Amish Paste Confusion

11 years ago

I have to say the I see so much confusion on the variety Amish Paste that I don't know what to expect any more. I have been purchasing seed from many reputable dealers on this one and the grow out tomatoes don't even resemble each other. I won't mention any of the suppliers since that is not the purpose of my post. A fellow gardener did grow out Amish Paste from Seed Savers and I think that it is the same one that I have been growing for 40 years. This is the Amish Past description as I know it. sweet, Oval round and sometimes longer, some doubles, red many one pounders, and smaller late in the season. Fruit from other well known suppliers have been everything from cherries to Roma like paste tomatoes, not the one that I know. Even Tatiana's page has listings from sources that report anywhere from 4 oz to 12 oz fruit. From my experience 12 oz would be on the small side. Is this just to common of a name for a tomato?

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Comments (6)

fusion_power
11 years ago
Amish Paste in my experience is a promiscuous out-crosser. I've had several variations over the years all of which deviated significantly from the stated description as given by Tom Hauch.

Amish Paste was first offered in SSE 1987, sold by http://heirloomseeds.com/ in 1990, is well documented to be an 8 ounce plump oval tomato with a nipple end.
caryltoo Z7/SE PA
11 years ago
The nipple end fits my experience with Amish Paste. The ones I've grown are usually oval, about fist-sized or a little larger. They're among the bigger paste tomatoes, although I've been told they're not a true paste anyway, though I'm not sure why.

About the cross-polination, a few years ago I had an Amish paste close to a black krim and saved the seeds from the latter. The next year I was so disappointed in the so-called Black Krim, which was not at all what it had been the year before. I ordered seeds after that -- a packet will last me a few years and I'd rather know for sure what I'm growing.
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PupillaCharites
11 years ago
Grow the version you like best, as who knows how it evolved to be so large. If it were stable, you would not likely see such huge variability on size within reasonable growing conditions unless this is a tendency you see with other tomatoes you grow, so you nailed it in your original post ... the variety you've bought no longer breeds true to whatever was described in the late 1980s.

That variety has no chain of custody. It appeared commercially less than 25 years ago with a marketing legend attached to it and the consumer-resonating health-evoking name "Amish".

Karl Yoder or whoever drove his buggy across the country down from Wisc. to participate in the Bird-In-Hand, Penna. swap was never credited so there is no third-party confirmation or ability to study the tomato's pedigree unless someone wants to go back to the Amish and ask around the old timers which you'd think would be an easy thing to do LOL!

Take the phony story on Cherokee Purple ... same deal. A scientist reviewed the genetics of it one day and left a few gardeners blushing with doubt.

PC

What's in a name? that which we call a variety, by any other name would be as sweet.
caryltoo Z7/SE PA
11 years ago
PC, I actually have an Amish farmer I could ask. He runs a produce market out of a building on his property. But I'm not sure asking would do any good, lol. A number of years ago he had some of his tomatoes marked as Amish Paste, but they were more like Opalka, the long, pepper-like fruit. So apparently there's lots of varieties being passed off as Amish Paste. I'll stick with the seeds I've got and the supplier I got them from -- they turn out a pretty nice tomato.
scarza
Original Author
11 years ago
I suppose that I answered my own question. "Amish Paste" is any paste tomato grown by the Amish! LOL
carolyn137
11 years ago
Just a few comments.

I used to grow Amish Paste for my SSE listings and never had it cross and I grew too many varieties to bag blossoms. I do not consider it to be a paste tomato since it's far too juicy IMO. But xing percentages do differ in different parts of the country as well as in different seasons

Tania's page for Amish Paste/

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Amish_Paste

I introduced one called Amish Salad

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Amish_Salad

What's my point? Names are given to many varieties, and here we're talking about Amish, and it;s not always clear that they were grown by the Amish, just presumed so as seeds are passed around.

Cherokee Purple, it was NOT a phony story at first b'c When John Green gave the seeds to Craig Lehoullier John said it was a 100 years old as told to him by the woman who gave him the seeds, It was only after Mulio aka Keith Mueller,, who posts here occasionally posted the information about which gf alleles differ between so called blacks had that it became clear that it was NOT 100 yo.

Such gf DNA analysis was not known in 1992 when Craig named the variety

And there are several scenarios that have been put forward as to where it might have come from.

I've linked to that gf data at the bottom of the page and scroll down until you see the post by Mulio in April.

And no, Amish Paste is not any variety grown by the Amish, I could list quite a few here that were grown by the Amish, or Mennonites as far as that goes, that are not pastes at all.

All for now.

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: gf alleles