Last year one of my tomato plants, grown from seed, produced some orange fruits instead of the regular red ones. I saved the seed and grew some this year to see if I could breed this lovely colour. Some of the new plants grew distorted fruits from flattened flowers. The flowers reminded me of the cristate succulents I had grown years ago. I Googled "lycopersicon + cristata" but found no relevant entries. Please go to: http://saltspring.gulfislands.com/catnhat/crested.html for more information and images. Has anybody ever had this happen to them?
http://www.agnr.umd.edu/news/article.cfm?id=fc8a996380085a8f0183e98456bddcb1 Read the section on "cat facing". I think it may apply. The succulent malformation called "cresting" effects the plant, itself. Whereas, your tomato plants appear to be normal, but the fruit is misshapen. The above link should help. By the way, I really enjoyed your garden log. Great job. Mark
Thanks for your quick reply, Mark. I read the article and Googled more catface images but am not convinced that this is the answer. The thing is that the flower truss on the plant was already deformed, with some flattened flowerstems. The flower itself was thick and also flattened. This already alerted me to the prospect of a crest as I had grown them during my cacti and succulent days. Also, with true catface, the flower end is grown inwards whereas with my fruits the flower end is not. An interesting puzzle!
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/info_tomtemp.htm It would seem that tomato plants appear to be very temperature sensitive during the development of the flower bud. You may, indeed, have "mutant" tomatoes. If you were able to save some seeds, next year will tell, assuming there isn't temperature conditions that favor deformed flower bud formation. I do not know if there is a way to look back and find out what the temperatures were during this phase of you plant development, but it might be interesting to prove/disprove the theory. In addition, I wonder if other tomato growers in your area experienced a similar phenomenon. At any rate, it looks like you know what you are doing with the garden. Keep up the good work.
We did have a lousy summer last year, Mark, so cool in fact that most tomatoes were still green when I took them off the plants to ripen in the basement. In late summer I put a plastic cover over them, as you may have seen in my garden diary, but even that did not speed up ripening that much. Next spring I intend to dig some new beds for tomatoes and make a more "permanent" cover for them and do everthing to keep them warm to speed things up. There really is not much point in pursuing growing the "crests", even if the seed were viable. They look interesting but are rather useless as a food item. I intend to only grow the seeds of proper-shaped fruits and hope to eventually end up with a nice orange tomato. Thanks for your interest in this matter! Henry
