Collaborative evaluation of creole tomatoes in Argentina: agronomic and sensory evaluation data, 2022–2026

This dataset contains data generated through Bioleft’s collaborative evaluation programme for creole tomato varieties during four agricultural seasons in Argentina: 2022–2023, 2023–2024, 2024–2025, and 2025–2026.

The programme aims to generate distributed knowledge about the agronomic performance and sensory qualities of tomato varieties and accessions cultivated under diverse environmental and management conditions. The data were produced by a decentralised network of participants within a participatory plant breeding, citizen science, agroecology, and open-source seed framework.

Dataset contents

The deposit contains:

• 10,313 agronomic observations;
• 95 pseudonymised participants;
• 126 site records across the four seasons;
• a controlled vocabulary of 53 varietal materials;
• 144 aggregated preference records from public sensory evaluation activities;
• aggregated demographic information about sensory evaluation participants;
• documentation of contributors, field definitions, permitted values, varietal provenance, and traceability status.

Agronomic observations cover eight stages of the experimental cycle: sowing and emergence, transplanting to pots, transplanting to soil, crop management, plant growth and development, management during fruiting, harvest and post-harvest, and sensory evaluation.

The dataset contains 123 variable labels. Their availability, formulation, and completeness vary between seasons as the programme’s data collection instruments evolved.

File structure

The deposit includes the following files:

• README.md: general documentation, data quality notes, privacy information, limitations, citation guidance, and licence;
• observaciones_agronomicas.csv: agronomic observations in long format, organised by season, participant, site, variety, experimental stage, and variable;
• degustacion_publica.csv: aggregated sensory evaluation and preference results;
• degustacion_publica_perfil.csv: aggregated gender and age-group distributions of sensory evaluation participants;
• variedades.csv: canonical identifiers, names, synonyms, types, experimental roles, provenance, and traceability status of the varietal materials;
• participantes.csv: pseudonymised participant identifiers, recorded gender, and seasons of participation;
• sitios.csv: general location of evaluation sites and seed reception information;
• contribuyentes.csv: contributors, affiliations, and contribution roles using the CRediT taxonomy;
• diccionario.csv: field definitions, data types, units, and permitted values.

All tabular files are provided as UTF-8 encoded CSV files using commas as delimiters. The language of the data is Spanish.

Data production and quality

The four seasons have different levels of standardisation and completeness.

Data from 2025–2026 were consolidated and cleaned from individual participant spreadsheets. Data from 2024–2025 originated from a database previously consolidated by the project team and subsequently cleaned. The 2023–2024 season was reconstructed from 89 individual spreadsheets and contains information from 29 evaluators, with unequal levels of completeness. The 2022–2023 season derives from a consolidated file originally used for that season’s analysis and includes a greater diversity of accessions, but less standardised methods and records.

Historical observations are identified by the value campaña histórica in the nota field. Variables should not be assumed to be directly comparable across all seasons. Users conducting longitudinal analyses should first examine diccionario.csv, the labels included in the variable field, and the notes associated with individual records.

Exact dates are expressed using the ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DD). Approximate, incomplete, or compound dates were retained as text and documented in the nota field. Geographic or varietal information was not imputed when sufficient evidence was unavailable; these cases are represented by s/d or an explicit unidentified-variety category.