• 'Dwarf Champion' tomatoes.
  • 'Dwarf Champion' tomato slice.
  • 'Dwarf Champion' tomato plant.
  • 'Dwarf Champion' tomatoes.
  • 'Dwarf Champion' tomato.
  • 'Dwarf Champion' tomato from the 1889 Maule Seed Company annual.
  • Early 20th century 'Dwarf Champion' tomato packet.
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Dwarf Champion Tomato

Dwarf Champion Tomato

$2.95 USD
$2.95 USD
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Dwarf Champion 

80 days, dwarf — A very old mid-season, nineteenth-century, slicing tomato variety with good flavor and texture. Tastes slightly tangy but is mild and has sweet overtones. The plants are compact with rugose leaves producing ample amounts of three to eight ounce, pink colored fruit.

Introduced in the 1889 Maule's Seed Annual, they stated:

"A very distinct new variety of upright growth, as shown in the above cut. The originator claims that it will produce double the quantity of early fruit per acre over any other sort, its close, upright growth allowing it to be planted closer together. It is also very early; an idea of its earliness may be had from the fact that on a plot of 500 plants, two bushels of ripe fruit was gathered July 4th, when other varieties grown alongside showed no signs of ripening. The fruit resembles the Acme, is of a purplish pink color and always smooth and symmetrical in form. It is of medium size and attractive in appearance; the skin is tough and the flesh solid and of fine quality."

Although A. W. Livingston was careful not to claim credit for releasing the variety, their 1896 catalog did describe it as follows:

"We make a specialty of this grand and very distinct variety ad have grown a number of acres every year since its introduction. A single plant of it was found some ten years ago in a field of our Acmes. It is well adapted for forcing in vegetable houses, because of its dwarf and compact growth, the plants growing stiff and upright, with stiff-jointed stems, the foliage of and unusually dark green color, thick and corrugated."

'Dwarf Champion' is one of the first named tree-type varieties. It was selected from a cross between a now unknown variety and 'Tomato de Laye'.[1]  Our parent stock source was GRIN accession number PI 270180.  Each packet contains approximately 20 seeds.

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Notes:
  1. 'Tomato de Laye' originated in a garden at Chateau de Laye, France in 1862.  Vilmorin-Andrieu & Co. of Paris, France introduced a variety they called "Tree Tomato" in about 1865.  It was reportedly very similar to 'Dwarf Champion'.

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