My tomatoes have finally started to ripen. Some have turned uniformly red, but many turn red up to the crown where spots of green remain. Also, the tomato splits deeply, fanning out from the stem. The taste is fine. I simply cut off the top of the tomato.
Any idea why this happened? Our summer has been *unusually* dry, and I've been watering once a day for about 1/2 hour using a soaker hose.
GK wrote in news:jVmKe.711$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com:
Too much water? How much water do your plants get per week?
Puckdropper
I cannot be just too much water. I gro tomatoes hydroponicly. Nevertheless, my tomato tops range from perfect to very cracked. It is true, however, that sometimes I do not get to add makeup water until the nutrient has more than doubled in concentration.
Bill
My experience is there are two kinds of tomato cracking. On the top is from too much water, or uneven watering. These types of cracks are circular and go around the fruit.
The other cracks that I see are the short perpendicular gashes on the fruit where the tomato stem connects to the vine. This is mostly with non red varieties.
There is a third crack that I see. When a tomatoes is super ripe and still on the vine, they seems to burst after I pick it.
I sure love this time of year.
Regards,
Once a day, 1/2 hour, soaker hose surrounds the plants.
The green area near the stem that never ripens is caused by a gene.
As for cracking, some tomatoes do it as they mature without the added influence of too much water.
Many of the varieties that behave this way are no longer sold b/c over time, people have been conditioned to expect perfect looking specimens w/out regard to taste.
What variety are you growing this year?
This is the first year I *haven't* had that happen. Unfortunately, the tomatoes are really small, too. Same varieties as years past - Better Boy (I think it's called) and some sort of Beef Steak. If I ever get enough ripe at one time to do any canning it's going to be a bitch with such small ones. We've had especially hot weather this year (over 100 degrees for weeks now) so maybe that's why they aren't getting as big as they should. I don't know. Sue SJV, CA
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