Crop: Solanum lycopersicum L. (Tomato)
This landrace has been collected by ARCHE NOAH in Croatia from a family in Cunko in 1996. ‘Crveni Srcolik’ means ‘red heart’. The fruits are red, 10-12 cm large, heart-shaped and have an outstanding flavour. Harvest is quite late, from August, therefore protected cultivation is recommended. Plants grow undetermined and are usually not very vigorous.
Cultivation System: organic conditions.
Geographical Information
Country: Austria
There are some small farmers that focus their activity on vegetable production, distributed all over Austria, which grow this variety. Alternatively, there are many home gardeners cultivating this landrace, since the seeds are available from Arche Noah and in some supermarkets. There is no restricted or specific cultivation area for this introduced landrace.
Unfortunately, there is no up-to-date knowledge on the situation in Croatia where the cultivation of ‘Crveni Srcolik’ is uncertain.
Farmer(s) description:
Currently, the cultivar is exchanged among members of the working group ‘Bauernparadeiser’, which is a participatory breeding network, meeting several times a year.
Propagation system: Seed, self-pollination
Multiplication procedures and consequences on landrace diversity:Tomato is a mainly self-pollinating species, therefore no isolation measures are undertaken in multiplication.
In 2010, ARCHE NOAH provided seeds of ‘Rotes Herz’ to a cultivar experiment, where several oxheart varieties were compared. Due to its outstanding characteristics (early matureness, high yield and good taste), ARCHE NOAH presented it to the participatory farmer’s network ‘Bauernparadeiser’. A farmer from Upper Austria took it to her farm and started selection toward heart-shaped, flavourful fruits and potato-shaped leaves, since the ‘Rotes Herz’ was quite heterogenous from the beginning. Now there are some farms cultivating and also multiplying this landrace with approximately 20 plants per farm per year. Every farm does its own selection, and gains seeds, sometimes divided in different lines which are exchanged between farmers again.
Management plan existence:The landrace management relies completely on farming activities in the area. Currently, no technical or scientific support is given.
Added Values
Seeds of ‘Rotes Herz’ are available in some supermarkets and in the ARCHE NOAH shops. From 2016 to 2018, approximately 1.800 seed packages were sold. Apart from that, seedlings and fruits can be purchased on farmer’s markets and directly on multiplying farm.
Others (e.g. commercial/geographical brands or special traits):Seed are commercialised by Arche Noah.
There is no external support for this landrace. Anyhow, the new publicity of this landrace, driven by the network ‘Bauernparadeiser’, gives hope for further on-farm use in the future.
Seeds can be accessed through ARCHE NOAH and farmers. It is available on the market as registered ‘amateur variety’.
Case study provided by Arche Noah, Austria.
Special thanks to Franziska Lerch and Maria Pravec for providing information.
ND.