THREE megablooms on my Cherokee Purple plant...

[Baizanator]

Is this normal? I'll have pics in a few hours. I am excited about the possibilities here.

[JamesL]

I want to see......

[Baizanator]

Originally Posted by JamesL

I want to see......

I'm going to take a few pics on my lunch break.

[JamesL]

I read tidbits on megablooms from 2 different places

1 - typically the first blooms to develop on a Cherokee Purple tomato plant are called megablooms, and rarely ever establish fruitset.

2 - Megablooms aren't anything to panic over. Though the resulting fruit will be deformed and look rather ugly, it could end up weighing over 5 pounds and have a terrific flavor.

So if you can get it to pollinate you might have a monster on your hands.....

[diesel]

I had megablooms on my two cherokee purples that did not set fruit. Just fell off after a couple of weeks. Hopefully yours will be different

[Baizanator]

Originally Posted by diesel

I had megablooms on my two cherokee purples that did not set fruit. Just fell off after a couple of weeks. Hopefully yours will be different

I guess I should've said that I've "HAD" three megablooms. I manually pollinate all my tomato blossoms so two of the three have set fruit. Pics below. The two megablooms are on the outside and the tomato in the middle is a normal blossom.

[JamesL]

They look good! not too scary.

[Baizanator]

Originally Posted by JamesL

They look good! not too scary.

Nah. They weren't the 4-6 blossom variety. One was two and one was three so tomatoes shouldn't be too ugly.

[JamesL]

If you remember take a pic at harvest. Would love to know the size difference for these versus a reg tomato from the same plant.

[Baizanator]

Originally Posted by JamesL

If you remember take a pic at harvest. Would love to know the size difference for these versus a reg tomato from the same plant.

Will do!!!! Given that they're only about 1.5 inches long this could be a while though.

[Baizanator]

Just found another one on the same plant last night. This one has three blossoms fused together. This plant was heavily damaged early on by 2-4D drift. Could this be a result of that damage or do I just have a special plant on my hands? I will be saving seed... no doubt.

[augiedog55]

I'm not seeing any unusual about those three tomatos. Can Explain what you are calling megablooms.

[Baizanator]

Originally Posted by augiedog55

I'm not seeing any unusual about those three tomatos. Can Explain what you are calling megablooms.

Megabloom is two or more fused blossoms. I removed all dried petals from developing tomatoes to prevent cat-facing but, as you can see by the scar on the bottom of the one on the right, the tomato is oblong and is the result of two fused tomatoes. The little one on the left is the same thing but the angle of the photo prevented me from illustrating this.

The one in the middle is from a normal single blossom.

[augiedog55]

Thanks for the response. Thats helps. I'm new to this

[Baizanator]

Originally Posted by augiedog55

Thanks for the response. Thats helps. I'm new to this

That's fine. I'll post info below.



The phenomenon is called fused blossoms (or megabloom) and it seems to be associated with tomato varieties that produce large fruit.

There are multiple ovaries in a fused flower and this gives rise to huge but misshapen “gnarly” fruit.

I’d love to see what your neighbor’s tomatoes look like!