The Genetic Plant Resources Bank (BRGV) in southeastern Buzau is in the process of obtaining the patent for a type of tricolour cherry tomato, tentatively named Rapsodia/Rhapsody, a plant that can grow up to 5 meters high in protected spaces, with a production of up to 7 kilograms.

According to BRGV specialists, the cherry tomato is a botanical variety and the ancestor of all cultivated tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes range in size from the tip of a thumb to the size of a golf ball, spherical or oval.

A tricolor cherry tomato variety can be found in the tomato collection of the research institution. Rapsodia, the provisional name, is a three-shade, medium-size tomato, with high firmness. The variety has round fruits, with a specific aroma and taste, fragrant and intensely aromatic.

“It is a Kumato type tomato obtained at the Bank, I gave it the provisional name of Rapsodia. The fruit has three colours: green, yellow and red-brown, it has three shades on the outside, and the very tasty pulp is brown. It is a cherry tomato with a weight varying between 20 and 40 grams, the plant grows a lot, it can reach 4-5 meters in height, and in the field almost 1.80 – 2.00 meters. It is a resistant variety to the main pathogens. It is a very tasty variety, after harvesting the fruits keep very well, they have few seeds, a specific traditional tomato flavour, the production potential per plant is somewhere between 4.5 – 7 kg depending on the development space, it also has a pleasant commercial appearance. This tomato is also valuable from a medicinal point of view because it resists diseases, pests and treatments are less or could be successfully cultivated in an ecological system, on the other hand, we are talking about a healthy production. On the other hand, the bio-chemical composition of the fruits shows that we have a series of substances beneficial to health, lycopene, carotene, vitamins, mineral salts,” the director of BRGV, Costel Vînatoru, told AGERPRES.

“The variety has been completed, we are waiting for the invention patent, it has been working for over 20 years because it was obtained through a new breeding technique, through interspecific hybridizations, through crossing some tomato varieties. It is a premiere, we say, for Romania and beyond. The seeds can be reproduced and multiplied by any farmer who wants to grow tomatoes,” said the Buzau researcher.

BRGV Buzau has a rich collection of tomato germplasm, consisting of over 3,600 genotypes, of which over 35% are cherry varieties.