Peak tomato season — July through September here on the East Coast — is almost upon us, and the anticipation is palpable. Before we know it, those super sweet, juicy fruits, grown outdoors under the hot sun, will be back in abundance.
We tend to fetishize summer tomatoes, especially heirloom varieties like Brandywine and Cherokee Purple, and regard them as the pinnacle of tomato flavor.
But according scientists who specialize in growing food in hydroponic greenhouses, some tomatoes bred for the indoors are now just as flavorful as the ones grown outdoors in perfect summer conditions.
"Heirloom tomatoes [are] full of flavor and taste and color and nutritional value," says Gene Giacomelli, who directs the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center at the University of Arizona. "But we can do that in the greenhouse with new varieties."
Good tomato flavor, as we've noted, is a complex combination of sugars, acids and gasses we experience as smell. And it depends on a variety of factors, including breeding and temperature, Neil Mattson, co-director of Cornell University's Controlled Environment Agriculture program, tells The Salt.
More tomatoes are being bred to thrive indoors, and the environmental conditions that make for a perfect outdoor tomato can now be replicated in greenhouses, too. That's becoming increasingly important now that global warming is making outdoor farming less predictable.
The Salt
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