i was reading about various tomato fertilizers after realizing that my supermarket purchased tomatoes taste distinctively like fish. i was wondering if it has to do with what the fruit was fertilized with.
I have never heard of tomatoes tasting like fish. My Mom always used fish fertilizer on her tomatoes and they tasted fine.
In some countries such as the UK Tomatoes are grown wholesale and modified with Fish genes to make them last longer on the shelves. It maybe that the supplier of your local supermarket is doing this. This is one of the reasons I started growing my own as for years the ones we bought in the supermarket had a fishy taste, then along came a news itemon a gardening program about genetically modified foods and they mentioned that this was common practice hence the fishy taste that you are getting. My advice is grow your own and use natural fertilizers. Nath
No commercial tomatoes are modified with fish genes, these experiments were ultimately a failure: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/dna/pop_genetic_gallery/index.html The goal wasn't longer shelf life, it was frost resistance. A single fish gene wouldn't impart a 'fishy' taste, it doesn't work like that.
Yeah, I use fish fertilizer all the time as well, but no fishy taste. I am a big fan of it. As far as the 'not too good for the fish' comment - what about synthetic fertilizers in the earth? How 'good' are they?!!! Also, the fish used to make the fertilizers are likely just discarded fish anyway, so I see no harm at all. Good for your mom JanR! She must have had some awesome maters! : )
Not at all. Google "industrial fishing" to see some of the catastrophic effects it is having on the marine environment - collapsing seabird populations, devastated fish stocks, etc., etc.
It seems a lot of mortalities and waste from farmed salmon, here in B.C. anyways, are combined with wood wastes and other material to be sold as soil additives for gardeners. Being the fish are fed "Slice", as a systemic pesticide to deter sea lice on the farmed salmon, one wonders about adding it to garden soil. Land farmers are not allowed to use this pesticide near watercourses. Interestingly, it seems the US will no longer import Chilean farmed salmon which have been treated with Slice or other pesticides. Agree Michael, some types of commercial fishing are destructive, but there are also sustainable fisheries on some stocks by small inshore fisheries. Chilean fish farms, owned by Norwegian companies, with associated sea lice and diseases have been a disaster for native wild fish stocks in Chile the last few years. My understanding is that Norway also has serious problems with their own wild stocks and their fish farm industry. The sea lice build up immunities to the pesticides and spread disease {ISA, Infectious Salmon Anemia} which kill farmed and native fish and has lead to total sterilization of some rivers. Then they have to try and restock the river with clean wild fish.
