What is TECMATO?
A research project that publishes. We are working on a soil amendment modelled on the volcanic ground of southern Italy, and learning to grow the crops that ground produces. Whatever we do gets written down here.
It started as a question about why a tomato tastes of something there and of nothing here.
What is STAMPA, and why is it called that?
STAMPA is the journal — the entries under PRESS. Stampa is Italian for the press, and for print. The question started in Italy, so the record is named in Italian.
It is about the food system, not only about us. How food is grown, processed and eaten; seed provenance and breeding, remote sensing, growing practice, trade, the cultural practice around food, and how the system is put together. Our own growing is one thread in it.
On our own growing we report what we did. On everything else we have no standing beyond the sources we cite — so we cite them, at the point of the claim, and cut what we cannot.
Can I buy anything?
No. Nothing on this site is for sale, and there is no waiting list to join.
What is Pyro Class, and when can I get it?
Pyro Class is the working name for the soil amendment. In garden centres this category is usually sold as rock dust or rock minerals; ours is milled rock built to a written specification.
There is no release date and we are not taking names. It is not for sale.
We have no trial data, so we say nothing about what it does. The specification is not published and will not be.
Where does the soil research come from?
The volcanic soils of southern Italy — young, mineral, free-draining ground that has been farmed for a very long time. The reason anyone notices those soils is what comes off them.
We are working backwards from how that ground is built, and how to assemble something like it deliberately. We have not done it yet.
What have you actually grown, and where?
Kitchen garden crops, tomatoes especially, in pots, in a purpose-built controlled environment we call the tomato lab — temperature, humidity, light hours and every watering logged. Several grows, over two seasons.
That is the whole of it. There is no farm, and we have not sold produce to anyone.
Why do you publish the things that went wrong?
Because an account that only reports the good seasons is not worth reading, and because a grower will not believe one that does.
Two seasons in we found we had blamed the wrong thing for the rot that blackens a tomato's base. It was not calcium. It was how we were watering. That entry is more use than any of the ones where it went well.
Who is behind it?
Avant Farme Group Pty Ltd, an Australian company, ACN 686 727 195. It is small.
We write in the first person plural because more than one person does the work, not because there is a content team.
Can I get involved, or write to you?
Yes: hello@tecmato.com.
If you grow, if you know something about these soils or these varieties, or if you think we have got something wrong, that is the most useful mail we get. We have a standing list of open questions and no shortage of room on it.