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Oak Grove, Mn

From wikipedia, this is a bit of information on Alexander Livingston:

Alexander W. Livingston was the first person who succeeded in upgrading the wild tomato, developing different breeds and stabilizing the plants. In the 1937 yearbook of the Federal Department of Agriculture, it was declared that "half of the major varieties were a result of the abilities of the Livingstons to evaluate and perpetuate superior material in the tomato". Livingston's first breed of tomato, the Paragon, was introduced in 1870. In 1875, he introduced the Acme, which was said to be involved in the parentage of most of the tomatoes introduced by him and his competitors for the next twenty-five years.[33]

When Alexander W. Livingston had begun his attempts to develop the tomato as a commercial crop, his aim had been to grow tomatoes smooth in contour, uniform in size and having better flavor. One year, after many attempts, he passed through his fields, picking out particular tomato plants having distinct characteristics and heavy foliage. He saved the seeds carefully. The following spring he set two rows across his family garden located just below the hill and milk house. To his happy surprise, each plant bore perfect tomatoes like the parent vine. After five years, the fruit became fleshier and larger. In 1870, Alexander introduced the Paragon and tomato culture soon became a great enterprise in the county. Today, the crop is grown in every state in the Union. He eventually developed over seventeen different varieties of the tomato plant

I think an beauty award in his name is a great suggestion.

9/29/2017 7:00:56 PM

Zimmerman, Minnesota

I agree and thanks Mr. Livingston for without you a BLT wouldn't sound or taste as good;-)

9/30/2017 1:01:03 AM

Can't argue with that suggestion. Good choice and thanks for that bit of tomato history.

10/1/2017 4:41:10 PM

Newcastle, CA

If you look up Gordon Graham's 1986 record tomato, many people thought it was a fake because of how perfect it was. I think it looks suspicious. Also, I find it interesting how few people here mention his tomato. I wonder if there is any related plant lineage from that tomato on this website? Does anyone know? It was a 7.75 lb tomato. I very much liked your history lesson bnot, especially thinking about how a "wild tomato" must have been back then.

10/3/2017 7:14:37 PM

East Carbon, Utah

Marv will likely chime in here,as he has personally researched the history of Gordon Graham's 7.75 pounder. I think there was only one poor-quality picture of the actual tomato, and that showed a lobed and asymmetrical tomato, as we might expect. My understanding is that he is often shown with a plastic replica of his specimen, manufactured to be the proper size of for a 7.75 pound fruit with a "perfect" tomato look. Apparently the promoters were not familiar with growing giant tomatoes and what they actually look like, or possibly they had other motives?

Weird Wint - Thanks to Marv's effort several years ago, genetics of Gordon Graham's tomato have been preserved. I have a fair number of seeds of third through sixth generation from his world record tomato. My largest to date was 2.868 lbs., but I rarely put in the kind of effort to grow super giants as the more dedicated growers do. I expect a really serious grower could achieve double the weights I get with the identical seed.

10/8/2017 4:15:44 AM