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Oak Grove, Mn

I am trying the wixom soak tonight. Pure water. The thought crossed my mind..what would happen if I added a preservative to the soak such as potassium nitrate. The tomato could absorb the perservative and then be washed so there is none one the outside. What are your thoughts.

9/24/2018 6:58:28 PM

On a cliff in the desert

I won't object if you soak your tomato in Hydrogen Nitrate. I would object of you used lead nitrate.

9/24/2018 7:17:19 PM

On a cliff in the desert

On a more serious side; water would enter the tomato thru osmosis while soaking. The water would contain the preservative like a salt. When the tomato is taken out of the water, then the salt that came into the tomato would help the tomato retain water. I think soaking in water with a preservative is a no no.

9/24/2018 7:40:58 PM

On a cliff in the desert

Bnot, you've got plenty of tomatoes to test my thought with. You could try different salts as part of your experiment to see which salts cause a tomato to retain the most water. The way to test for no soaking at a weighoff is checking the density of the tomato compared to similar ones. Tomatoes that have been soaked would be more dense than non soaked ones. I think we are doing a good thing at Gale Woods by checking density of tomatoes. We need to establish baseline density to use for each variety of tomato.

9/24/2018 8:15:39 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

wile...using the three way measurements...I have seen anywhere from .00043 to .00067 . That is not an indication. I have cut open 200 tomatoes this year alone....the insides are really varied. Even different tomatoes from the same plant. I am asking this question..not because i think the tomato weights will increase off the vine. I have not heard of anyone making there tomato bigger. The biggest problem with tomatoes for weighoffs is timing. If we could get the storage time to 1 month or better vs 2 weeks..there could be so many more big tomatoes at the weighoffs. I am not sure this would work. It could take much experimentation to find out.

As far as morality..if this would work and extend storage time but not increase weight off the vine is it a bad thing. What if you didnt soak the whole tomato..and just left the stem long and dipped it into a salt preservative...there is no foreign substance on the outside of the tomato then. I am throwing the idea out into the public instead of just doing it.

9/24/2018 8:31:35 PM

On a cliff in the desert

I think it would be a good thing to do but I think that the challenge of bringing a large tomato to a weigh off is the result of the choices you make during the growing season such when to start planting, how many plants, what varieties, etc. You can't control how many mega blooms a plant has but maybe some day there will be a variety that puts out mega blooms at will. I started late like you, have fewer plants, have lots of big green tomatoes now but no mega blooms. Things might be different next year after I have a year of experience behind me.

9/24/2018 9:19:26 PM

Mn

The real question is, is when are people gonna start soaking pumpkins :)

9/24/2018 10:03:32 PM

Eastern Shore of VA

And watermelons !

9/24/2018 10:45:47 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

Soaking in water does work. After 9 days in storage and an overnight soak in cold water....the tomato is only .01 less than it was when it came off the vine. My bigger one is next.

9/25/2018 4:43:22 AM

Central NY

https://youtu.be/Deqx-Xb-yHY

9/25/2018 9:05:57 AM

Lebanon, Oregon

Haha! So many things I typed and deleted.

9/25/2018 10:20:00 AM

Wixom MI.

You Cork soaker porkchop !!! Lol....:-)

9/25/2018 6:19:00 PM

Wixom MI.

I don't see anything wrong at finding a way to store a tomato for as long as possible. From what i can see so far is that soaking a tomato will not exceed the picking weight !!!

9/25/2018 6:32:17 PM

Central NY

I just ordered a kiddie pool for the pumpkin...lol..soaker

9/25/2018 6:36:08 PM

Oak Grove, Mn

oh my...i didn't know what to expect clicking on that porkchop. I remember watching SNL much when I was younger. That was originally aired in 2004.

It appears that the water soaks work. So far two out of two have regained lost weight. I don't know what pure water soaks do for storage life. Will wait to see on that.

I doubt that anyone can complain about soaking in water. It is very similar to the storage jugs of water you see on pumpkin vines at weighoffs.

My question was about adding a preservative to the water. Potasium Nitrate was my first thought but there could be others that could extend the life. Instead of adding it to the soak, it might be sprayed on the plant right before harvesting. We know the plants are already sprayed with much...and some of it is landing on the tomato itself. As long as the tomato is washed very well before the weighoff should the addition of a preservative be allowed. And if the answer is no...how could the weighoff site determine it.

After the fall weighoffs..I will still have many tomatoes to practice with. Wixom, we should have a storage length contest.

9/25/2018 7:08:35 PM

Central NY

Brilliant...

9/25/2018 7:27:18 PM

President - GPC

So Bob, How does a tomato absorb water if it has no cracks and its skin is intact? How does soaking it in Nitrate apply to the no substances rule in context to the GPC rules on all fruits and veggies? Hmmmm. Why is there a question to its OK to do something if judges cant detect it...... Why can it not be "grow the tomato as best as possible and weigh it with verifications, we have Early Tomato Contest, isnt this enough?

9/28/2018 5:25:33 PM