THIS IS A TRADITIONAL VARIETY OF ISLANDS WITH A TASTE QUALITY AND AN EXCELLENT.

In the Archipelago, the presence of this type dates back to the years 30 of the last century, and it is characterized by its round fruits although slightly crushed by the shaft, its very dark green before ripening and red with blackish shades sharply at maturity. Farmers say that this is a very solid result, “much mass” and “big size”.
The importance of tomato in the Canary Islands has encouraged to be carried out a study on traditional varieties in order to detect the suitability to be comercilaizadas. These local species have been lost because the farmer has gone directly to commercial seeds that have other advantages”.

The public company Crops Agricultural Technology, SADDLE (Cultesa), along with the Center for Agricultural Biodiversity Conservation Tenerife (Ccbat) and the University of La Laguna, They embarked, through a call of ICIA, in a line of joint research under the title “Selection and improvement of traditional varieties of tomato Canarias”.

Within the group of 60 traditional varieties studied, tomato “black apple” It holds special relevance, as one of the great unknowns and offer excellent performance sapid.

Leonardo Amador researcher points out that this variety whose presence in the archipelago dates from the years 30, It characterized by representing a round shaped fruit crushed in the shaft, dark green in prematurity and red, with blackish shadows at maturity, very large mass and.

Amador indicates that the morphological part of this species have been analyzed “a few 12.000 data have allowed us to classify these entries from the traditional black apple variety and elaborate varietals tabs to include aspects related to the vegetative part, inflorescence, fruit and seed”. For the molecular characterization counted with the collaboration of the Institute of Conservation and Improvement of Valencian agrodiversity (CoMAv) given their high specialization in this field, he reported.

Leonardo believes that the interesting thing about this project is that party has a plant material, canaries farmers from different localities and national genebanks, which it is part of a collection of local crops, as is the tomato, Ccbat preserved in a long time, and that had not been studied before, so this is the first research conducted in this field in the Islands.

The study of this ancient variety of tomato includes the morphological characterization, agronomic, molecular, bromatological and direct tastings with consumers both Mercatenerife and Market Our Lady of Africa Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

The study results are optimal when this value and promote traditional tomato crop, although we must continue the task, above all, when improving production, Amador insists. We work with a material that was preserved for many years, and there you go selecting plants for those that are best”.

Today, black apple tomato has a very limited production in the Islands and because some farmers never stopped cultivating this traditional tomato, making a selection according to their tastes and priorities, This old variety has survived.

From Cultesa they believe that with the current trend towards quality agriculture local tomato varieties can have an important place in the market. Mid term, traditional tomato varieties are more present in restaurants, supermarkets, markets and other.