Agriculture

Talking Tomatoes

Monday, May 30th, 2011

Community Contributed by Glenn Teves, UH County Extension Agent

Tomato has more than its share of pests – starting with leaf miners, they are small fly maggots that feed between the upper and lower layer of the leaf, making meandering lines that are more cosmetic than damaging. Predacious wasps will control it, but spraying with a broad spectrum pesticide will kill the good guys and flare up the leaf miners to the point where they can knock out most of the lower leaves.  

Russet mites are microscopic and look like a teardrop. They cause a bronzing of the stem and will slowly progress up the stem, turning the lower leaves yellow. At first indication, spraying with sulfur can easily control it. Sulfur will also control red spider mites which can be especially troublesome in wind protected areas. They cause a cupping of the leaf, and yellow specks on the leaves, and occur on the undersides of leaves.

The corn earworm, also called the tomato fruit worm, can cause major damage by making large holes in fruits, especially if corn is grown nearby. Spraying with Dipel and other compounds containing Bacillus thurengiensis, a naturally occurring fungus, at the first sign of them will control them.

The tomato pinworm will lay its eggs at the base of the calyx attached to the stem end of the fruit, and will burrow into the fruit, rotting them. It is difficult to control, even with pesticides, and tomato producers use pheromone twisters placed near plants. These twisters contain hormones synthesized from the female pinworm, and will overwhelm the male pinworm to the point where they can’t find the female pinworm, disrupting mating activities.

Female fruit flies, especially the melon fly, are a major problem because they lay their eggs in the fruit, which rot fruits. The use of GF120, a natural occurring pesticide created from a fungus, Spinosad, mixed with a yeast-based attractant will control fruit flies. Sprayed on nearby trap crops/windbreaks such as in concentrated spots, fruit flies are attracted to the yeast compounds and killed when they come in contact with this toxin. All of these pest control methods are considered organic and low impact on the environment and non-target organisms.

In choosing the right variety of tomato to grow, find one with at least resistance to root-knot nematodes, including large-fruited bush types Celebrity, Anahu, Healani, Kewalo, Empire, Sanibel, First Blush, Quali-T23, Mountain Fresh Plus, and others. For romas, Puebla, Sunoma, Yaqui, Huichol, Hybrid 882, Cordova, Super Marzano, and Hybrid 46 are resistant. Resistant grape and cherries include Sweet Chelsea, Sweet Million, Sweet Quartz, Small Fry, Apero, Favorita, Red Grape, Golden Sweet, Sugary, Jolly, and Chiquita. Bush types are more wind tolerant and a good choice for the home garden, but it’s also good to have a few indeterminate cherry or grape types growing in the corner of your garden for a steady supply of little tomatoes.  

To order seed packets of UH varieties Healani, Anahu, and Kewalo and other vegetable seed, you can download an order form from UH at www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/seed/

 

Talking Tomatoes

Wednesday, May 11th, 2011

Community contributed by Glenn I. Teves, County Extension Agent

One of my favorite vegetables or fruits, depending on how you eat ‘em, is the lowly tomato. Tomato sandwich, lomi salmon, or just tomato, onion, sardines, and poi, tomatoes are hot stuff. First thought to be poisonous when first introduced into Europe, it took some promoting to get people to try them. Today, it’s the no. 2 most consumed vegetable behind its cousin, the Irish potato. Growing them can be a challenge, but as a local song goes, “It’s fun when you know how it’s done.”

Native from Mexico to Chile, many are very small. There are two main plant types: indeterminate or trellis types, and determinate or bush types. Indeterminates are usually grown in greenhouses on trellises where its side shoots are plucked and one main leader is kept.  Plants can reach over 20 feet tall and produce tons of large, juicy tomatoes in a fairly small area. Determinate types are usually field grown as bushes, with some varieties such as processing and roma tomatoes having concentrated fruiting which facilitates mechanical harvesting.

Through conventional breeding methods, tomatoes can be customized to weather all kinds of diseases. The late UH tomato breeder Jim Gilbert developed varieties with resistance to over 12 different diseases, including root-knot nematodes, tobacco mosaic virus (spread by smoking cigarettes with virus-infected tobacco), Fusarium wilt, Verticillium wilt, Bacterial wilt, Southern blight, Alternaria stem canker, and others, all in one tomato. Through a chance meeting in a hallway, I had the fortunate opportunity to work with him in his last two years before retirement. My job was to taste 93 tomato breeding lines to find the best tasting ones. After the first day of work, I was also ready to retire with a stomach ache and acid indigestion until he told me, “Just taste it and spit it out; don’t swallow it!” The job got better after that, and together we were able to find the best tasting, disease-resistant varieties.

It used to be that tomatoes came in two sizes, cherry tomatoes the size of a quarter and giant beefsteak types. Today, we have what one Israeli seed company calls ‘boutique tomatoes’ customized for everyone’s needs, from micro-tomatoes the size of your fingernail to the giant beefsteaks and heirlooms, and everything in between. Very popular today are the grape tomatoes that resemble a miniature roma tomato and weigh about 16-20 grams. They’re pricey and can sell for $6 to $10 a pound, but can be stretched to create many salad meals. A size up are the cherries which weigh from 20-30 grams, and up from there are the midi tomato, also called romas that can run up to 100 grams. The roma-dettes, a new class is somewhere in weight between the cherries and the romas. The large beefsteak types can range from 200 to more than 800 grams. Aside from red, tomatoes come in many colors including white, pink, orange, yellow, green, striped, black, and even ones that stay green.

There are so many varieties to choose from, it’s hard to recommend which varieties to grow on Molokai. For the grape types, it’s gotten global with everyone jumping into the picture including Taiwanese, Israelis, Japanese, Europeans, and Americans.  The All-American field trials help to identify new varieties which are a marked improvement over what’s available on the market. Grape types include All-America winners Juliet and Sugary from Taiwan, while the Japanese just won an award for a strawberry shaped tomato called Tomatoberry. Tomatoes are a gourmet item in Japan, where provinces pride themselves with growing the best tomatoes. For the full size tomato, one my favorites is Celebrity, an All-American Award winner with multiple disease resistance inherited from one of its Hawaiian grandparents, Anahu. Next time, we’ll cover some of the intricacies the growing of tomatoes.

A Farming Affair

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

Farmers perused plate lunches for sale, families picked up seedlings and fresh vegetables from the country store and keiki giggled over the greased pig contest –the second Molokai Agriculture Fair brought the community together.

Hosted by Molokai Homesteaders Farmers Alliance (MHFA), the 2011 ag fair was well-attended last Saturday, including dignitaries amongst the crowd, such as Mayor Alan Arakawa.

“This is a tremendous event,” said Arakawa before joining the Molokai Economic Opportunity (MEO) team in the corn eating contest. “I grew up in a 4H family so this is my backyard. It has been well worth the trip over and so good to see our community coming together.”
The event also garnered attention from top officials of state legislature. Both the Hawaii State Senate and House of Representatives gave MHFA a special award in recognition of the event’s success and accomplishment within the farming community.

Lynn Decoit, president of MHFA, said the only thing the fair was missing were Ferris wheels and roller coasters.

“Some people said it was better than some of the fairs they’ve been to on Maui,” Decoit said.