The Early Girl

tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...

is a medium-sized globe-type

F1 hybrid An F1 hybrid (also known as filial 1 hybrid) is the first filial generation of offspring of distinctly different parental types. F1 hybrids are used in genetics, and in selective breeding, where the term F1 crossbreed may be used. The term is somet ...

popular with home gardeners because of its early ripening fruit. Early Girl is a

cultivar A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture, ...

of tomato with

indeterminate growth In biology and botany, indeterminate growth is growth that is not terminated in contrast to determinate growth that stops once a genetically pre-determined structure has completely formed. Thus, a plant that grows and produces flowers and fruit ...

, which means it produces flowers and fruit until it is killed by frost or another external factor (contrast with a ''determinate'' cultivar, which would grow to a limited, predefined shape and be most productive for one large harvest before dying or tapering off with minimal new growth or fruit). It grows tall, therefore it needs support as the plant grows. Fruit maturity ranges from after transplanting, depending on the source, which appeals to growers in climates with shorter

growing season A season is a division of the year marked by changes in weather, ecology, and the amount of daylight. The growing season is that portion of the year in which local conditions (i.e. rainfall, temperature, daylight) permit normal plant growth. Whil ...

s. Early Girl can tolerate temperatures as low as and is well-suited to hot, dry climates. Early girl is reliable and prolific. The ripe fruit is extremely standard for a tomato, about the size and shape of a

tennis ball A tennis ball is a ball designed for the sport of tennis. Tennis balls are fluorescent yellow in organised competitions, but in recreational play can be virtually any color. Tennis balls are covered in a fibrous felt which modifies their aerodyna ...

and weighing . The tomatoes have a bright color and good flavor.

History

Based on a short-season hybrid tomato developed in France, Early Girl was originally distributed in the United States in the early '70s by PetoSeed Company, a major agricultural seed supplier. The variety was named by boardmember Joe Howland to complement PetoSeed's popular

Better Boy The "Better Boy" tomato variety is a hybrid between the ''Teddy Jones heirloom tomato variety'' and an unknown red variety developed by plant breeder John Peto. ''Better Boy'' fruit grows from an indeterminate plant, growing to about in weight, a ...

tomato. Seed catalog

Burpee Seeds Burpee Seeds and Plants, officially W. Atlee Burpee & Co., is an American seed and plant company that was founded by Washington Atlee Burpee in Pennsylvania in 1876. History Early years (1876-1915) W. Atlee Burpee & Company was founded in ...

obtained an exclusive three-year deal for the new variety and featured it on the cover of its 1975 spring catalog. Since 2005,

Monsanto Company The Monsanto Company () was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best known product is Roundup (herbicide), Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbic ...

is the primary producer of Early Girl seeds after acquiring

Seminis Seminis is a developer, grower, and marketer of fruit and vegetable seeds. Seminis' hybrids claim to improve nutrition, boost crop yields, limit spoilage and reduce the need for chemicals. Their retail line includes over 3,500 seed varieties. ...

corporation and its patent on the hybrid. Though the plant is a hybrid, Early Girl is no longer under plant variety protection. The Early Girl VF hybrid is

verticillium ''Verticillium'' is a genus of fungi in the division Ascomycota, and are an anamorphic form of the family Plectosphaerellaceae. The genus used to include diverse groups comprising saprobes and parasites of higher plants, insects, nematodes, mo ...

and

fusarium wilt Fusarium wilt is a common vascular wilt fungal disease, exhibiting symptoms similar to Verticillium wilt. This disease has been investigated extensively since the early years of this century. The pathogen that causes Fusarium wilt is ''Fusarium o ...

(strain I) resistant. The VFF hybrid is resistant to fusarium wilt, strains I and II. A couple of farmers from the Bay Area have worked to stabilize a true-breeding, non-hybridized, open-pollinated Early Girl called the Dirty Girl, but it is not widely available or stable yet.

Dry farming

Early Girl is well-suited to

dry farming Dryland farming and dry farming encompass specific agricultural techniques for the non-irrigated cultivation of crops. Dryland farming is associated with drylands, areas characterized by a cool wet season (which charges the soil with virtuall ...

. Researchers at the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...

, are among those who have described the technique of not watering after transplanting, forcing the roots to grow deeper to seek out moisture, producing more "concentrated flavor" in the fruits, and saving water. Dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes have a

cult following A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. ...

, and aficionados claim the taste of dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes rival those of the best-regarded

heirloom tomatoes An heirloom tomato (also called heritage tomato in the United Kingdom, UK) is an Open pollination, open-pollinated, non-hybrid heirloom plant, heirloom cultivar of tomato. They are classified as family heirlooms, commercial heirlooms, mystery heir ...

. Dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes are popular at

farmers' market A farmers' market (or farmers market according to the AP stylebook, also farmer's market in the Cambridge Dictionary) is a physical retail marketplace intended to sell foods directly by farmers to consumers. Farmers' markets may be indoors or o ...

s in the San Francisco Bay Area. Early Girl is also popular with home gardeners in that region, where it thrives, unlike many tomato varieties, despite the area's cool and often overcast summers.

Chez Panisse Chez Panisse is a Berkeley, California, restaurant, known as one of the originators of the style of cooking known as California cuisine, and the farm-to-table movement. The restaurant emphasizes ingredients rather than technique and has develope ...

founder

Alice Waters Alice Louise Waters (born April 28, 1944) is an American chef, restaurateur, and author. In 1971 she opened Chez Panisse, a Berkeley, California restaurant famous for its role in creating the farm-to-table movement and for pioneering Californi ...

is a fan of the Early Girl tomato, telling an interviewer at ''Seasonal Chef'', "one of the best tomatoes he'dever had was an Early Girl that was dry-farmed up in Napa at a friend's house."

References

{{Tomatoes Hybrid tomato cultivars

History

Dry farming

See also

References