Tomato Pi & Splitting - the Math

[digitS']

Avoiding relevancy yesterday afternoon ... I was curious why someone in horticulture research once said that large tomatoes cannot be as sweet as cherries because their skin will split. It has to do with sugars and water but also the strength and flexibility of tomato skin. The skin of either cherries and beefsteaks are assumed to be the same. Therefore, it is all chemistry and math.

A 1" cherry tomato has a Surface area of:
S=4·pi·R·R
S=4·3.14·.5·.5=3.14
and, a Volume of:
V= 4·Pi·R·R·R/3
V=4·3.14·.5·.5·.5/3=.52

A 4" beefsteak has a Surface area of:
S=4·3.14·2·2=50.24
and, a Volume of:
V=4·3.14·2·2·2/3=33.49

So, let's check the math: For a sphere, the ratio of surface area to volume is found by: S/V = 3/R

1" Cherry: 3.14/.52=3/.5, 6=6
4" Beefsteak: 50.24/33.49=3/2, 1.5=1.5

So, what in Tarnation have we learned?!? Okay ... think ... think .... the little cherry has more surface area relative to volume than that giant beefsteak.

Anyway, everything else being equal, the beefsteak is more likely to split. And, if sugars encourage splitting - they had best be, if in any large measure, in the cherry.

I had that worked out yesterday but it became too late for thinking ...

Steve
Nobody move! I dropped me brain! ~ Captain Jack Sparrow

 

[ducks4you]

Best post here this YEAR!!!! WHERE did you get the cartoon?!?!? Me wants it, being a closet Pirate, and all. I get your drift regarding surface area vs. volume, so it must be something else...like genetics? Also, the soil ph, the amount of rainfall/watering.
What are YOUR favorite sweetest tomatoes?

 

[digitS']

I had hoped to save the cartoon until the fourteenth of March, @ducks4you . You know, Pi Day (3/14) . I'd spent so much time multiplying and dividing, to show how cherry tomatoes have a lot of skin in the game. Lightening my mood seemed needed.

I follow several linguists on Twitter. I'm sure one or another copied the comic off a cork board.

Yes, I don't know anything about the chemistry but can imagine that the addition of sugar to a solution will alter the fruit's ability to absorb more water.

Of course, some tomato varieties would have fruit with more sugar/less starch or more starch/less sugar. Apparently, only cherries could carry much sugar because the beefsteaks are going to split.

The sweetness of any fruit (melons, apples, wine grapes, etc.) can be measured with a refractometer and a "brix" number given to it. My understanding is that it is "dissolved solids" that are being measured but comparisons and all can be made.

I like "tomato flavor" but I could be fooling myself as to how much I enjoy the sugar. I'm also happy with the texture the skins on whole tomatoes added to sauce and soup. However, I don't remember ever using only cherry tomatoes for soup or sauce. I might not be happy with so much tomato skin in there if I did! Back to blanching the fruit ....

I was real pleased with those Yellow Jellybeans until the problems they had this year, as I mentioned in @baymule 's catalog thread. Some catalogs say that Big Beef might be the best tomato ever. Maybe so but I like how some heirlooms have some unique qualities.

One thing, there are lots of varieties that I just don't dare grow -- their season of having ripe fruit will be so short that I will have mostly bland things off the kitchen counter, weeks after first frost.

We have Sweet 100's every year and they are awfully good. In addition! Sweet Chelsea is supposed to have nearly the same genetics and it's about twice the size of a Sweet 100! I like those .

Steve

 

[digitS']

Serendipity! Well, I imagine so .

The real reason sweet tastes sweet - LINK

The BBC writer talked to a researcher ... who even included Yellow Jellybean in her study!

And fooled me about sweetness - it looks like the smell of foods and its interpretation as flavors, fool all of us!

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

I go by my family and what they like for flavor every year. The problem with canning cherry tomatoes is peeling the tiny little things! The big ones, size of a softball or Larger, cut down on My canning time. I recycle the skins, which my chickens enjoy, and the stems get burned, so no waste.

 

[digitS']

I'm sure that I have not grown paste tomatoes for more than 3 or maybe 4 seasons. I have had several plums but they are what the seed companies sometimes call saladettes. Many varieties can fill our need for sauces.

Paste tomatoes disappointed me because the ones I tried were not sweet. They were just for cooking. There was an exception: Heinz 2653. Fedco lists it as 65 days-to-maturity.

It sure wasn't that in my garden. I didn't expect to have any problems with that rating but they barely squeaked in. They were sweet paste tomatoes, tho! In seasons like the most recent 2, they probably wouldn't have any problems ripening.

BTW - Veseys Seed in Canada lists Heinz 2653 as an "early paste" but 75-80 days. It's an heirloom determinate and doesn't seem to be widely available.

Steve

 

[ninnymary]

Hey! I've ordered from Veseys before. Patio Star zuchinni. Hope it's the one I've been looking for.

Mary