Tomato Blossoms Malformed? (pics)

16 years ago

Hello. This is my first time posting to this forum, so please forgive any mistakes. It's also my first garden in many years.

Tonight my son and I were mulching the veggies and I checked the tomatoes to see if the blossoms had survived his over-exuberance. Happily they appeared to have survived fine, I noticed that two have even begun opening. However, I've never seen tomato blossoms that look like these. Two of my plants each have one, although I only took pictures of one flower. Sorry for the poor picture quality, it was very overcast and I was using my cell phone.

To describe, the blossoms do not have the typical conical stamen with a fringe of large petals that makes the star shaped tomato blossom that I'm accustomed to seeing. They are still in the process of opening, but they resemble a sunflower, or a dandelion that doesn't have any center and the pocked base is exposed. They have a textured center, with a fringe of small tubular petals.

As you can see, from a profile it appears to only have calyces and no other structures.

The plants have full sun, are in a new, raised bed with approx 1/2 peat and composted manure, plus a bit of vermiculite for drainage and lime for the pH. They have not been fertilized, and have regular irrigation.

The variety is Red Brandywine (whatever strain Bonnie's grows) and they were purchased as transplants about 6 weeks ago. Their total height from original soil level would now be approximately 20", this morning they were about 10" tall, after mulching they're back down to 6-7 inches. These are their first flowers.

I know that tomato plant characteristics can differ from variety to variety, but I hadn't heard that the blossoms differed, so I'm wondering what's going on. Are these early flowers sterile, are they mutants, do some varieties have daisy-ish flowers, or is this just a bit of self expression before they settle down and begin churning out the real deal?

Assistance would be lovely, and very appreciated. Thank you!

Enjay

PS

I did search quite a bit to see if I could find any mention of odd tomato flowers, which lead to other interesting posts, and threads, and links, and, well, I'm finally getting around to posting, 5 hours later! LOL

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Comments (4)

tracerracer
16 years ago
I am by no means an expert and had this happen on a few (3 I think) plants last yr, but I called them mutants. So in case you didn't find that thread I added it below (@ least attempted to)

It happened early in the season for me and I didn't have the strength of charater to wait it out. (thinkin' that my plants were spenting too much energy on the dbl blossoms and not on the rest.....) there is a pict of a 'mater that someone had the patience I didn't...............

Here is a link that might be useful: Mutant blossoms?
aninocentangel
Original Author
16 years ago
tracerracer, thank you so much!
I googled double tomato flowers and found a study that showed the effects of cold temperatures upon tomato flowers, and I believe this is what happened. We had two nights of lower temperatures right after they were put out. They all weathered it beautifully, but it must have been just enough to disrupt their development. As the plants are quite vigorous right now and have several other blossoms forming, I think I will let these develop and see what happens.

Thanks again for your help. :)

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Flower Abnormalities Induced by Low Temperatures Are Associated with Changes of Expression of MADS-Box Genes
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Hello Tybstar, I am concerned that your plants may have some type of blight, if I recall correctly there have been reports on this forum of cases (or suspected cases) in southern California of late blight. But I don't see any of the typical brown spots on the stems, of course even looking at your other pictures at the link, I am unable to see very much of the stems other than the ones like those in this post. The one with the tomato and the dried stems looks similar to early blight. Take a look at the picutures in the link below, and compare them to your plants. Perhaps that will tell you what is going on with your tomatoes. Ignore what gardendawgie says about BW (Brandywines) lots of people grow them successfully. I think he is just jealous. :-) Different people, in the same and different areas get different results with the same variety, people even get different results in different years with the same variety! (And they get different results with different var. . . . ah never mind, you get the picure.) Betsy Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Problem Solver (Photos for Diagnostics)
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dave1mn2
16 years ago
I had a few of what looked to my uneducated eye as dbl blossoms on a German Queen last yr. The resulting fruits were VERY badly mis-shapen to the point of holding moisture and bugs. None made it to usable status. I had some trouble with blossom drop on it and used a setting spray which may have contributed to this.

After that I kept the spray on the shelf and just gently thumped (flicked, whatever you call it :-) the base of the flower clusters a few times a day with my fingers.

Maybe it helped, maybe not but it became a ritual to say good morning to my ladies, wish them well and give em a good thumping :-)
aninocentangel
Original Author
16 years ago
"Maybe it helped, maybe not but it became a ritual to say good morning to my ladies, wish them well and give em a good thumping :-)"

ROTFLMAO!!!!
Oh my, thank you for that, I needed a good chuckle today!

Tomato Blossoms Malformed? (pics)

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