Musings
Seed Story: Ojo de venado Tomato
One of the biggest joys of growing seeds for us, is learning about their stories. We do a lot of research on the varieties we offer, because we are curious. We want to know: Who grew this variety? Where does it grow? What are its special qualities? Our thinking is that when you know the story of the seed, you know the potential of the plant. This “Seed Story” is about the amazing Ancient Landrace tomato –Ojo de venado–’Eye of the Deer’, in Spanish.
Ojo de venado is a type of cherry tomato grown in Oaxaca, Mexico. The cultivar of Ojo de venado we are offering originally came from the home gardens of Zapotec farmers living on the mountain range of the Sierra Madre del Sur in Mexico. The JL Hudson public access seed bank in California first introduced Ojo de venado to the North America seed market (and 4 other tomatoes from Zapotec farmers) in the early 2000s. In their 2002 catalogue, JL Hudson provided a powerful description of the environmental and cultural context of the seeds that were part of the Zapotec Collection. We include a few paragraphs from the catalogue below:
The Zapotec Collection
Offered here are vegetables, herbs, ornamental and medicinal plants collected deep in the Sierra Madre del Sur, in southern Oaxaca, Mexico. The population of this rugged, mountainous region is largely Zapotec, and many of these plants have been grown by the tribe since prehistory. Called ‘People of the Clouds’ by neighboring tribes, this aptly describes life at this high elevation.
Fog, cold winds and mist are frequent at the higher elevations; a few hours walk down the mountain bananas and sugar cane can be grown. These seeds are collected from about 8000 feet down to 4000 feet elevation, so a great range of micro-climates is represented…There are two great seasons—the ‘time of water’ and the ‘time of wind’. On Todos Santos (Nov 1) the ‘time of water’ changes to the ‘time of wind’, which lasts till about February; although the ‘time of water’ does not ‘officially’ begin until June 1st. Either June or September is the wettest month. Night temperatures are about 45F maximum, getting colder in winter. Days are hottest on clear days in March. From the end of July to August 22 is called ‘canicula’ meaning ‘dog-star’ [dog days] and is sometimes dry. “Tempers are short, for both people and rattlesnakes” during this period. Late September and October is the flowering peak for the wildflowers, the mountains become marked with great swaths of color. A ‘temporada’ is a period of continuous heavy rain night and day for 3 days to 2 weeks, a frightening period often marked by mudslides. Planting dates and the time of burning dates for slash-and-burn agriculture are by season and are marked by fiestas. In the subsistence slash-and-burn agriculture practiced here, the people cannot afford to grow anything that is not hardy and productive. If a plant does not grow like a weed and produce abundantly, without fertilizer, they say “It doesn’t give here.” Which of these plants you will find adapted to your garden is a matter for trial-and-error experimentation.
Most of these seeds are collected by the last herbal healer in this locality, and by his family. Conditions in this remote, roadless area are difficult. Some corn fields are so steep that the people joke about falling out of them, and this occasionally does happen. Crops are sometimes uncertain, and it is difficult to properly dry and store seed due to the humidity. Each parcel must be packed out over narrow mountain trails. It is hard to describe the human effort that has gone into bringing these seeds to you, and I hope you will bear with us if supplies are irregular.
Unfortunately, supplies did become irregular, and in fact totally stopped due to increased restrictions on the flow of seeds, and the Zapotec Collection is no longer available from JL Hudson. After JL Hudson stopped offering Ojo de venado, it was only available from one seed vendor in North America, until they discontinued it as well. Fortunately, we were able to acquire this variety from the vendor just before they dropped it.
Learning about the Zapotec history of Ojo de venado was pretty exciting for us. But there is more. You also need to know that Ojo de venado is a nutritional powerhouse. A 2021 study of Mexican varieties of tomatoes found that Ojo de venado not only had the highest levels of lycopene (~200 ug/g-1) and beta-carotene (45 ug/g-1) of the 10 local tomatoes in the study– Ojo de venado’s lycopene and beta-carotene levels far surpass most other tomatoes that have been studied. For instance, the lycopene levels in standard red tomatoes in the USA, Spain and Italy have been reported as:
- 14.6 mg/kg-1 in tomatoes in the USA (Frusciante et al 2007)
- 30.25 mg/kg-1 in tomatoes in the USA (Holden et al 1999)
- 64.98 mg/kg-1 in tomatoes in Spain (Martinez-Valverde et al 2002)
- 130 mg/kg-1 in tomatoes in Spain (Cortes-Olmos et al 2014)
- 96.9 mg/kg-1 in tomatoes in Italy (Lenucci et al 2006)
And beta-carotene levels in standard red tomato varieties have been reported as:
- 3.93 mg/kg-1 (Holden et al 1999) and ranging between 1.1 to 10.7 mg/kg-1 (Frusciante et al. 2007).
- Some Spanish cultivars are closer to Ojo de venado’s beta-carotene levels with an average of 30 mg/kg-1 (Cortes-Olmos et al 2014).
- The modern high beta-carotene cultivar, CaroRed, which has beta-carotene levels of up to 44.2 mg/kg-1, comes closest. But unlike Ojo de venado, CaroRed is not also high in lycopene.
We are honoured to grow Ojo de venado. It has become the backbone of our Ancient Landrace collection which features tomato varieties from Mesoamerica and the Andes, the ‘primary center of tomato diversity’ (Donoso et al 2023; Ramirez-Villegas et al 2020).
We hope you enjoyed Ojo de venado’s ‘Seed Story’. And we hope that now that you know its story– of a resilient landrace stewarded by Zapotec farmers on a mountain side in Mexico, that thrives with minimal inputs, and provides you with significant nutritional benefits–you can appreciate its potential in your garden.
(Note: In case you are wondering, ug/g and mg/kg are equivalent: 1 ug/g = 1 mg/kg. And ug/g means micrograms per gram and mg/kg means milligram per kilogram.)