Odd Tomato Stem/ Warty

12 years ago

A friend of mine has a tomato growing in a way I've never seen before.

The stem is covered in bumps! Wart looking is the only way I can think to describe it. They are hard, and some have almost a scared/brown look to them.

It's in a topsy turvey planter, and I discovered that the poor thing is getting the hot exhaust from her AC unit, so I don't know if that has anything to do with it.

MG Potting soil..

It's not in the best of shape, but she is determined to save it....

Is the plant doomed?

It already has 3 strikes against it in my opinion, but she can be stubborn. lol...

JoJo

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Comments (5)

terrybull
12 years ago
When plants are grown in unsuitable environments, including conditions of faulty mineral nutrition, they react to the particular defects in more or less specific ways. Thus, if light is insufficient, the green coloring matter of the leaf will be lacking and the leaves may be almost white (chlorotic), and the plant may be very spindly and "drawn" in appearance; if the temperature is too high, the growth may be rank and soft; if water is insufficient, growth may be restricted, the tissues woody and the green of the leaves show a bluish tint. Again, deficiencies and excesses of the individual elements produce characteristic effects on various organs of plants: foliage characters, including color, density, size and shape of leaves; stem characters, such as thickness, color and length of inter-nodes; root characters, such as color, amount of fiber, abnormal thickening; blossom characters, including amount and time of opening of the flowers; fruit characters, such as size, color, hardness and flavor.
Ohiofem 6a/5b Southwest Ohio
12 years ago
I agree that the poor thing probably has three strikes against it, but I wouldn't count the "warts" as one of them. I've often seen something like that on right side up as well as Topsy turvy tomatoes. I think those nubbins would turn into roots if they were underground. In fact, if she would carefully take it down, cut it out of the Topsy turvy planter and repot it in a deeper and wider container, burying the stem several inches deeper, those warts would probably turn into feeder roots and save the plant. Since she probably doesn't want to do that, the most important thing is to get it away from the AC exhaust.
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For a few weeks now, I have been searching through hundreds of photos and descriptions for the tomatoes I grew. I even checked all my seed packets and orders for the last 5 years to see if any of the tomato seed orders referred to a type in the photo. I found a few photos, close to the shape, but they were more pointed. Mine are late maturing and were all planted from seeds all started at the same time. I thought I only planted beefsteaks, big boy, and a couple of other jumbo varieties, none of which were this shape or characteristic. Oddly, I also had a few very small cherry types and a jumbo grape shape, or mini plum, depending on what you would want to catogorize them, those were also grown from seeds I have had here for several years. In any event, these big guys had only 4 narrow seed cavities about 1/4 inch in from the skin, and all through the core it was very firm and meaty. The biggest of the three had maybe a tablespoon of liquid and only a few seeds. I only found two out of my 60+ plants that had this shape tomato. The other plant has a a few that are a little smaller in diameter, and they are still green. I removed all the seeds from these three tomatoes and placed them in a small strainer and washed them under running water to remove some of the gel coating. The I dumped the seeds onto a sheet of plastic wrap for them to dry. I can't plant tomatoes again next year as I will have no space and need to give the soil 'chemistry' a rest from all these tomatoes. I do find that if I skip a year, tomatoes seem to grw much better with less losses due to fungal infections. The plants these came from are quite healthy and green, with big leaves. The tomatoes were so heavy they pulled away from the support stakes and twine and were on the ground, laying on some black plastic fabric mulch. The plants are not very productive or heavy bearers, but have a lot of foliage, and have a sweeter, milder flavor compared to all the others I grew. I do plan to grow more again from these saved seeds. Around here, these need to be started indoors very early in the season, like about March, in order to have any ripe ones. Th A similar thing happened three years ago when I planed some buttercup squash. A single plant had these odd shaped ones and were as big as basketballs, the narrow end was the stem end however. I tried growing more the following two years afterwards, but the nasty woodchuck got to them before they got ripe enough, but were exactly the same shape as the earlier generation. That woodchuck is gone now..
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meyermike_1micha
12 years ago
Right on Ohiofem!

Hey Jojo..lol

Having you around her as a friend, she just might make home run for a score!:-)

Mike
jojosplants
Original Author
12 years ago
Hi Everyone!
Thank you for your help. :-) I'll see what I can do to get her plant straightened out.

Terry~
Thank you..
I never considered it's environment being unfavorable, causing it. I've grown many tomato's and never saw any that looked like this. So I was stumped. lol..

Ohio,
I was thinking the "warts" were the least of it's problems too.
1~ Miracle grow soil
2~ Topsy Turvy
3~ The heat exhaust
;-)

All of which I told her not to do... but she figured it was a quick easy way to grow tomato's so she wouldn't have to bug me. She's handicapped, so I help her with many things and she was hoping for one less. Gotta love her..

I'll see what I can do about changing it all .

Hi Mike!
Thanks! :-)

JoJo
jodik_gw
12 years ago
"I think those nubbins would turn into roots if they were underground."

I agree. That's a common condition I've seen many times on many different varieties of tomato plants.

Odd Tomato Stem/ Warty

Comments (5)

terrybull

Ohiofem 6a/5b Southwest Ohio

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Odd Tomato Stem/ Warty

Comments (5)

terrybull

Ohiofem 6a/5b Southwest Ohio

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