I found the link below by Googling and it strongly suggests that it's a region in Italy where tomatoes are grown, not a specific variety and well, you can read it for yourself.

And this link was from Sept of 2009.

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Pachino, not a specific variety

Thanks for the info. I appreciated it.

I can assure you that there has been more research into the Pachino tomato since that time,
The final conclusion straight from Restaurant owners in Sicily is that -it is in fact an open pollinated variety, grown by a well known Italian or Sicilian seed company and/or branches of etc, and is sent in trade packets of about 400 seeds or more per packet, to each individual council in various areas of Sicily and nominated townships each season for their distribution to each restaurant chain in order for them to either grow their own or contract them out to a professional grower of their choice,

The seeds are listed on the original trade growers website as -something like (Number 15, and a brief description in Italian, although I cant remember what exactly as it is early last season when the final research was done, and most of that info was sadly lost when T-Land closed down it's website.

I was lucky enough to have obtained one of these trade packets, from a Guy in the USA who did all the research and he obtained about four such packets for himself, so I am afraid all the credit is due to him, and several weeks of research-all in Italian language, which he appears to understand fluently, and his friends in the restaurant trade in Both Italy and Sicily.

Any other new tomatoes brought onto the scene by growers there and are either F1's or otherwise, are just not the right tomato, apparently the low level salt water feeding also helps put that savoury taste into the tomatoes as well, but the initial sweetness and fruit quality is from the original open pollinated variety, all F1's and newcomers are imposters to that area-regardless of what growing abilities and disease resistance they might have.

The ones that we both have are the real McCoy I assure you.

I forgot to mention- the person who did all the laborious research work, is in the wholesale wine trade and distribution, so has lots of brilliant contacts in the Restaurant trade in both countries Italy and Sicily as well as the USA, so I am pretty sure both he and his friends know exactly what they are talking about,

Thanks for the update Michael.

And where should one go to get seeds?

One person at another site just posted that he grew it this past summer but it wasn't clear if it was from a plant or from seed.

Carolyn

The person who did all the research was signing himself in at the time as MDVP from PA Texas, I cant quite remember what his real name was-but he was a hell of a nice chap to deal with-very obliging.

I spent a good hour early this morning looking up the true name of the tomato as provided by the Italian seed company for the Sicilian council groups and allocated growing authority etc, (Cant remember the name of the seed company at this time-pretty sure it was not Sementi or anything like that,
Anyhow- the true name of the original tomato used and is still used in Sicily by all the Restaurants is (Pomadora -Cerise ) one or two other companies also do a cherry by this name too- but I am not sure if it is the same variety or not, as there are many tomatoes by the colour cerise etc,
and it is definitely not an F1 at this stage but open pollinated, in 400 seed trade packets, at a very low price by some standards, but then- most of the European tomatoes are very cheap to start with, I think it mainly stems from the fact that the tomato sauce industry and other tomato products have made special machinery from mass seed extraction which is not so labour intensive.and now the Giant company Nestle have got in on the scene and are processing tons of tomato skins from spanish and Italian tomatoes to extract the Lycopane from them for use in medicine,but very expensive though to buy,-like $50 to $60 for a months supply,but they say in a month it shifts all the high cholesterol problems out of the body to an almost zero count, from as high as 12 to 15 count before,.and is completeley safe without any side effects at all.

I do know MDVPC, and he is in TX, and he and his wife have been to Italy, I think just last year or the year before, but he's a lawyer and has nothing to do with the restaurant business at all as far as I know and I've known Michael for many years. Between the two of us we/ve been paying for Andrey's SSE membership; this year is my year.

And I've never seen him post about something called pachino, and Pomodoro Cerise is quite general pomodoro meaning tomato in Italian and cerise meaning cherry in French, so we've got an interesting name that's part Italian and part French. I've grown Cerise Orange, but not Cerise itself which is a very old variety.

So I'll ask Michael about it.

Carolyn

I may have got the wrong person, but I thought it was him ???, I am fairly sure that he said he was in the wholesale wine business, but it's a bit of a job to remember back over a year ago,

As Carolyn says, "pomodoro di Pachino" is a PGI (protected geographical indication), not a variety.

The varieties allowed to be listed under the classification are

ciliegino (means "cherry tomato")

costoluto (means "ribbed")

tondo liscio (means "round smooth")

grappolo (means "cluster" or "grape")

Technically, they're only "di Pachino" if you grow them in Pachino. But like many other traditional European geographical namings, in North America, it will probably end up meaning a genetic line common to the area, i.e., the genetic variant of cherries, ribbed beefsteaks, round beefsteaks, and grape tomatoes predominant in Pachino, etc. How closely they're related to other cherries, ribbed, round smooth, and grape tomatoes grown throughout Italy is unknown. On the flip side, whether they're significantly different from other regional cherries, ribbed, round smooth, and grape is something we won't know without experienced people doing side by side growouts.