This season, Rutgers University introduced a reinvented version of a tomato variety from 1934 that reigned unchallenged for decades. After years of work by Rutgers plant specialists, this old-fashioned tomato with old-fashioned taste has returned as the Rutgers 250, named in honor of the university’s 250th anniversary.

Image Rutgers 250 tomatoes, named to mark the university’s 250th anniversary, were developed from the genetic material of a wildly popular variety from the 1930s. Credit... Peter J. Nitzsche

“This was the tomato that made the Jersey tomato reputation,” Thomas J. Orton, a professor in the department of plant biology and pathology, said of the 1934 variety. “It was a groundbreaking tomato that redefined what a tomato should be and was the most popular variety in the world. At one point, it represented in excess of 60 percent of all tomatoes grown commercially.”

Indeed, the Rutgers 250 is so popular that some 5,000 packets of seeds made available to the public on the university’s website in February have already sold out. Then, last month, home gardeners snapped up 1,200 seedling plants in just two hours at a campus event in New Brunswick.

“I could have sold twice as many,” said William T. Hlubik, the Rutgers Cooperative Extension agent for Middlesex County who supervised seedling production for the sale. “There was huge interest in the genetics and how plant breeders developed the 250. This is a real retro tomato — history you can eat.”

Jim Giamarese of East Brunswick, N.J., who sells his crops at the Red Bank farmers market, said he would be growing the Rutgers 250 for the first time this season and had high hopes, given customer demand for other Rutgers varieties.