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Mission Viejo, CA

How do I tell when the megabloom is ready to pollinate? It seems like they open very slowly.

2/28/2015 12:35:38 PM

Allentown, PA

Kevin,

Megablooms take awhile to fully open due to their size.
One part of the bloom may open before the entire bloom does.

However it usually only takes a couple of days or so after the first part of the bloom opens in order for the entire bloom to do so.

A easy way to tell when the bloom is ready for pollination is when the petals of the bloom are arcing back away from the front of the bloom fully exposing the stigma.

Depending on the size of the bloom you might need to gather additional pollen from other single blooms in order to fully pollinate the megabloom. For me this happens only when I have very large multi flower megablooms like five blooms plus.

During this time and after pollination it would be wise to bag your bloom. If you can take a lightweight mesh bag and place it over the bloom in order to prevent any insects from inadvertently bringing pollen from another tomato strain. This also helps in the case of wind which can do the same thing.

Once you observe a tomato growing from all or part of the bloom it's then safe to remove the bag.

I trust this helps you.

2/28/2015 1:08:47 PM

Central NY

Good answer paj...what's deal with the electric toothbrush thing agian??..when do you break that bad boy out??... I lost all my early (and biggest)megas last year but didn't want my breath to smell like tomato plant.. Got different toothbrush to use this season...how and when?..thanx

2/28/2015 1:29:18 PM

Mission Viejo, CA

Thanks PaJ. I tried the electric toothbrush trick and the black spoon that you recommended in another post. I didn't get a detectable amount of pollen which made me suspect they weren't quite ready. This is just a practice plant; a volunteer that grew in the yard where my beefsteak plant was a year ago. It wasn't really all that interesting until I saw the FAT megabloom!

2/28/2015 3:03:35 PM

Allentown, PA

Hey Porkchop!!

When the megabloom appears to be close to being able to be pollinated take your index finger and thumb of the hand not holding the brush and gently hold the stem right below the flower. Take the brush and gentle touch it against the back of the bloom moving it to the sides and the middle of the bloom. Do this for a few days until you are certain that you have pollinated the bloom.

If the bloom is large enough to perhaps require additional pollen then vibrate the bloom once when the bloom as it the mature stage (see my post above) then obtain pollen from other flower sources and then pollinate further.

Follow the remaining instructions including bagging if possible until you see a fruit forming from the bloom.

2/28/2015 3:09:00 PM

Allentown, PA

Kevin,

Your welcome. yes, if you didn't visually see yellow pollen against your black plastic spoon then the flower was not at the pollination stage yet.

It's good to practice the way your doing,I've done the same thing concerning giants and before that quite a few years with heirloom tomatoes.

Practice makes perfect. Record in a journal what the bloom looks like when you do see pollen coming from the bloom onto the spoon.

It's going to be a great season!

2/28/2015 3:13:52 PM

Wixom MI.

Pa_j do you cross pollinate, or just self pollinating ? I plan on cross pollinating this year, and the only way i can see it working is to remove the anther cone from the mega bloom that you wont to pollinate first, and then either shake off the pollen with a tooth brush like you recommend or just take the anther cone itself from the pollinator or other tomato and just rub the pollen off the other anther cone onto the stigma you wont pollinated. I put this in my diary as my first posts this year ! I did a step by step demonstation.check it out !

2/28/2015 5:26:35 PM

Allentown, PA

Hey! yes I have crossed some Heirloom tomato strains in the past but it's been a good six years since I've done so.

I'm going to do some crosses this year with some giant strains so we can get more "" blood "" into the community as it were.

Your way of pollinating sounds really solid!! It would work. I will certainly go look at it. Thanks!

2/28/2015 6:21:15 PM

Wixom MI.

i will probably have at least 20 plants this year. I hope to make a lot of new crosses with them. Here are just some of my seeds.

8.41 MacCoy
7.10 foss
6.88 MacCoy
6.51 Meisner
6.25 brutus magnum
4.60 slankard
Zaczilla
5.50 Johnston/Butler
5.63 martian
And maybee the burpee steakhouse
And a white variety called hughs. That is the one that grew that 12 lbs on one stem.

3/10/2015 11:27:21 AM