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Old February 4, 2013   #30
surf4grrl
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: field of dreams
Posts: 97
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As long as things are sold as unstable varieties, I don't see a terrible problem - unless you consider a crazy glut of names and crosses for the sake of crosses an issue. I buy from Tom Wagner - I like his crosses and will continue to do so - but I don't share that seed because it is unstable.

My problem with growers who cross is what I perceive as outright lying.

For example, I was given seeds by a certain someone for Sweet Beverly in winter of 2011, I planted out 30-40 plants of that and lo and behold got 4 different segregates.

I posted this on the tomato dep0t with pics in fall of 2011 as requested because no one there believed me. I have since grown it out and gotten the same segregates.

Which means to me, it's unstable.

Not only was I basically called a liar, and the whole thing forgotten, but then this certain someone came out with a "mutation" of Sweet Beverly a mere 3-4 months after I called this unstable variety to their attention, now called Sweet Sharon. Kinda funny how that happened.

Why does this matter? It matters because for those of us that really care about the craft, also care about the ethics and integrity and basically the truth about the history about what we're doing.

It's easy to re-name tomatoes, it's easy to have crosses - it happens all by itself if you grow enough. I am really, really disappointed in a few folks. It was heartbreaking to leave that community, but I did so out my conscience. I vote with my wallet now. The varieties I find to be interesting by ethical breeders, I'll buy and pay a premium for. Not so with others.

I will be posting a photo that I posted at the depot in fall of 2011 to show the segregation that included what is now known as Sweet Sharon, if necessary.

No one's perfect and everyone makes mistakes; I used to think tomato folks were kind and decent - until I found out a few weren't and then I got smart. People are people.

Don't drink anyone's Kool-Aid kids.
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