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Old June 15, 2018   #1
gorbelly
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Default Green Zebra Cherry first fruits have air pockets?

Growing GZC for the first time. I'm happy with the vigor and earliness of the plant, but the fruits on the first truss turned shiny this week, and I noticed when I gave them a squeeze that they feel like they have some air pockets inside.

This year has been weird, weather-wise, with snow and freezing temps lasting well into April and May having about 2 days of sun and epic amounts of constant rain. In addition, I have the plant in a new location that was a new bed last year and had squash in it, so I expect the soil is still not terrific there.

So it could very well be a physiological or nutritional issue with that early fruit which might well correct itself now that the weather is finally more on the normal side and fertilizer doesn't get immediately washed out by heavy rains.

I just wanted to check that this wasn't normal or common for the variety when fruit is at or near the mature green phase.
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Old June 16, 2018   #2
carolyn137
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gorbelly View Post
Growing GZC for the first time. I'm happy with the vigor and earliness of the plant, but the fruits on the first truss turned shiny this week, and I noticed when I gave them a squeeze that they feel like they have some air pockets inside.

This year has been weird, weather-wise, with snow and freezing temps lasting well into April and May having about 2 days of sun and epic amounts of constant rain. In addition, I have the plant in a new location that was a new bed last year and had squash in it, so I expect the soil is still not terrific there.

So it could very well be a physiological or nutritional issue with that early fruit which might well correct itself now that the weather is finally more on the normal side and fertilizer doesn't get immediately washed out by heavy rains.

I just wanted to check that this wasn't normal or common for the variety when fruit is at or near the mature green phase.
I know GZCherry very well, I've grown it a lot, but it's true that the weather you describe has been the same up here where I am,so what I suggest is to remove the small fruits already there that you have described, the new blossom cycle is about two weeks, and by then methinks the weather will be better.

And there's still plenty of time to get a good yield before first frost.

Carolyn
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Old June 16, 2018   #3
gorbelly
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OK, then it's just normal crazy weather/early fruit blues and not something about this variety. I would normally remove such fruits and write them off as early season flukes, but I just wanted to make sure it wasn't some normal phase for this variety before I did that. I already have several more trusses that have been set, so I'm not worried about production--looks like GZC does quite OK on that front. Thx for the response, Carolyn.
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Old June 18, 2018   #4
zipcode
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GZC has been quite juicy inside when I grew it. Great 'spicy' taste. Incredibly thick skins, so I'm not growing it anymore.
They say the hollow fruit is boron deficiency.
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Old June 18, 2018   #5
gorbelly
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They say the hollow fruit is boron deficiency.
Hollow fruit can be caused by many things that are more common than boron deficiency.

I'm not going to overthink this. Been there, done that. I'm going with Occam's Razor. I wanted to know is whether this was something to expect or not. It turns out not, so I'm happy to go back to my assumption that it's a physiological or nutritional blip caused by unusual and challenging conditions when these first fruits were setting.
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Old June 19, 2018   #6
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Puffiness
The outer wall of the fruit is normal, but the tomato is hollow inside. One of the seed cavities is usually empty. Cause: Extreme high or low temperatures, excessive nitrogen fertilization, and heavy rains may interfere with normal pollination, resulting in puffy fruit. Puffiness occurs most frequently on early fruit. Control: No effective controls. Puffiness should decline later in the summer.

https://hortnews.extension.iastate.e...97/tomdis.html
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Old June 19, 2018   #7
gorbelly
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Thanks, Nematode, I'm aware of that. I've just never seen puffiness in any tomato variety I've ever grown in my garden, so I wanted to know whether GZC was prone to it, whether it might be a normal characteristic of the fruit, or whether I could just write it off to unusual weather this year.
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