Tomatoes

It's the most popular edible plant grown in the home garden. The National garden Bureau has even designated this year as the year of the tomato. Who knew, right?

But what most Ohioans don't know is that Ohio is a tomato mecca, ranking second nationwide in tomato production. Tomatoes are even Ohio's official state fruit. And our state drink? Tomato juice.


Want to have fun learning more about tomatoes? Check out Ohio State's interactive tomato model.


Want to learn even more cool tomato facts? See what OARDC scientist Esther van der Knapp is doing with her award-winning research on the shape of tomatoes.