By Patty G. Leander
Contributing Editor
They met online. He lived in Raleigh, North Carolina; she lived Down Under in Adelaide, South Australia. But the distance that separated them physically would not interfere with a passion they shared — for tomatoes! Meet Craig LeHoullier and Patrina Nuske-Small, co-founders of the Worldwide Dwarf Tomato Project, a grassroots effort by these two dedicated tomato enthusiasts — and a small army of equally enthused volunteers — to develop and share open-pollinated, compact varieties that produce fruit with the heirloom flavors and colors that captivate tomato lovers around the globe. LeHoullier describes it as an “heirloom tomato experience in a dwarf plant.”
In 2005, LeHoullier and Nuske-Small happened upon each other on GardenWeb, an internet forum. LeHoullier was a seasoned gardener and seed saver with many years of tomato growing under his belt (see sidebar). Nuske-Small, stoking a new-found interest in gardening, particularly the vast selection of heirloom tomatoes, had turned to the site for answers to gardening questions and was drawn into a virtual conversation with LeHoullier about an idea for broadening and enhancing the small, uninspired class of dwarf tomatoes.
For more than 20 years LeHoullier had cultivated a reputation as a tomato expert in the Raleigh area, growing and selling a wide variety of tomato transplants at the farmer’s market while talking tomatoes online as “NC Tomato Man.” Though his customers loved ‘Cherokee Purple’ and other heirlooms that he and his wife sold, year after year he would hear a familiar lament from tomato aficionados with limited garden space: “Do you have any heirloom-type tomatoes on more compact, manageable plants?” This dilemma nagged at him for years, until one day, while perusing a 1915 Isbell Seed Company catalog from his vintage collection, he came across a description of a dwarf tomato named ‘New Big Dwarf’. It was advertised as a cross between ‘Ponderosa’, a large (described in the catalog as immense) pinkish tomato on indeterminate vines, and ‘Dwarf Champion’, an upright plant with a compact habit and deep pink fruit. The result was new, it was big and it was dwarf. But ‘New Big Dwarf’ and a handful of other dwarf tomato varieties from the early 1900s never seemed to catch on with home gardeners. By the time Burpee released ‘Big Boy’ in 1949, their first hybrid introduction, dwarf tomatoes had been mostly forgotten. But LeHoullier, not your average home gardener, was intrigued by the cross that produced ‘New Big Dwarf’ and it gave him an idea for developing tomatoes that could fulfill the needs of his space-challenged, tomato-loving customers.
Soon LeHoullier was on GardenWeb discussing the concept of breeding new and original dwarf tomato varieties following the example from the Isbell Seed Company catalog. When Nuske-Small jumped in and expressed a desire to participate, the project took on an interesting global twist. Residing in opposite hemispheres, LeHoullier and Nuske-Small would be able to accelerate the pace of the project. Knowing that it would take several generations of grow-outs to discover and stabilize the desirable characteristics in a new variety, doubling the growing time to two seasons in one calendar year became a major advantage for project success.
The dwarf growth habit of a tomato plant is distinctive from determinate growth. While a determinate tomato is compact in size, it generally produces all of its fruit over a few weeks and then shuts down. This determinate production is a required trait for commercial varieties that must be harvested during a specific window for shipment. Determinate varieties often have a lower ratio of foliage to fruit, which, LeHoullier explained, can lead to uninspired tomato flavor. Dwarf tomatoes are indeterminate in their growth, meaning they continue to grow and produce until killed by frost (or an untimely demise brought about by pest or disease), but their vertical growth rate is slower than standard indeterminate varieties, keeping them in the 2–4’ range. Dwarf varieties also have a higher ratio of foliage to fruit, which boosts their flavor potential. There are no special techniques to growing dwarf tomatoes; in fact, they are quite easy to manage. Without the sprawling growth of regular indeterminate varieties, staking, caging and harvesting become less of a chore. Their cultivation requirements are similar to any other tomato — full sun, fertile soil, consistent moisture, mulch and vigilance about insects and disease.
For those unschooled in tomato genetics, here is a brief and simplified lesson: The dwarf gene in tomatoes is recessive. When a dwarf variety is crossed with an indeterminate variety, the seeds of the resulting generation (known as F1) will express the dominant indeterminate trait and all of the plants will be full-size indeterminate. But when the next generation of seeds are planted (the F2 or second generation) the different genetics of the parent plants comes into play, with approximately twenty-five percent expressing the recessive dwarf trait. As successive generations of seeds are collected and grown out, constantly selecting for flavor, appearance and growth habit, the desirable traits show less variability, eventually producing a genetically stable, open-pollinated variety.
As the Dwarf Tomato Project began to take shape, LeHoullier and Nuske-Small knew they would need a system for tracking the lineage of the crosses from the outset, and Nuske-Small proposed using the names of Snow White’s seven dwarfs. For example, the seeds from one of the first crosses made by Nuske-Small, ‘Dwarf Golden Champion’ x ‘Green Giant’, was the start of the Sneezy family, and it would grow to include varieties from every selection originating from that initial cross, including ‘Dwarf Kelly Green’, ‘Dwarf Emerald Giant’ and ‘Dwarf Sweet Sue’. As the dwarf families grew and new crosses were initiated, more family names were added to manage record keeping, including Dainty, Grizzly, Cheeky, Snowy and Tidy. Many of the crosses were grown out 10 or 12 generations before the genetics were stabilized, but because the seeds could be mailed back and forth between hemispheres, advances were made in half the time normally required. Thanks to the online tomato forum Tomatoville, LeHoullier and Nuske-Small were able to document and share their work, and also recruit numerous volunteers from across the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia — a veritable global network of tomato enthusiasts drawn to the fascinating discoveries and endless possibilities of breeding new varieties.
One of the perks of long-term participation in the Dwarf Tomato Project was being able to choose a name for a cross that had been carried through to a successful, stable variety. This explains many of the unusual and creative names found throughout the Dwarf Tomato Project. Nuske-Small favored names with an Australian influence: ‘Adelaide Festival’, ‘Rosella Purple’ and ‘Boronia’, for example. Many of LeHoullier’s varieties incorporated important people in his life: his wife, ‘Dwarf Sweet Sue’; his father, ‘Dwarf Wild Fred’; and a favorite journalist from the Raleigh News and Observer, who years ago helped him spread the word about the value of genetic diversity and heirlooms, ‘Dwarf Mr. Snow’. ‘Tasmanian Chocolate’ was named by a project volunteer from Tasmania; ‘Iditarod Red’ and ‘Yukon Quest’ were named by an amateur breeder from Alaska.
From the inception of the Dwarf Tomato Project, LeHoullier and Nuske-Small had specific goals in mind and, remarkably, they managed to accomplish, on a global scale, all of the goals they set out to achieve:
- Create a diverse selection of compact, flavorful, colorful tomato varieties for gardeners with limited space. Dwarf tomatoes are well-suited for container cultivation on decks, patios and balconies, as well as in straw-bale gardens, square-foot gardens, backyard gardens, edible landscapes and community gardens. LeHoullier grows many of his prized tomato plants in straw bales and 5-gallon containers on his driveway because that is where the sun is, an undertaking that wouldn’t be so easily accomplished with sprawling 6–8’ tall indeterminates.
- Make it a truly collaborative effort by recruiting volunteers to help with the crosses, grow-outs and record keeping, while also drawing more gardeners into the wonderful world of heirlooms, the fascinating allure of tomato genetics and the kindred spirit and camaraderie shared among passionate gardeners. Volunteers also played an important role in evaluation and selection. Because tomatoes were being grown and harvested in so many different locations, it was up to each volunteer to evaluate whatever they had grown and choose fruit that they considered desirable, with a specific focus on flavor and appearance. This also added to the unique and varied selections.
- Share the seeds with the public domain. Nuske-Small and LeHoullier knew that they wanted the project to be by the people and for the people. All varieties developed within the realm of the project were pledged to the Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI). The OSSI pledge states: You have the freedom to use these OSSI-Pledged seeds in any way you choose. In return, you pledge not to restrict others’ use of these seeds or their derivatives by patents or other means, and to include this Pledge with any transfer of these seeds or their derivatives. The purpose is to maintain broad genetic diversity by keeping the seeds in the hands and control of home gardeners and small seed companies, and out of the grip of large corporations. If you grow and save seed from any Dwarf Tomato Project variety, you are asked to abide by the OSSI pledge, passing it along with any seeds you share or sell. Visit www.
ossedds.org for more information. - Keep it fun, attainable and accept the limitations of the project. For more than a decade, Nuske-Small and LeHoullier partnered with a large number of citizen volunteers from around the globe, communicating mostly by email. Most were experienced gardeners, but some were amateur plant breeders, willing to take a deep-dive into plant botany and tomato genetics. Everyone involved contributed their time, labor and resources without compensation, rewarded instead with new friendships, deeper knowledge, enriched skills and the satisfaction of being part of a worldwide project with a lasting impact for home gardeners.
As you can imagine, logistics, documentation and communication presented challenges along the way. Not all participants were able to stay with the project long term. Some only provided partial information, while others stayed in it for the long haul. During an OSSI podcast in 2019, Nuske-Small acknowledged, “Whatever we found, we found; and whatever we missed, we missed. And luckily we just managed to find some beauties!”
In 2010, five years and twice as many cross-hemisphere seasons, the first Dwarf Tomato Project varieties were released. They are available today from a select group of seed companies, chosen by LeHoullier and Nuske-Small because of their commitment to the protection and stewardship of open-pollinated varieties.
It is a truly remarkable achievement to conceive and carry out an endeavor of this scope online and in different hemispheres, yet just as impressive is the shared like-mindedness and spirit of generosity and goodwill that was maintained throughout the project, resulting in an incredible breeding legacy to the gardening community for generations to come. One certainly gets the impression that LeHoullier and Nuske-Small were in the right place at the right time, and that they both brought some excellent “genetics” to this project as well!
It has now been 15 years since the launch of the Dwarf Tomato Project and to date 106 varieties have been named and released to the public, with more releases coming this year. LeHoullier and Nuske-Small have stepped back, satisfied that the new dwarf varieties will become the heirlooms of tomorrow, but only if we — tomato lovers, seed savers and passionate gardeners — purchase the seeds, plant the seeds, save the seeds and pass them along, all the while experiencing the staggering diversity of flavor and visual beauty of this glorious fruit, and appreciating the foresight, perseverance and efforts of LeHoullier, Nuske-Small and the many international volunteers who made the project possible.