15 MPH Tomato | SouthernPaddler.com

15 MPH Tomato

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Wannabe

Well-Known Member
Apr 5, 2007
2,645
2
on the bank of Trinity Bay
USDA decided it wanted to help out the tomato farmer so it had someone design a tomato picker. This would allow the farmer to pick his crop faster, get his product to the table while it was still fresh. USDA had the tomato picker built and set about to test it. It picked the tomatoe well enough but unfortunetly the picker smashed all the tomatos. A study was done on the picker and it was determined that for the picker to work the tomato would have to withstand a 15 MPH impact. Too much money had been put into the project to drop it so the USDA decided to have a tomato geneticley engineered to withstand a 15 MPH impact. LO and Behold. They were sucessful. The picker worked as it was supposed to. Great. The picker cost so much that a farmer had to have x (I can't remember the exact amount) acres of tomatos for the picker to pay for itself. The result of all this was
1. Farmers with x plus acres of tomatos made a lot more money. They saved a lot of money on stoop labor.
2. Farmers that could not afford a picker could not compete with the big farmers and went out of the tomato business.
3. The 15 MPH tomato that found its was to the table was not as soft, juicy, or as tasty as the older tomato.
I heard this story years ago. I do not know if the story is true or not. It would explain what happened to the quality of tomatos that you buy in the store. Knowing how the Government likes to help, it's probally true.
Bob
 
J

jdupre'

Well-Known Member
Sep 9, 2007
2,327
40
South Louisiana
Also, they treat the tomatoes with some kind of gas (???) to make them red. I said red- not ripe. The flesh of the still- green tomato is unchanged except for the color.
 
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Steve

Well-Known Member
Aug 12, 2008
504
0
68
Sagle, Idaho
steve-patton.artistwebsites.com
True or not, Bob, all I know is store bought 'maters taste nothing like home growed. . .

. . .ya gots green 'maters fer picklin' 'n' fryin'. . . 'n' ya gots red un's fer slicing for salt 'n' pepperin', sandwichin', salsa-fyin' 'n' whatever else ya wants to do to 'em. . . :D

. . .'n' it seems to me ya cain't do all dat as good with store bought uns. . . :(
 
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Kayak Jack

Well-Known Member
Aug 26, 2003
13,976
171
86
Okemos / East Lansing Michigan
In Colonial times, tomatoes were thought to be poisonous. Today, they are the most popular plant in home gardens.

In the 50's, when Dad's store was in business, we sold Burpee seeds. Burpee Big boy seeds sold for more per ounce than gold. Go figure.
 
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gbinga

Well-Known Member
Nov 7, 2008
736
2
Hoschton, GA
Tomatoes, potatoes, corn, and tobacco all were "discovered" and taken back to europe. They'd never seen any of it until they came to America.

And, oddly enough, there were no horses or pigs on the American continent before Europeans brought them here. The whole horse culture of the plains Indians developed in the few hundred years between Columbus and Custer.

If you want more of this sort of fascinating trivia, you should marry a social studies teacher. Gotta find your own, though. Sherri is taken. :D

There are a lot of other examples of plants and animals that were part of the "Columbian Exchange" between the new world and the old world. Pretty interesting -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Exchange

GBinGA
 
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jdupre'

Well-Known Member
Sep 9, 2007
2,327
40
South Louisiana
gbinga said:
Tomatoes, potatoes, corn, and tobacco all were "discovered" and taken back to europe. They'd never seen any of it until they came to America.

And, oddly enough, there were no horses or pigs on the American continent before Europeans brought them here. The whole horse culture of the plains Indians developed in the few hundred years between Columbus and Custer.

If you want more of this sort of fascinating trivia, you should marry a social studies teacher. Gotta find your own, though. Sherri is taken. :D

There are a lot of other examples of plants and animals that were part of the "Columbian Exchange" between the new world and the old world. Pretty interesting -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Exchange

GBinGA
Click to expand...

Interesting stuff. I think it's in Peru, that they have developed over 100 varieties of potatoes. The fields are terraced on the side of the mountain and each variety of potatoes grows best at a specific elevation. All kinds of shapes and sizes and in every color of the rainbow.
 
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jdupre'

Well-Known Member
Sep 9, 2007
2,327
40
South Louisiana
Kayak Jack said:
I also heard that the earthworm wasn't native to North America. I find that hard to believe. What nut brought in Democrats? :x
Click to expand...

They weren't brought in ,Jack, they snuck in under cover of darkness. :x
 
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Kayak Jack

Well-Known Member
Aug 26, 2003
13,976
171
86
Okemos / East Lansing Michigan
I understand that the ripening process, and the decay process too, can be greatly slowed by packing the fruit & vegetables in nitrogen. If they are exposed to the oxygen in normal atmosphere, Nature marches on. She marks time in nitrogen or CO2.
 
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buckisland1950

Well-Known Member
Aug 15, 2007
191
0
Savannah, GA
Speaking of imports, found this crawling up my window a week ago and researched it on the internet. Seems to be a shovelnose earthworm coming in from south america on strawberries.

IMG_1530_2.jpg
 
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buckisland1950

Well-Known Member
Aug 15, 2007
191
0
Savannah, GA
This one was pretty small. On the internet they listed one that was about a foot long but didn't show the head that well. Definitely freaked me out when I found it outside the house.
 
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