News

This article by Barry Estabrook for Gastronomica magazine, titled On the Tomato Trail: in Search of Ancestral Roots, recounts some highlights of a TGRC-led collecting trip to Chile in 2005.

This article by Arthur Allen, titled A Passion for Tomatoes, appeared in Smithsonian Magazine in August 2008 and tells about how the tomato -- and how it is grown and harvested -- have changed since its domestication.

This article by Bea Perks writing for Chemistry World magazine, titled Tomatoes Once Tasted Like Cucumbers, tells about the discovery of a class of volatile compounds (C9 aldehydes) associated with cucumber-like flavor in fruit of S. pennellii, but absent in cultivated tomato.

In this article published by In Good Tilth in 2005, former TGRC graduate student Carl Jones recounts the challenges and excitement of collecting wild tomatoes in northern Chile. 

Jones-August-2005-InGoodTilth.pdf

In this excerpt from a program on the FlavrSavr tomato which aired 9/23/1994, the PBS New Hour's Spencer Michels talks with Charley Rick about wild tomatoes.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. produced a documentary about crop vulnerability and germplasm resources entitled Fragile Harvest.  The video includes footage of Charley Rick, Miguel Holle and others collecting wild tomatoes in the river valleys near Lima, Peru (Rio Cañete and Quebrada Chilca). The trip was organized as part of an "International Workshop on Tomato Breeding", and included tomato breeders and geneticists from several countries.