"Your field is not required to be invincible to prove the soil improved," she continued. "Your varieties are not magical. Diversity reduces the chance that one susceptibility profile defines the entire crop. It does not make fungus respect your grandmother."
Cole almost laughed.
"Scout the rows," Elise said. "Record incidence by variety. That data may be worth more than pretending nothing gets sick."
So he did.
The differences became visible within a week.
Several lines suffered heavily. Cole removed them from seed-selection consideration. A few paste-type plants declined so quickly he cut entire sections and buried the residue away from the main plot. Other varieties showed moderate leaf damage but continued setting fruit.
Several accessions performed remarkably well.
One Cherokee Purple-type line developed lesions on older leaves but maintained vigorous upper growth. Arkansas Traveler descendants held better than expected under the heat. A small-fruited yellow line that Cole had considered commercially uninteresting proved unusually resilient.
The field became a map of response rather than a single yes-or-no answer.
Arthur's losses were larger because his acreage was larger.
Rumors inflated them immediately. People said half his crop was gone. That was not true. What was true was painful enough: some fields required expensive intervention, yield projections dropped, and contract buyers began discussing quality penalties.
Arthur stopped laughing when he drove past Cole's field.
He still did not stop.
On July 8, he pulled onto the shoulder and watched Cole's crew remove diseased plants.
"Thought your magic dirt prevented fungus," he called.
Cole kept cutting twine from a sick vine.
"It doesn't."
Arthur looked almost disappointed by the answer.
"Then what's the point?"
Cole straightened. "The point is I can lose this plant without losing every plant that responds the same way."
Arthur looked down the rows.
"You think forty varieties makes you smarter than everyone growing one?"
"No. It makes forty varieties useful for a different market."
"A market you still don't have."
"Not yet."
Arthur shook his head, but he did not laugh.
Two days later, the market began finding Cole.
The first contact came through a produce distributor in Bloomington named Sheila Ramos. She had heard about the field from a chef who bought herbs from a neighboring farm.
She called Cole at seven in the evening.
"Do you actually have Cherokee Purple?"
"I have plants that phenotype strongly as Cherokee Purple, with source records consistent with it. I'm waiting on confirmation before I sell seed under that name."
"I'm asking about fruit."
"Then yes."
"How much?"
Cole looked at the harvest notebook.
"Not enough to fill a supermarket order."
"Good. Supermarkets don't want them. Restaurants do."
Sheila asked him to bring sample crates to Indianapolis.
Cole did not own proper produce crates.
Benjamin had twelve old wooden bushel boxes in a shed. Cole scrubbed them, sanded rough edges, and lined them with clean kraft paper. April helped him arrange the fruit by variety and maturity.
The first crate contained deep pink ribbed tomatoes, several weighing over a pound. The second held dark purple fruit with green shoulders. The third held striped green and yellow tomatoes that looked unripe to anyone unfamiliar with the variety.