2013, the year of the megabloom?

[WVTomatoMan]

Fused blossoms (what we called it before the term megabloom) are fairly common with beefsteak types under certain weather conditions. In fact the original Beefsteak variety (aka Crimson Cushion, Henderson's Crimson Cushion and Red Ponderosa) was notorious for it. If you have cool, humid, damp or wet weather during flower formation and pollination this can occur. Some years I get a lot, some years very few.

Absolutely keep the tomatoes. If they set fruit they tend to be big ones. If there is catfacing (deformities and leather like patch blossom ends are both forms of catfacing) that's not a problem either. Some of the best tasting tomatoes I've even eaten were catfaced. Ugly, but good and I'm all about the flavor.

As far as saving seeds from tomatoes produced from megablooms I recommend against that. The formation of the flower (often with exerted stigmas) can lead to cross pollination. Since you have so many to mark them just loosely tie a white piece of string behind the sepal.

Hope this helps, and good luck.


Randy

[indigosand]

Originally Posted by TightenUp

that will make quite the ugly tomato. any set fruit?

Ha, yeah it's not pretty looking. One for sure, about marble size. A few more that haven't grown much. I picked one off already that was so catfaced and distorted that it was mostly scab.

[KathyDC]

I think I might have one of these on my Pink Berkeley Tie Dye plant. This is my first year really trying to grow tomatoes "seriously" (whatever that means) and I am watching them like a hawk. this morning I took a stroll through the garden and noticed a very large strange flower and wondered if this is what everyone refers to as a megabloom. I'll take a picture of it when I go out to water later and will post it here, but I'm pretty sure it's probably what it is.

Thanks for answering my other question before I even asked it, which is: should I save the seed from that one or not? It would seem not, unless I want to increase the chances of a cross.

Can anyone post a picture of a tomato that was created out of a megabloom, compared with what they "normally" look like? I'm intrigued by the whole thing.

Thanks,
Kathy

[kath]

Originally Posted by KathyDC

I think I might have one of these on my Pink Berkeley Tie Dye plant. This is my first year really trying to grow tomatoes "seriously" (whatever that means) and I am watching them like a hawk. this morning I took a stroll through the garden and noticed a very large strange flower and wondered if this is what everyone refers to as a megabloom. I'll take a picture of it when I go out to water later and will post it here, but I'm pretty sure it's probably what it is.

Thanks for answering my other question before I even asked it, which is: should I save the seed from that one or not? It would seem not, unless I want to increase the chances of a cross.

Can anyone post a picture of a tomato that was created out of a megabloom, compared with what they "normally" look like? I'm intrigued by the whole thing.

Thanks,
Kathy

Kathy, your "very large strange flower" is sure to be a megabloom, or fused blossom.

The first two pictures below show tomatoes from another season which are obvious examples of what might result from a megabloom, with the first photo showing a fused Hays' Tomato. "Normal" Hays' tomatoes can be seen in the 3rd and 4th pics. The second picture is of a Slankard tomato and there are "normal" pictures of this variety in the threads below. The first photo is by "patti_b" in post #34. The second example is by "korney19" and is found in post #18 of the second link.

http://tomatoville.com/showthread.ph...kard#post72951

http://tomatoville.com/showthread.ph...kard#post68257

kath

[indigosand]

I pulled this one off my Costoluto Genovese tonight, I have no idea how many blooms fused to make this one, but I want this variety for canning, so I don't want the plant wasting energy on a tomato I'll likely have to toss most of. I thought I would share it.

[GnomeGrown]

got a few mega blooms off my Solar Flares this year

[TightenUp]

the 1st pic is from my garden today. its a cherokee chocolate plant. the large flower is a little bigger than a quarter. i counted over 15 other flowers in this cluster surrounding the big one.

pic 2 is from last season and its a brandywine pink from livingston seed co

[lycomania]

Sure seems that way! I didn't even know about fused blossoms last year (and didn't see any) but this year, I have found quite a bunch of them in my row. I plucked some and left some, hedging my bets.

[dice]

I was trimming the coronas and anthers on buds of Earl's Faux
one year to make some crosses. I pruned this one big bud,
and it had 3 styles fused together in the center of the bud.

(What is a "style" in a tomato flower?
http://www.kdcomm.net/~tomato/Tomato/xingtom.html

(I pollenated it a few times, but it never set.)

[Gavriil]

I also have 3 plants out of of about 12 that have quite a few mega blooms on them. Two are next to each other the other is one plant over from the other 2.
One is a Pink Berkley Tye Dye, one Orange Jubilee and an unknown variety that came up wild from last year (I always through a few bad tomato's in the garden for a surprise for the next year). I'm having issues in this 95-105 degree weather with the blossoms setting fruit, maybe 3 tomato's on 12 plants but lots of blooms.

[Mojave]

Only one has shown up in my garden this year. An early bloom, during cool moist weather, on my German Johnson. I lost track of it, I might have a "monster" lurking under the leaves out there somewhere.

[Hilary]

My German Orange Strawberry has these double-type blooms. Just thought it was the variety, which is new to me.

[spacetogrow]

Fused blooms are pretty common in my garden this year as well. In previous years, I hardly saw any. We had 13 days of rain in June; is that what made the difference?