The large, red multilocular ‘beefsteak’ type tomato with an indeterminate growth habit is the industry standard in North America, but smaller cultivars are used in Europe and a few areas still produce ‘pink’ tomatoes. ‘Trust’, produced by the DeRuiter Seed Company is currently the most popular red multilocular type, but ‘Blitz’, another DeRuiter cultivar is also widely used. Greenhouse tomato seed are relatively expensive ($US 0.20-0.25) compared to seed of field cultivars, but most have a number of disease resistances. For example Trust is resistant to Tobacco Mosaic Virus, Cladosporium races A, B, C, D, and E, Verticillium Wilt, Fusarium Wilt races 1 and 2, and Fusarium Crown and Root Rot.
Recently, there has been increased interest in growing cluster tomatoes (Fig. 9) (also called cluster-harvested tomatoes, truss tomatoes or on-the-vine tomatoes). Cluster tomatoes are widely grown for the European market, and are increasingly popular in the US. It is not clear to what extent they will replace the ‘beefsteak’ cultivars, however. Cluster tomatoes can be sold loose or in net bags, but usually have the vine still attached. Yields of cluster tomatoes are comparable to beefsteak cultivars, but individual fruit are smaller. Quality attributes include uniformity of fruit size within the cluster and maintaining a fresh green calyx after harvest. In Florida, overall best performers were ‘Ambiance’ and ‘Tradiro’, although Tradiro did not perform as well as the other cultivars on taste tests [32]. With cluster tomato cultivars, it is also important that all the fruit ripen at the same time and stay attached postharvest.
Cultivars designed for outdoor production do not do well in greenhouses. Their determinate plant growth habit makes them hard to maintain over extended periods and they require higher light and lower humidity than greenhouse cultivars.