Cultivar · Tomato cultivar
Moneymaker
Moneymaker is a heritage English tomato, long popular for glasshouse and garden production, known for uniform, smooth, medium-sized round red fruit on indeterminate plants.
Record
Cultivar / variety- Variety of
- Tomato
- Botanical taxon
- Solanum lycopersicum
- Type
- Heritage open-pollinated cultivar
- Breeding method
- Open-pollinated selection
- Origin
- United Kingdom
- Registry status
- Historical
- Adaptation
- A warm-season indeterminate type long associated with English glasshouse culture and also grown outdoors in mild conditions; performance depends on the growing system.
- Intended use
- Fresh (greenhouse and garden production)
Registry listing or variety protection is jurisdiction- and date-specific and does not by itself indicate current commercial availability, universal cultivation approval, patent status, or a recommendation.
Moneymaker is a long-established English tomato traditionally grown under glass and in gardens. It is an indeterminate, open-pollinated variety valued historically for its dependable set of uniform, smooth, medium-sized round red fruit.
Introduced in England in the early twentieth century, Moneymaker became one of the best-known glasshouse tomatoes of its era. It remains a familiar heritage variety in home gardens, though many newer greenhouse cultivars have since been developed.
Identity and type
Moneymaker is characterized as an indeterminate cordon tomato producing regular trusses of uniform, round, medium red fruit. Its consistency and adaptability to protected culture made it a standard choice for English glasshouses through much of the twentieth century.
- Parent crop
- Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum)
- Growth habit
- Indeterminate (cordon)
- Breeding type
- Open-pollinated selection
- Intended use
- Fresh fruit from glasshouse and garden production
Historical context and use
Moneymaker predates the widespread adoption of modern F1 greenhouse hybrids and is often grown today for its heritage value and reliability rather than for distinctive flavour. It is usually trained as a single stem and supported, in keeping with its indeterminate habit.
Relationships
Evidence-backed connections in the knowledge graph.
Related topics
Scope & limitations
Geographic scope: A British heritage tomato historically central to English glasshouse production and now grown by gardeners more widely; exact origin details are not firmly documented.
Climate context: Warm-season indeterminate tomato suited to protected culture and mild outdoor conditions.
- Moneymaker is documented mainly through horticultural references, and precise details of its early breeding and introduction are not firmly established.
- Open-pollinated seed sold under the name may vary between suppliers, so uniformity and fruit character are not guaranteed to be identical everywhere.
- Its indeterminate, glasshouse-oriented habit means outdoor performance depends strongly on local climate and training.
Sources
This article draws on the following authoritative sources. See our sources & methodology for how they are selected.
- [1]GRIN-Global / National Plant Germplasm System (opens in a new tab)Authoritative
USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS)
Cited for: Tomato germplasm and cultivar nomenclature (collection level)
- Type:
- Official registry
- Jurisdiction:
- United States / Global
- Accessed:
- 2026-07-12
- [2]GBIF — Global Biodiversity Information Facility (opens in a new tab)High
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
Cited for: Taxonomic backbone for Solanum lycopersicum
- Type:
- Reference database
- Jurisdiction:
- Global
- Accessed:
- 2026-07-12
- Moderate
Cited for: Horticultural description of the Moneymaker glasshouse variety
- Type:
- Reference database
- Jurisdiction:
- United Kingdom
- Accessed:
- 2026-07-12