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Mercersburg, PA

I'm no rookie to growing maters, but this big tomato thing is new to me. just getting my first megablooms and they are pretty impressive. that said i have two questions--1. how are you counting the blooms, i saw someone they say they had 7 females together in one bloom. to me, its only one female, but i will update my diary with a pic of one that looks like 3-4 blooms together. 2. in a cluster, do you only keep one tomato?

7/8/2012 2:33:58 PM

Hamilton Nj

i have some tomato blooms that look like big singles but turned out to be three tomatos in one after it was polinated and grew a little bit!!!! most u wont be able to tell untill the tomato starts growing ,then u can get a good look and see how many are in there,some guys go with one tomato on thier plants hopeing for a monster but i have a hard time culling tomatos,lol,pick yur best 3 fruits and leave them on their to u make a decision!!! hope that helps pizza

7/9/2012 7:32:21 AM

Mercersburg, PA

i hear you on the picking the best couple, but i assume that means that there is only one tomato kept per cluster.

7/10/2012 9:49:13 AM

Hamilton Nj

if u want a big one,yes!!! 3 tomatos on plant at most!!!! pizza

7/10/2012 6:32:22 PM

East Carbon, Utah

If you're very gentle, you could use a hand lens, tease apart the blossom a little and count the number of stigmas.

However, often the stigmas are fused also, sometimes producing a linear multi-stigma (apologies to Marv - maybe there's a better term?). Additionally, the stigmas are sometimes of variable sizes and shapes.

If you look at the back side of the blossom, you can sometimes get a pretty good idea of how many are fused together to make the megabloom. You'll see grooves between the fused parts of the megabloom.

I'm thinking that the thickness of the stem (pedicle) of the fruit may be just about as important as how may blossoms are fused together. A lot of nutrients need to flow into the developing fruit to produce a huge tomato, and thin stems just won't do.

Definitely just one tomato per truss (cluster). I don't usually bother removing the smaller ones until after fruit set, however. [So far this season virtually all of my megablooms have aborted due to heat stress, so I've not been concerned about thinning]

7/23/2012 1:59:29 AM