Here you go - right from its source - Rutgers University. ;)

The original, described as a large determinate-type plant, Rutgers announcement and all the details of it are available if you click on the pdf link on that page.

Several different varieties of it are now available.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Rutgers Tomato History

The way I understand it the original Rutgers was indeterminate in the 20s then "improved" to a determinate plant in the 40s. Fedco Seeds says sells the indeterminate with this information:

• "Rutgers OG (75 day) Ind. Two varieties are called Rutgers. We sell the original strain of this famous New Jersey tomato, developed by Campbell's Soup Co. in 1928 as a cross between Marglobe and JTD. When Rutgers University refined the variety in 1943, they took out some of the vininess but also some of the flavor. Our taste tests confirm that the original indeterminate strain is better."

There's pictures of indeterminate Rutgers plant in this thread.

I bought Ferry-Morse seeds at Lowe's this past winter. The package clearly says "INDETERMINATE" (yes, in caps).

For whatever it's worth, it also says "Enjoy growing the very same varieties that your grand-parents, or even great-grand-parents, selected for their gardening pleasure years back." However, I don't take that as a promise that this is necessarily the original Rutgers.

The package also promises, "For more information on this plant go to Lowes.com/Plants #17132" -- and yes, there's a space in the middle of the address. I don't know what info they had in the spring, but there's no info on Lowe's site now about any vegetable or flower seed.

The packages I have are Greene Valley Seeds, packed for 1992, run #19. Seed is still good. It does not say, but the plant I have growing from them is, I am mostly sure, is indeterminate. At least the top stem is 5 foot tall and has a brand new flower and bud at the top.
I wanted a determinate for a container, so I ordered seed "Rutgers improved" from Tomato Fest. He says is determinate.

Read the original of the 1934 announcement of the new variety named Rutgers.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Official Announcement of the birth of Rutgers Tomato

Thanks Dave. That makes Fedco's blurb a little inaccurate or very poorly worded. Still the article doesn't say if the original was determinate or indeterminate and the cross between JTD and Marglobe is one of each.

No link here but several years ago I was talking to a faculty member at Rutgers ( it was when I started to dehybridize Ramapo F1) and I forget who it was who had died recently, not Dr. Schifriss, breeder of Big Boy when he was at Burpee who then transferred to Rutgers, but this faculty member was asked to clean out the office of the person who had died.

He told me that he found the original paper on something about the variety Rutgers that was dated 1928 and then we talked more and he said that he remembered that it was in 1933 that Rutgers was first made available and he said it was initially indeterminate.

But that shortly after that a new version was introduced that was semi-det to det.

And of course after that many different companies altered Rutgers and introduced some disease tolerances, etc. I think last time I looked there were at least 8 different ones listed in the SSE Yearbook and that included the Rutgers that was sent into space and then the seeds distributed to school children in the US to see if high space exposure had induced any interesting mutations.

Carolyn

No wonder I'm confused! Excuse my ignorance, but how can one named tomato be so many different varieties? And how can companies "alter" one variety and still call it the same thing? I guess I don't understand the legal aspects of naming varieties.

So it seems there's no way of knowing which variety we grew in the 1950s & 60s. I'll just have to order seeds from several companies and grow them out next season and see which I like best now.

Interesting information. Thanks.

Sandy

No wonder I'm confused! Excuse my ignorance, but how can one named tomato be so many different varieties? And how can companies "alter" one variety and still call it the same thing? I guess I don't understand the legal aspects of naming varieties.

****
Sandy, it's not many varieties it's different versions of the same variety. Any compnay can breed in tolerance to V or F or whatever. it's been done with lots of varieties, mainly older commercial OP's as well, of course with modern hybrids.

It's much better than a single variety having more than one name and that too happened in the late 1800's through maybe the 1920's or so. I could list here just one variety and a list of known synonyms for that same variety.

The seed business back then was cut throat, that's for sure, and there are no laws that apply to any naming of varieties back then and there still are no laws that pertain to the naming of varieties today, just patents for some of the more recent hybrids.

If it's an indeterminate Rutgers you're after, why not try the Fedco source and see what you get.

(So it seems there's no way of knowing which variety we grew in the 1950s & 60s. I'll just have to order seeds from several companies and grow them out next season and see which I like best now.)

I'm not sure if you're talking here to Rutgers or not, but if so, then the most common form of Rutgers grown in the 50's and 60's was the semi-det/det one. I hate to say it but I'm old enough to remember my father growing it at our farm back then, along with several other well know commecial varieties such as Valiant, New Yorker, Manalucie, and friends.

There are many of the older commercial varieties that are listed at Sandhill Preservation and lots more listed in the SSE Yarbook for SSE members.

Trust me, all is not lost.(smile)

Carolyn

Let's see if I understand the difference. Selecting for specific qualities, such as disease resistance, (Hey, that plant didn't get fusarium wilt so we'll save the seeds and see if future generations are resistant.) doesn't make a different variety, but crossing with another variety to try to get specific characteristics does make a different variety/hybrid. Is that right? I've never studied genetics (except for a long ago biology class) so I'm stretching here. Am I reasonably close?

Neither SSE nor Sandhill Preservation list Rutgers in their online catalogs. At least, I didn't find any. SSE has Valiant which I remember as an old variety grown locally.

Thanks for all the information. This is an interesting lesson.

Sandy

Selecting for specific qualities, such as disease resistance...doesn't make a different variety...

No it doesn't.

crossing with another variety to try to get specific characteristics does make a different variety/hybrid...

If you add "intentionally" crossing...then yes it may.

The original Rutgers was a hybrid created from intentional crossings. Over the years it has proven to be a stable hybrid capable of reproducing itself so now it is called an open-pollinated variety (not quite old enough to qualify for "heirloom" status I don't think but Carolyn would know). In the course of that time its plant size was modified by human intervention - but the tomato produced is still a Rutgers.

It has always been my understanding that Rutgers was originally a determinate. It was used extensively by commercial growers and grown field-sprawled, not staked or caged. But Carolyn knows much more about it than I do and I did note in the history I linked above the comments about the large size of the plant so perhaps it was indeterminate.

Regardless, seeds for both forms are readily available so you can grow which ever one you want. And I agree with Carolyn that most like the plants grown in the 50's were semi-determinates or determinates.

But I have grown both several years and I swear no one would be able to tell the difference between the fruit regardless of what the seed companies say.

Dave

The determinate tomato called Rutgers in seed catalogs is often listed as Rutgers VF. The Ve gene for verticillium wilt resistance(designated V) was found in 1932 in a tomato called Peru Wild. The first varieties (Loran Blood and Moscow VR were released in 1952. I think the determinate VF version sold by seed companies is probably some other determinate variety (perhaps one of the Campbell or Heinz op varieties produced in the late 1950 or early 1960's and has nothing to do with the original Rutgers variety--just a marketing gimmick. The original Rutgers was indeterminate. My dad grew lots of these in the late 1940's and early 1950's.

I think the determinate VF version sold by seed companies is probably some other determinate variety (perhaps one of the Campbell or Heinz op varieties produced in the late 1950 or early 1960's and has nothing to do with the original Rutgers variety--just a marketing gimmick.

I'd be curious to know what that is based on since, as I said above, the fruit are identical is size, shape, color, internal structure/development, and taste.

Dave

I was told several years ago by someone in the seed industry(I don't remember who) that some other determinate variety was given the name Rutgers VF for marketing purposes. I still think this is probably the case. If someone had taken the original indeterminate Rutgers and backcrossed in the determinate(sp) gene, the Ve gene for verticillium wilt resistance(not available in the first varieties until 1952), and the I gene for fusarium wilt race 1 resistance, this would have been a breeding effort in a university program or a commercial seed program and there would be a release notice available for the Rutgers VF. Does the determinate Rutgers VF have the dark green shoulder like the original Rutgers or does it have the uniform light green color?

The tolerances to some of the major systemic diseases didn't come, for the most part, from selecting varieties that had those tolerances. They came from breeding into a variety those specific tolerances and that started back in the late 30's, early 40's as I recall.

The source of those tolerance ( I don't use the word resistance) are genes from other species of tomatoes.

Better boy, for instance, was released in the early 50's and has VFN tolerances that were bred in.

For those of you interested in some of the parentages of some of the early commercial varieties I've linked below to some interesting info that I've found useful from time to time, as well as the Michigan State Bulletin of 1939 which is a superb compilation of varieties, their many synonyms and parentages, etc, to that date.

Another excellent source for finding out information about both OP and hybrid varieties is the excellent compendium published by NCSU.

Please note that the list includes all sorts of vegetables and fruits, not just tomatoes.

http://cuke.hort.ncsu.edu/cucurbit/wehner/vegcult/vgclintro.html

Sandy, I see that Sandhill doesn't list Rutgers but does list many of the other older commercial varieties. The most extensive list of the different Rutgers strains are listed in the SSE Yearbook, seeds for SSE members only. Actually there are about 4000 tomato varieties listed.

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Older Commercial Varieties

I'm not sure what I've got, I got from Trudi's sase @ wintersown where it's listed as DET. First (good) year of growing toms and wasn't aware of how much it would sprawl. I have it trained up to a tripod like the rest of my plants, it was trying to take over the entire bed that has other plants in it.

SASE lists it as mostly 6oz fruits. I don't have a scale but would say they are mostly over 8oz and very nice uniform shape, no splitting or cracks. I've gotten around 6-10 ripe fruits off of it already and it's still setting fruit. Lots of green toms pea size to expecting to blush any day.

Like I said, not sure what I've got, but I'm happy w/ it and will be saving seeds and growing 2 next year.

This has been a very interesting thread to me since Rutgers is my old standby that I grow every year. I agree with Dave that I can't tell any difference in taste between the determinate and indeterminate. I can also remember my Dad growing them in the 1940's and 50's and never staking them. I have been working on 2 different packages that I purchased from Burpees, one from 2004 and one from 2005. Burpees lists them as indeterminate but I have gotten both det. and indet. from those same packages. The fruit seem to be affected by the weather more than anything else. Last year, which was a very good year for most varieties, was just so-so for Rutgers. This year, which has been very wet, the Rutgers are one of my best. None of them are ripe yet, but the fruit are large and blemish-free. Some of my other varieties are starting to show signs of late blight, but very little on the Rutgers. Just my 2 cents!
John A