Getting cat-faced tomatoes late in the game

[cythaenopsis]

From what I've read, tomato cat-facing (weird oblong shapes) tends to happen when pollination occurs at cooler temperatures. I've also read an ambiguous reference about them being "disturbed". What exactly does that mean?

I hadn't experienced any cat-facing issues with my Black Krim plants until about a month ago, so no cooler temperatures were at play. I started to notice a few weird looking tomatoes appearing, like these:



Unfortunately, one of these shown ended up suffering from BER and I had to pluck it off.

My question is... if I use an electric toothbrush to help pollinate tomato blossoms, would accidentally "buzzing" a flower that had already been pollinated end up encouraging the production of a cat-faced tomato?

[Darren Abbey]

I was under the impression that the catfacing is caused by the fasciated flower/fruit trait (responsible for the beefsteak tomato form), and so won't be impacted by how much pollination occurs.

The fasciation is variable, but this variation is already evident before the flowers open, so I don't see how buzzing could encourage it... I suppose if you were buzzing with a wire brush, you could damage the developing fruit tissues in the base of the flower.

[cythaenopsis]

^ Ah, OK. I was just curious, because that was the only thing I could think of. So it's really more of a genetic abnormality with a random chance of occurring?

I have a couple of bulbous tomatoes on my second Black Krim plant and looking underneath I see a cavity with a slightly brownish coating inside it (but not BER) that has a kind of cat-face effect. It's only two tomatoes out of the other 8 that are currently growing. I had started this plant a bit late in the season. Anyway, the parent plant was an anemic producer for several reasons, but with all of the fruit that did set early on there wasn't any cat-facing going on... until now.

Is it true that some strains of a variety may have greater tendencies to produce cat-faced fruits? Are there some sources for seeds where they've stabilized varieties for greater resistance to maladies and cat-facing?