Green Bee
 

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We have a new hybrid called "Green Bee"

It is very unique in many ways. In short, it is a green-when-ripe cherry tomato that never fully softens.

It hangs for weeks on the vine in suspended animation, and can be stored for long periods, while maintaining a bright-tangy flavor (with hints of plum, some folks say).

The post pinned to the top of our Artisan Seeds facebook page contains the feedback from people growing the variety this year.

It must be mentioned that this hybrid was developed from lines created through our collaboration with Frogsleap Farm/Cream of the Crop Tomatoes, and I expect they will also be using similar lines to create many very cool new things.

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I tried my first few fruit last week. It was crunchy, green, and quite pleasant tasting. I'm sure it is a chef's delight, given that it would maintain consistency when sliced. It would make a good variety for a small farmer who wanted to sell to restaurants.

As for market sales, I could sell a truckload....as long as I didn't tell anyone it was a tomato. I'd have to make up something like "Skinless Kiwi Fruit" and everyone would love them. Perhaps getting green tomatoes onto restaurant plates will help eliminate the prejudice against them.

Great work as always, Fred.

Biases are hard! And this tomato has two strikes against it

1. Green

2. Firm when ripe

But, people get used to new stuff -- Pluots, Kalettes, Celtuce (stem lettuce) and Thursday night football.

Well, maybe not Thursday night football.


[QUOTE=Cole_Robbie;710780]I tried my first few fruit last week. It was crunchy, green, and quite pleasant tasting. I'm sure it is a chef's delight, given that it would maintain consistency when sliced. It would make a good variety for a small farmer who wanted to sell to restaurants.

As for market sales, I could sell a truckload....as long as I didn't tell anyone it was a tomato. I'd have to make up something like "Skinless Kiwi Fruit" and everyone would love them. Perhaps getting green tomatoes onto restaurant plates will help eliminate the prejudice against them.

Great work as always, Fred.[/QUOTE]

It is encouraging if they are doing well for you. It sounds like it is not the best tomato year back there.

Other than the new one is a hybrid, how is Green Bee different from Green Bumble Bee? I've been listing Green Bumble Bee on the Heritage Market website for the last year.

An inquiring mind wishes to know :)

Green Bumblebee was a Purple Bumblebee variant isolated by Tatiana, I think. It is interesting that you cite Totally Tomato as your seed source, because they do not seem to be selling it now.

Tatiana sent it to us and we trialed it and it did not make the grade for us. Too soft, too short a picking window, and very subtle picking cues when you want to pick it. Your photo represents a time where my palate says "over-ripe". In my opinion these are the same problems that Green Zebra Cherry has.

With green tomatoes you have to have good picking cues (Green Grape is pretty good in this regard). OR, you need long hang time so that the margin for picking error is reduced.

Farmers CAN NOT grow green tomatoes without incurring significant loss due to early or late picking. Even the best crew can not pick green tomatoes with subtle picking cues in an efficient and precise manner.

Green Bumblebee was not used in the development of Green Bee. Flavor was good, but we had another line that was better. That line was used, in part, to develop the parent lines for this variety, but the main source of flavor were other non-green cherry tomatoes. In fact, if Green Bee did not have the inability to finish softening (and coloring) it would not be green.

Green Bee's major advantage is that instead of being hard to pick at the right time, it is the easiest tomato to pick at the right time. It can hang on the vine for weeks at the optimal picking stage, and then can be stored for months. This is what is so different about the variety.

It tastes good too. Interestingly, it often tastes good to people who don't like tomatoes. The flavor is a bit different from other green-when-ripes and the texture is crunchy. Kids seem to like it. I have a friend who texted me at 7AM on a Sunday morning because he was shocked that his daughter had gotten up early and eaten up a pint of Green Bees.

It is not for everyone, but I haven't been so excited about releasing a tomato since Blush.

[QUOTE=ContainerTed;710788]Other than the new one is a hybrid, how is Green Bee different from Green Bumble Bee? I've been listing Green Bumble Bee on the Heritage Market website for the last year.

An inquiring mind wishes to know :)[/QUOTE]

I trialed green bee last year and LOVED it! It opens so many possibilities. Great for make-ahead summer salads like taco salad and pasta salad because they stayed crunchy instead of turning to mush. Great for my friends that love tomato flavor but have texture issues with them. They were big fans of the Green Bees. If I were to take them to market (not a market farmer yet, but hoping one day) I would pass out free samples, especially to people who seemed into new and novel things

Fred, any freebees for the disabled elderly, for I also happen to bee a a physically disabled senior citizen green variety fan?;):)

Carolyn, who will understand if you don't want to answer but maybe even a beeutiful trade, as in seeds I sent you for Lucinda, remember that?

[QUOTE=Fred Hempel;710789]Green Bumblebee was a Purple Bumblebee variant isolated by Tatiana, I think. It is interesting that you cite Totally Tomato as your seed source, because they do not seem to be selling it now.

Tatiana sent it to us and we trialed it and it did not make the grade for us. Too soft, too short a picking window, and very subtle picking cues when you want to pick it. Your photo represents a time where my palate says "over-ripe". In my opinion these are the same problems that Green Zebra Cherry has.

With green tomatoes you have to have good picking cues (Green Grape is pretty good in this regard). OR, you need long hang time so that the margin for picking error is reduced.

Farmers CAN NOT grow green tomatoes without incurring significant loss due to early or late picking. Even the best crew can not pick green tomatoes with subtle picking cues in an efficient and precise manner.

Green Bumblebee was not used in the development of Green Bee. Flavor was good, but we had another line that was better. That line was used, in part, to develop the parent lines for this variety, but the main source of flavor were other non-green cherry tomatoes. In fact, if Green Bee did not have the inability to finish softening (and coloring) it would not be green.

Green Bee's major advantage is that instead of being hard to pick at the right time, it is the easiest tomato to pick at the right time. It can hang on the vine for weeks at the optimal picking stage, and then can be stored for months. This is what is so different about the variety.

It tastes good too. Interestingly, it often tastes good to people who don't like tomatoes. The flavor is a bit different from other green-when-ripes and the texture is crunchy. Kids seem to like it. I have a friend who texted me at 7AM on a Sunday morning because he was shocked that his daughter had gotten up early and eaten up a pint of Green Bees.

It is not for everyone, but I haven't been so excited about releasing a tomato since Blush.[/QUOTE]

Thanks, Fred. I was hoping you'd respond and now all the readers here know how the GREEN BEE may be a better choice for them.

Take care and keep 'em coming.

[QUOTE=carolyn137;710800]Fred, any freebees for the disabled elderly, for I also happen to bee a a physically disabled senior citizen green variety fan?;):)

Carolyn, who will understand if you don't want to answer but maybe even a beeutiful trade, as in seeds I sent you for Lucinda, remember that?[/QUOTE]

Absolutely. And there will likely be a green bee giveaway at some point.

Oh my, Green Bee looks like it would also be a great choice for those of us that like roasted, fried, relishes, marinated, and especially pickled mater recipes!

Yes. The firmness makes it quite versatile to cook with.



[QUOTE=paprika;710883]Oh my, Green Bee looks like it would also be a great choice for those of us that like roasted, fried, relishes, marinated, and especially pickled mater recipes![/QUOTE]

Aside from flavor and texture, how are the plants? Yield growth habit cluster size etc? I know frogsleap was working on incorporating disease resistance with marker assisted selection. Does it have some of those traits?


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[QUOTE=paprika;710883]Oh my, Green Bee looks like it would also be a great choice for those of us that like roasted, fried, relishes, marinated, and especially pickled mater recipes![/QUOTE]


Agree on the pickling especially, my cherries have turned to mush, thought the crunchier ones were slightly better.


So how can you tell when they are ripe? Size? Number of days since setting out? Taste test? Is the taste fixed before they are full sized, so it doesn't matter?

It would be great if someone could develop a tomato variety which is edible as soon as the fruits appear - much like with cucumbers!

I am not a measurements guy. I am a comparison guy, and Green Bee competes well. It does not seem to have an achilles heel.

Green Bee is an open vine and the plants are the best looking plants in my field.
I have a number of other hybrids I am growing and the Green Bee plants beat them all for vigor. There is also alot of hanging fruit, but I am not going to measure it. Cluster size looks to be 6-8 fruits per cluster right now in my field. But that might change.

The way I determine if a variety has good disease resistance, vigor and production is that I have a collaborator in Mexico who is a fantastic grower. He trellises and is very concerned about "commercial" traits.

If he says "I want thousands of seeds of X", I know that he has found X to be well above average in all important traits. He wants thousands of seeds of Green Bee.

Frogsleap is a master at efficiently stacking traits, via marker assisted selection. He is a real breeder, and he breeds like one.

I am a ecologist/evolutionary biologist, and I breed like one. My approach is to use lines with traits that are important in my crosses, but instead of tracking markers they may have to develop new elite lines, I rely on continuous HARD selection to develop lines with good vigor, architecture, disease resistance, flavor and yield. Basically, every summer I challenge my top lines in Ohio, in a field where they are exposed and abused. In the winter the top lines are grown in Mexico, and breeding lines are again exposed and abused.

In the end, my selections seem to produce lines with the traits I need. They won't have all the symbols (unless we assay for markers after the fact). But, I am not sure elite growers care that much about symbols and advertised disease resistance. They simply trial lots and lots of lines and look for performance in their fields, under the conditions in which they grow tomatoes.

[QUOTE=nbardo;710892]Aside from flavor and texture, how are the plants? Yield growth habit cluster size etc? I know frogsleap was working on incorporating disease resistance with marker assisted selection. Does it have some of those traits?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk[/QUOTE]

The fruits show subtle ripening cues. Once you get used to them, it is pretty easy to tell ripe fruits from unripe fruits.

The good thing is, that since there is almost no risk of leaving fruits on the plants too long, you don't have to worry about missing ripening cues.

The taste is not fixed until they develop the subtle color changes that indicate ripeness. You can see how subtle the changes are in the second photo I posted at the beginning of this thread. Once subtle colors develop, then the flavor is pretty much fixed and we have not been able to detect much difference in fruits that colored up a day ago vs. 2 weeks ago. They hang on the plant in suspended animation.

[QUOTE=ddsack;710893]Agree on the pickling especially, my cherries have turned to mush, thought the crunchier ones were slightly better.


So how can you tell when they are ripe? Size? Number of days since setting out? Taste test? Is the taste fixed before they are full sized, so it doesn't matter?[/QUOTE]

Green Bee has been a big success for us this year. Anyone else have any positive or negative impressions to share?

[URL="https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi70Iji-IHfAhWoHzQIHdkUB9AQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstore.growartisan.com%2Fproduct%2Fgreenbee&psig=AOvVaw1KCIU9q6aj8K8R4Svdmp6s&ust=1543867487368145"]Green Bee in Belgium[/URL]

The link took me to a page that had nothing to do with belgium.

It may seem that way, but the photo of Green Bee was indeed taken in Belgium this past summer. I was trying to link only the photo, but I guess the whole page comes up.

[QUOTE=Nan_PA_6b;720277]The link took me to a page that had nothing to do with belgium.[/QUOTE]

We had exceptional good tomato weather, last summer, here in Belgium. Nice to hear that your that Green bee grew probably not to far from here.

I just ordered seeds for this tomato (along with Fuego Verde, Fuego Rosa and Bellota), I'm excited to try them all.

[QUOTE=bad.kelpie;720313]I just ordered seeds for this tomato (along with Fuego Verde, Fuego Rosa and Bellota), I'm excited to try them all.[/QUOTE]

Thank you! Your seeds were mailed yesterday.

Be sure to let Green Bee hang until it develops subtle colors. It really gets better with extra time on the plant before picking. And there is no risk in letting it stay on the plant, unless there are heavy rains, which do cause some risk of splitting.

It doesn't rain here between May and October. I live in WA, but central WA is a desert. We have great tomato weather. I found out by accident last year that Green Tiger could be left on the vine for a really long time, and it just got sweeter.

I'm really looking forward to Fuego Verde.

I haven't grown your green, but I had good luck and lots of fun with [I]Purple Bumble Bee[/I] this summer. A tasty and lovely fruit.

[QUOTE=ScottinAtlanta;720448]I haven't grown your green, but I had good luck and lots of fun with [I]Purple Bumble Bee[/I] this summer. A tasty and lovely fruit.[/QUOTE]

I'm glad it survived. I always worry about tomatoes grown in the south!

I stumbled onto your site while looking for a paste tomato (marzano fire!) and ended up not only ordering those, but added 2 peppers and green bee - I’ve never tried a green when ripe tomato, and I hope to have them as ‘garden snacks’ next year
:)

They are good as garden snacks, and the longer you let them hang, the better they get. Be sure not to harvest them too early! It is almost impossible to harvest them too late.

I think you will enjoy Marzano Fire too. We have known the flavor is good, but we are now pretty convinced it is a pretty reliable and productive variety throughout the country. Unlike some of our other OP varieties, it seems to perform very consistently and typically without many disease issues.

[QUOTE=Haraldsdotter;720474]I stumbled onto your site while looking for a paste tomato (marzano fire!) and ended up not only ordering those, but added 2 peppers and green bee - I’ve never tried a green when ripe tomato, and I hope to have them as ‘garden snacks’ next year
:)[/QUOTE]