Margherita is a compact variety (2 ft tall/ 60 cm) from southern Italy that is very productive. We had loads of tomatoes on the small, hardy plants. With its compact size, Margherita would do well in a container.
The saladette sized tomatoes (40 g to 70 g) are red orange in colour – and have an interesting shape, round and flattened and have a good, balanced flavour. Based on the tomato’s thick walls and fairly meaty texture, this looks like a paste-type tomato (see below – this might be a strain of the Salerno heirloom ‘Arsicolo’).
A bit of history:
Although this tomato is known as Margherita in the seed trade, it was originally known by its gene bank accession number PI 701129. And using that accession number we can trace it to a farmer’s field in the Salerno district of the Campania region of southern Italy.
Here is what we know about its story.
In 1982, seeds for Margherita (PI 701129) were collected in a farmer’s field 4 km west of Brienza, on “the road to Atena Lucana” (an ancient settlement in southern Italy) during a seed collecting expedition by the German gene bank IPK (Institut für Pflanzengenetik und Kulturpflanzenforschung) and later donated to the USDA gene bank (see the image from the USDA gene bank).
IPK’s notes indicate it is a “traditional cultivar/ landrace”.
Along the way, this tomato acquired the name Margherita — likely given to it by subsequent seed savers who acquired it from the gene bank (it is unnamed in the gene bank).
Is this the Salerno heirloom named ‘Arsicolo’? After reading the paper, “Preserving Biodiversity as Source of Health Promoting Compounds: Phenolic Profile and Biological Activity of Four Varieties of Solanum lycopersicum L.” we wondered if this tomato (Margherita/PI 701129) was a strain of the Salerno heirloom ‘Arsicolo’. Although no pictures were included in the paper, the description of the tomato ‘Arsicolo’ as being very productive, having a “rounded shape”, red-orange colour, and being grown in the Tanagro Valley of Salerno (same place as Margherita/PI 701129 was collected in 1982) – makes it possible that Margherita/PI 701129 is ‘Arsicolo’.
In the paper, ‘Arsicolo’ was noted for being drought-tolerant and having very high lycopene levels. ‘Arsicolo’ is traditionally used to make sauce and conserva – a concentrated tomato paste.
We will keep investigating and let you know what we find out!
_________
How to Grow Tomatoes? Start seeds indoors 6 weeks before the last frost. Plant seed 5mm (¼ inch) deep. Transplant after the danger of frost has passed/later spring.
