USDA legacy tomato seed

[Solanum315]

Originally Posted by nctomatoman

There are issues with (some? many? no way to know for sure) with the USDA seed collection. I got a few hundred of the tomato accessions out over the years, and some were a mess. Mikado (a historic tomato, Henderson seed company late 1800s) gave regular and potato leaf red and pink (all combinations) with various fruit sizes. Matchless (historic Burpee variety) seems mixed with another Burpee variety, Quarter Century. This year I am growing Peak of Perfection (Salzer, 1920s) and it is not correct (fruit size far too small).

It certainly is worthwhile and interesting to sample the collection and save and share seeds - but comparing what you get to old catalogs is either confirming that it is the same or similar to the release, or very different. It is also complicated by the changing ways seed companies described things like color and fruit size over the years.

Having first hand experience with the federal government, the best assumption is too often lack of funding and sloppy work. My hypothesis is that a lot of acquisitions were landraces coupled with poor plant segregation in their growouts...