Perhaps I should call these Kumato raisin tomatoes! This is a picture about a week after harvest. Do you notice how the skin is shrivelling up on some of them?
Here’s what the inside looks like of one of the healthier looking ones above. This is three-quarters of a tomato, after a fourth of it was sacrificed for a taste test. Notice how the skin tore a bit instead of cutting, because it was so tough? All I can say is wow, YUCK! A sort of stick to the roof of your mouth, pasty taste. What a lingering after-taste! Nothing I would wish on anyone else.
Okay, by now you are all probably wondering what I am getting on about here.
The Kumato® is a variety patented by Syngenta. According to their website, this variety is created entirely with traditional breeding methods. As they explain on their website, they never sell anything but the final product to consumers, and only grown by specially licensed farmers and sold through specially licensed sales outlets (in other words, only very large supermarket chains). If you don’t buy it from an authorised vendor, it’s not a real Kumato!
So if the seeds are so controlled, how did I get the seeds to grow this in my garden? The answer is that it seems to be an open pollinated variety, and when you save seeds from the tomatoes and regrow them, they appear to grow true to type. I got these seeds from Laura of Mas du Diable, and I think she told me her father was the original saver of the seeds and gave them to her.
Syngenta does not actually sell this tomato in the Netherlands, so I couldn’t save them myself.
So what’s up with these tomatoes?
Well seed companies lose money when people save and replant their own seeds, and this is often dealt with by means of F1 hybrid varieties, which don’t grow true to type when grown from saved seeds. It appears in this case Syngenta has breed their tomatoes to be so totally dependent on chemicals, that anyone who does not know their secret formula of agricultural poisons cannot exactly reproduce the tomato sold in stores.
When I grew it, it was very weak and attracted every disease I normally get in my tomatoes. I grew it in a container, and noticed the roots did something strange to the dirt to make the water flow through quicker and not be well retained. The plants were not very productive for me either.
Why was it created?
Well first, here in Europe we have seed laws that restrict the varieties allowed to be sold. Many people in Europe have never seen a tomato that isn’t red! This is a ‘black’ tomato (also called purple), and it’s a real oddity. In addition, there’s probably some marketing advantage for Syngenta to be able to say it’s an open pollinated variety, and especially many gardeners are shunning F1 varieties by now in Europe.
Personally, I’m going back to growing heirloom tomatoes!
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Here are some pictures from Rich L. See comments below. Click on images to see full sized.
Nice little experiment Patrick – once again highlighting the importance of not letting companies like these take over the food chain.
James
I have seen these at the market. They come in plastic boxes and look nice under the store lights. I didn’t buy them because I was growing an heirloom with the same color (and they are obviously hybrid to say the least). Thanks for reviewing this.
Too bad they didn’t live up to the hype. You may have waited a little too long to harvest those. From what I understand, Kumatos are at their peak flavor when dark brown, before they turn red, as in your picture. After that, they have a mild flavor.
I was surprised today to see some of those at a local grocery store. I bought a box of acutual Kumatos, imported to michigan from Canada. They were not the western hemisphere’s “rosso bruno’s”, but kumatos in the trademark package. I shall be conducting my own similar experiment this spring with those seeds I save…
Perhaps the tough skin is an advantage for long shipping.
This is a radical statement: “the roots did something strange to the dirt to make the water flow through quicker and not be well retained.” What would that be? Physical, chemical process?
Did you use same containers and soil with other tomato plants?
hi
i tried this last year ..all my kumato seedlings died ..very thrifty and disease prone ..and i’m sure effected the other tomotos somehow .I thought i’d get one plant that would bear fruit …..think i’ll stick with what i know
MG: Let me know how it goes!
EJ: I didn’t mean it to be too radical… The roots did something to the soil to make it very loose, probably physical. It’s possible I’ve had another tomato do the same thing before, I don’t recall. Most tomatoes get root bound eventually, causing the soil not to hold water, but this is different and earlier, as it actually caused the soil to get a little looser. More irritating than anything else…
Yes, I grew this on the same way I grow other tomatoes. About 30 liters of ordinary commercial potting soil with nothing else added and no fertilizer. Normally I would use a mixture of peat moss and home made compost, but I was in a hurry this year and didn’t have home made compost available.
It’s a normal tomato plant, just bred in a strange way, and in my opinion not very useful to home gardeners.
Sweetpea: Thanks for sharing your experiences!
Hiya
That’s some pretty hefty conclusions you’ve made there Patrick – how many plants did you grow in your trial this year?
I grew only two plants this year and would hate to make big conclusions myself from just this one season and only two plants. I grew them from the SAME seed I sent you, which I harvested from a market bought tomato labelled kumato (not boxed or proprietry packaged). They look very similar to other smallish round brown/black skinned tomatoes I have seen in markets here in France and in Spain. In my experience they have had a good rich, sharp taste. Mine have a brown skin yours seem to be almost standard red. Were they brown at any point? While the plants have not been prolific and look as though they are about to succumb to blight non of my tomatoes have done well this year – a problem with the weather we had earlier and the later drying winds that wiped out all the blossoms for 2 months on most of the 20 or so varieties I’ve got this year, so not a good year to make a judgement for me. Lots of references to Kumato online suggest they are quite unique but I have not found anything unique about them yet. I plan to grow them again next year along side one I found in Barcelona which looks very similar, as I want a smallish brown skinned slicing tomato to grow regularly. If I went by this years performance alone i would not be impressed but I still hold some hope, as the original tomato I took the seeds from tasted magnificent. My dad grew them from the same seed and got a good harvest in Scotland last year.
Hi Laura,
The tomatoes were a little browner when I harvested them.
It’s true I did only grow one Kumato, but I grew about 20 other tomatoes, that for the most part all grew into the plants I was expecting them too. It’s of course not out of the question the plant I grew was somehow mutant or not right, but if these Kumato seeds are OP, I should be able to grow a mostly predictable plant.
This was truly a strange plant, with strange tomatoes. The taste was horrid! I needed quite a lot of beer to wash that away. I have also never seen a tomato shrivel up like a raisin before.
I really do stand by my conclusions here. At the same time, I’m very interested to hear from others who have similar or different experiences from me growing it. I did some searching, and I didn’t really find anyone else with a blog who had grown the tomato successfully before.
Rather Japanese sounding name?
Hi!
I came across this thread when doing my own research on Kumatos and after conducting my own experiment, I thought I’d post a reply to tell you my results.
I saved a bunch of seeds from Kumatos (labelled with the patent by Syngenta) that I bought in a local market. I live in the northeast of the US.
I planted all of them in tiny cups at first, since I had my suspicions that they might not sprout at all.
Well, most of them sprouted! I planted them in March and transplanted them into the garden in May. THEY THRIVED! I’ve been joking all summer that I have an alien invasion in my back yard because the tomatoes have taken over.
They grew so strongly and quickly once it got good and hot out that I couldn’t keep up with staking and all. A number of them eventually toppled over (before I could buy more stakes) from the weight of the fruit.
They’ve produced dozens and dozens of greenish-brown tomatoes and they’re delicious! They’re actually still going, too. Unfortunately, I am a novice tomato grower, and didn’t know what the signs of late blight were soon enough. They’ve had a good run, and they’re still flowering and producing fruit, but I am battling this annoying fungus now.
It’s not just the Kumatos either, it’s all 6 varieties I’m growing that have been affected. The Kumatos have it the worst because I didn’t really give them a lot of space to grow, and the blight appeared after a few fell over and had to be righted again.
Oh well. It’s been an interesting and delicious run! I plan to do it again next year after learning from my mistakes. 🙂
Hi Megan,
Thanks for letting us know your experiences!
Sorry about the blight. You shouldn’t blame yourself for anything, because there’s not much you can do about it. It’s a big problem in lots of places these days.
I think you let your Kumato ripen too much. Mine did brilliantly and were delicious. In fact, both the plants and the fruits themselves were outstanding in my garden. I simply took some seeds from a store-bought Kumato, rubbed the gel off with a paper towel and put them in a container. The plants actually overtook the tomatoes I had in the ground over 6 weeks prior.
Hi Scott, thanks for the comment!
I don’t normally buy supermarket tomatoes unless they are grown in my area which means underglass and not until early spring. By that time, I can usually wait until my own are ready. Notwithstanding, I had an overwhelming tomato craving and decided to gamble on Kumato-branded tomatoes. They were sweet, juicy and flavourful. I was impressed. Impressed enough to want to grow them myself. So I googled and found the Sygenta link plus indications that people were growing them from seed. It would seem that they are not F1 hybrids or people are lucky in their grow out results. If they aren’t F1, why patent? Your speculation about needing Sygenta’s chemicals in order to reproduce a store-bought Kumato is interesting. That certainly would justify the patent. It’s interesting also that one of its traits is that it is salt resistant. Maybe that’s necessary if there is a salt build-up as a result of the chemicals.
Regardless, I’ll try them next year and see how they turn out.
Regards,
Mike
I found the Kumato in Walmart. Bought them, tried them and like them. So just as you folks, tried to grow from seeds from what I bought. I did the same homework to see they aren’t supposed to germinate either at all or to grow the same exact kumato. Being from Texas I guess is my excuse to understand how that can happen based upon grafting of a Texas native pecan tree with a peach limb to get a soft shell pecan. But plant a soft shell pecan and you get the native small hard shell again. SO…being a glutin for punishment? I tried anyway. LOL My Kumato plants are now approaching 7′ tall and producing deep green fruit out the gazoo. On the other hand, I gave some germinated starters to two different people and their plants aren’t over 3′ tall and evidently aren’t getting the same looking/kind of, fruit I am. I germinated mine in a small pot then transfered to a 6″ diameter plastic tube x 12″ tall with a bottom with a hole, to continue to grow in. When they got to a point of size, I removed the bottom and located them in to soil and they have gone crazy ever since. At this point I have no idea what color or texture or flavor they will end up. They are now dark green on the top and lighter green on the bottoms. It appears as though the darker green is working it’s way down towards the bottom of the tomato fruit. I dunno yet LOL
I read that they pass each seed through a turtle before planting them. That is something they obviously rely upon scientifically that relates to the end result. I don’t have any turtles running around so I tried a different approach and consideration that is no sense in revealing until these work out or not. I personally don’t care if I get the “color” as long as I get good production of some good tomatoes. Flavor etc. I like that this plant is hot weather hardy, grows to over 7′ tall and has very strong root and stem system to support lots of tomatoes and is not GMO. I’d include a picture of my plants but don’t think that can be done on this site. These have been VERY easy to grow to get the results I have. I am one VERY novice gardener….BELIEVE ME ! LOL
I feel the differences are in the germination and what is used as the foundation for germination and then the soil that they are grown in. This is THE EASIEST tomato plant and the LARGEST I have ever tried to grow.
My 7′ tall kumato plants photo attempt lol
Hi Rich,
Thanks for the comments! If you email me a picture, I’ll include it on this page. My email can be found here:
http://bifurcatedcarrots.eu/contact/
Patrick,
I emailed to you my Kumato plant pictures as per your invitation because I couldn’t figure out how to post them here myself LOL. What I have in terms of size “as of today” are 4 out of 5 plants at 8 feet tall. The fifth is shorter. You will see how the fruit is clustering and on average at the current age/size of the plants have about 40 Kumato’s per plant and still growing and producing very fast. My “problem” now is to figure out how to manage this puppy at this height and not knowing how much taller it is going to get ! LOL
You can see the onset of the ripening colors coming in to place now. The darker green at the top is getting darker and the lower portion are coming in darker and have a yellowish/red tint to them at this point. I have no clue what they will end up at at this point and/or actually when to determine when to pick them ! LOL
I like the plant solid structure and also the amount of production. I feel that flavor can be controlled by soil nutrients and controlled watering. The Kumato’s that I got the seeds for these plants from were much darker colored and a very deep red/green/brown. It may be that if I let these stay on the vine longer they may “come close” to the “color” but then I frankly don’t care about the color so much as the quality of the fruit if this works out to be of good quality. 🙂
If anyone is interested? When I germinated the seeds I germinated them in 100% worm castings. When they became about 2 inches tall I transplanted them in to the yellow pipe/tubes you see which is an experiment I am personally doing with my veggies. I capped the bottoms as if a planter. Treated them as if planters until the plant was tall enough to determine to place in the ground and required top growth support. The roots in the tube at this point are “at” the bottom. I removed the bottom from the tube, dug a hole in the ground about 6 inches deep and provided more 100% earth castings, pushed the plant out of the bottom of the tube to expose about 3 to 4 inches of root base and then located the tube and exposed root base in to the ground, covering it with mixed soil with 50/50 worm castings. The soil used in the tubes is 50/50 soil and worm castings topped off with 100% worm castings. For the first few weeks I watered them with worm casting tea every other day and then water. I will pick which plant and fruits are the best as it goes along and then harvest the seeds and try them next year. My main quandry at this point is not concern of bearing fruit of even quality I don’t feel as much as how in the heck to manage this monster as it grows even taller ! LOL What you are seeing there now is a large tomato plant cage with and second flipped upside down and attached to the top of the first.
I have already had to tie down the sides of these so they wouldn’t topple over to their sides as it is. LOL Why the tubes? I live in Ohio and the frosts and freezes can kill off a lot of hard work . I had the benefit of starting my plants and allowing them to get sun on good days and bring them in at night and worry none. I also feel that allowing the warmth to penetrate to the roots has helped. It also allows me to water from above with tea directly to the root base only and then I water around the tube base to go deep saturation for deep root growth support. I am no gardener and these are my new/first timer guy, first garden theories I am “starting” with. LOL
You all have a GREAT day and week,
Rich L (From Ohio)
By the way,
I have checked several websites that have pictures of “packaged” Kumato’s…and guess what? The colors are not all consistant! Some are more and almost all red and some are deep green/purple like what I bought. So that speaks directy to the fact…Not even approved Kumato growers or Kumato themselves…have this to 100% same fruit consistancy.
As that is the case? I will call what comes out of my plant? LA’MATO ! 🙂 LOL because it is not obviously a KU’Mato anymore LOL
Hi Rich:
I’ve added the pictures above. Thanks for sharing them.