We speak with farmer and plant breeder Joseph Lofthouse in northern Utah about breeding tomatoes, and his work with The Beautifully Promiscuous and Tasty Tomato Project.

Lofthouse focuses on breeding landrace crop varieties that are are locally adapted and genetically diverse.

Living in a mountain valley with cold nights and only gets 100 frost-free days, his work breeding tomatoes started out with the simple goal of breeding varieties suited to his growing conditions. “If I wanted to grow tomatoes, I basically had to breed my own tomatoes,” he explains.

He has found much more than cold tolerance.

The Beautifully Promiscuous and Tasty Tomato Project

Lofthouse explains that when tomatoes were domesticated, most of the genetic diversity was lost. So his breeding work has focused on reintroducing wild tomato genetics, with the hope of finding desirable traits not found in domesticated tomatoes.

Along with cold tolerance, the his tomato breeding has produced tomatoes with novel flavours. He says that tropical flavours such as citrus, guava, and mango are appearing. So, too, are other flavours, including smokiness and umami. One chef described the taste of one of the tomatoes as resembling sea-urchin.

While domesticated tomatoes mainly self-pollinate, wild tomatoes, he explains outcross. They readily cross with each other. Hence the use of the word promiscuous in the project name.

Other traits he has encountered in the trials include:

Shrubby growth — something he thinks could offer interesting harvest opportunities
Dense foliage, which could be useful in shading the ground below to minimize week competition
Sprawling growth like a squash plant