‘Superb Hybrid’, ‘NewIda’, and ‘Gold Dust’ Tomatoes

Within northern vegetable-growing areas, esculentum Mill.) cultivars is limited by a the number of adapted tomato (Lycopersicon short growing season and low average temperatures. Cultivars must be short-season types to produce economic yields and must be resistant to physiological defects often triggered by fluctuating or low temperatures. Within early lines, fruits tend to be small (Bemier et al., 1962, Fogle and Currence, 1950; Gibrel et al., 1982; Kerr, 1955), al though the association does not preclude simultaneous improvement of fruit size and achieving early maturity. Beginning in 1965, the tomato breeding program at the Univ. of New Hampshire focused on selecting early to second early material resistant to excessive cracking, lobing or catfacing, and to blotchy ripening. These attributes were combined within plants of compact, determinate habit amenable to close spacing. All breeding selections were routinely screened for resistance to vascular wilts, but emphasis was placed on verticillium wilt, caused by Verticillium albo-atrum Reinke & Berth