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nordfyr315

Ruben L. Villareal

nordfyr315
11 years ago

I just discovered this man's work a few days ago and have since been reading and downloading a lot of his pdf files. He has some very interesting articles regarding growing tomatoes in the heat and seems to have developed some heat resistant strains. Google his name and you can come up with quite a bit. Just thought I would mention this comparatively unsung "tomato hero".

Comments (4)

  • wertach zone 7-B SC
    11 years ago

    Can you post a link? I only get BS with google and bing when I type in Ruben L. Villareal tomato. I'm not sure if I have a virus or the seach engines have gone to, umm, you know!

  • carolyn137
    11 years ago

    I too Googled it and at first and came up with some wrestler man named the same. Below I linked to a Google search for the correct person.

    I couldn't find any specific varieties that he has bred, but didn't check all the links, but I know that many years ago the varieties Phillipines #2 and Nagcarlan from the Phillipines were sent to Canada and places in the US to be used in breeding projects to develop varieties that were more tolerant of high heat and humidity.

    Carolyn

    Here is a link that might be useful: Ruben Villareal

  • missingtheobvious
    11 years ago

    I started writing this reply yesterday, but hadn't posted it:

    I'm looking through "Revolutionary Genes in the Genus Lycopersicon." It dates from 1993, but I'm learning about the history of tomato breeding for commercial use.

    "The determinate growth characteristic or self-pruning controlled by a single recessive gene (sp) is a spontaneous mutation which occurred in Florida in 1914.... Before the discovery of this mutant, processing tomato varieties had indeterminate growth habit. Thus, they were grown on wide spacing with less fertilizer resulting in low yield per hectare. The mutant gene was successfully transferred to Sta. [i.e. Santa] Clara Canner, an indeterminate processing variety. Determinate progenies from the cross of the determinate and indeterminate types resulted in the predominant tomato processing varieties used in California from the 1940's to the 1960's...."

    Of course, I can only shudder at the mention of some of the genes he hoped would be included in commercial varieties in the future. That future is now!

    http://www.cabi.org/GARA/FullTextPDF/2009/20093019421.pdf

    - - - - -

    I had done the search on Startpage (which supposedly offers a Google search without the privacy concerns). I think I searched ruben villareal tomato. [In any case, I get the same result whether I use tomato or tomatoes.]

    I seem to get more links to articles (or at least mentions of articles and research -- I haven't clicked on many yet) and far fewer booksellers than Carolyn's Google search with the identical terms.

    http://www.startpage.com
    Unfortunately, they won't let me link to an actual search.

    Too much to do at the moment to spend more time comparing search engines. But it's intriguing.

    Oh, and by the way: Thanks, nordfyr!

  • nordfyr315
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    My understanding is that everyone's google is different and tends to predict results based on your surfing habits. I could be completely wrong about this....

    My hypothesis is that Ruben L. Villareal developed a few heat resistant varieties (Divisoria-2 and VC-11) based upon his donation of those varieties to GRIN and also his frequent citation of those varieties in his writings and the little biographical information I have been able to glean about him. Makes sense; people seem to be biased towards their own works.

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