Davis helped make the tomato tough enough for a machine

A tomato story in Davis changed what ends up in cans, sauces, ketchup, and trucks rolling through farm country. It also changed farm labor, which is why the story needs both curiosity and care.

In the 1950s, UC Davis plant breeder Jack Hanna and engineer Coby Lorenzen worked on a hard problem. Processing tomatoes were valuable, but many were too soft for machine picking. The machine damaged the fruit, and the fruit was not ready for the machine.

Their answer had two parts: a mechanical harvester and a tougher tomato. UC Davis says that in 1959 they invented the first machine that sorted and loaded processing tomatoes. The new tomato was sometimes called the square tomato because its blockier shape helped it stay on the harvester.

The invention mattered because California became a giant in processing tomatoes. But it was also controversial. Labor-saving farm machines can make food production easier and cheaper while also reducing hand-harvest jobs. That tension is part of the real history.

The story fits Davis well because the city is also a University Farm place where field problems became research problems, and research shaped everyday food. A plain tomato on a grocery shelf carries more California engineering than most people guess.