AAS names six national winners for 2022
All-America Selection (AAS) — North America’s oldest national non-profit plant trialing organization — announced six new national winners for 2022. Each AAS winner is grown and trialed anonymously by independent, volunteer judges and scored against a very similar comparison variety. To be named a National Winner, the selection had to prove itself in a majority of the trial sites across North America and perform better than the comparison. Here’s how AAS described the new winners:
Tomato Purple Zebra
Purple Zebra tomato is a fun new addition to striped tomatoes, producing fruits that are rich with complex flavours and a moderately firm texture. Dark red fruits with green stripes and a deep mahogany red interior do not produce muddy coloration like other tomatoes of this type. The taste is sweet and acidic. Overall, this tomato has a better taste and thinner skin than comparisons, with excellent disease resistance.
Lettuce Bauer
Oakleaf lettuce is a delicious and versatile edible that is super easy (and fast) to grow in the garden. Harvest at the baby leaf stage or grow into the rosette-shaped full-sized head. Bauer will please with its darker green colour and nicely uniform compact size that can be grown almost anywhere. The dense heads produce a plethora of sweet, crisp sturdy leaves.
Pepper Buffy
Pepper Buffy produces a good yield of juicy, thick-walled green to red fruits on strong, healthy upright plants. Buffy’s fruits are more attractive than the comparisons as well as slightly larger. The peppers are held high on the plant adding ornamental value to the garden. Buffy was faster to mature than Tobasco in the AAS trials with a bit less heat than Ascent until the seeds are added in.
Pepper Dragonfly
Dragonfly pepper plants produce beautiful fruit that have thick, sweet walls, unlike the thin papery walls of other purples on the market. This is as delicious at the green stage of maturity as it is when transitioned to fully purple and mature with a robust pepper flavour. Fruits are held high on the plant, keeping them from the soil. The four-lobed fruits do not fade, and, if left on the vine, turn a beautiful bright red.
Sunflower Concert Bell
Concert Bell puts on quite a performance with a unique flower presentation of multiple clusters of 10 to 12 flowers on an erect columnar stem. Beautiful golden yellow blooms appear earlier than the comparisons. Each plant grows to a very uniform height of five to six feet and if used as a cut flower, makes an instant, ready-made bouquet from just one cut.
Eggplant Icicle
The cylindrical white eggplant has fewer spines than most eggplants. It produces a nice yield while also providing fewer seeds. The large, durable, and vigorous plants hold up to insect damage and the environment. The pure white skin does not tend to yellow like many other white varieties of eggplant. The improved taste and texture have universal appeal (whether fresh or cooked).