This Big Zac record is apparently an F8 (ref: Dale). I'm growing an F6 derived from the same F4 so maybe I'll see some fused blossoms.

I'll never see a monster tomato after reading the quote from Mr. Meisner's book. I could never so inefficiently channel all my plant into a couple of delicious tomatoes. My luck and a squirrel would come get it, which always happens early on the morning of the day I plan to harvest it.

I have some seeds from the MegaMarv line and had always assumed the "Mega" meant Marv's big sized or great tomato. It is probably Mega since it fuses blossoms or at least that's the hope.

This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Tue, Aug 26, 14 at 11:54

Carolyn: You keep bugging me about that replica tomato made by Miracle Grow for Gordon Graham to use during his talks. Don't you recall that Miracle Grow gave it to me for nothing and that I then sent it as a gift to Gordon's wife in Oklahoma?

And to Pupilla, MegaMarv will grow a big single tomato and will produce fused blossoms as well if you want to grow really big. MegaMarv may be the same seed that grew two tomatoes over 7 pounds as weighed in Canada's Great Tomato Hunt some years back. Those two growers were related and I may have gotten some of their seed via someone who was apparently also related to them.

Next year the seed to grow will be one of the Big Zac F6, F7 or F8 obtained from Fabrice Boudyo in France or Dan McCoy in Minnesota and if not from them then from someone who grew the F7 (2010 Boudyo(BZ) 5.07) and has some seeds. The seed should be pretty stable at this point. (Should I try to get you some Carolyn?)

For those who didn't notice, the 8.4 pound tomato was grown in a greenhouse on a plant that was less than 3 feet tall. Fabrice Boudyo may also have a tomato over 8 pounds this year that has not yet been weighed. Marv

Carolyn, did you know this guy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4GynGTDlpc

growneat, if you want to make a link "active", use this HTML code:

TEXT

Remove the blank spaces before and after .

If you want to quote in Italic, the code is:

>

Your link will be something like this:

World Record Tomato Grower (You Tube video clip)

> Host Steve Dobbs visits the home garden of world record tomato grower Gordon Graham…

Nice link growneat, tx.

This post was edited by Daniel_NY on Mon, Aug 25, 14 at 13:29

Carolyn: You keep bugging me about that replica tomato made by Miracle Grow for Gordon Graham to use during his talks. Don't you recall that Miracle Grow gave it to me for nothing and that I then sent it as a gift to Gordon's wife in Oklahoma?

$$$$$$

Well, you must admit that you asked me for contact info for Gordon's widow to get that replica,or so I thought at the time.LOL

And now you say you got it from Miracle Grow and sent it to her which I didn't know. If so, why did you ask me for her contact info,b'c that I remember well,and we had words about that as I'm sure you'll remember, despite the fact that we're both retired now, at least from our former professions but the tomato parts of our brains seem to still be intact.(smile)

And if you did not use one of your 500 user names I would have recognized you.LOL

I'll go back up and look at the video when I have time, but the US Tennis Open started today, and I do have my priorities. ( wink)

Carolyn

I asked you abut her before I found her. Actually, I found her mother as she had remarried and had a new name. When I did find her she said MG took the replica back from her husband. Then I contacted MG and they sent it to me and I sent it to her. I used to have the name Carolyn1371. Do you remember that? LOL. Now I am growneat. You don't even have to go to court or anything to change your name here. I never got rid of the name lubadub so it is probably somewhere here. I am thinking growneat137 might be a good new name. Ring a bell?

Carolyn, no offense, but could you solve your disputes with Marv… PRIVATELY ?

I don’t think ANYBODY here, is interested if YOU contacted Gordon’s wife first, or Miracle Grow gave Marv the replica for nothing and that he then sent it as a gift to Gordon's wife in Oklahoma...

REALLY !!!

This post was edited by Daniel_NY on Mon, Aug 25, 14 at 15:17

Dr. Marv., Thanks for the history on MegaMarv (Mario & Pietro Marchesan?). Now that I know a little something about it (Delicious derived?) I'll try to grow it coming Spring and see how it goes with a full fruit load, Florida pests and no special big-tomato techniques.

Here's the direct link to the video posted by Marv to show what appears to be the actual tomato Gordon Graham grew at 7 pound 12 ounces before Miracle Gro picked it up as a promotional gig:

7 lb 12 oz Gordon Graham tomato
ref: link from Dr. Marv Meisner

If you have dialup just click on this link and it will open tdirectly to the image of the tomato without running the rest of the video.

Happy Growing!

I don’t think ANYBODY here, is interested if YOU

Daniel, I LOVE every bit of spirited conversation between Carolyn and Marv. They have more to talk about than the weather ;-)

PC, who appreciated your post very much on your seed starting technique

ooooook, PC.

Well, some ARE interested about the weather. Looks like you're not, which is ok with me.

I am too interested in Carolyn and Marv conversation - WHEN they talk about tomatoes - but those deep details, such as:

> And in his book, which Marv never sent me an autographed copy of,ahem, I'm sure he didn't mention how he contacted me asking for Gordon's widows contact information b'c he wanted to buy that replica tomato.

THAT kind of info does not interest me - and probably others in this forum. Looks like it interests you PC ? Well, we simply have different... interests...

This post was edited by Daniel_NY on Mon, Aug 25, 14 at 16:28

Daniel, Sorry if you took my comment the wrong way as I wasn't referring to your thread asking about the weather. Around my town "talking about the weather" is just a cliché for having nothing to talk about and it was not directed at your thread.

OT:

Sorry the back and forth between Marv and myself bothered some of you.

I think we have ALL of the answers now about who said what and when, and it was about tomatoes you know.

So as the Brits say:

Keep Calm and Carry On and of course those signs were posted during WW II, and we have no war here in this thread and fact is, Marv and I have known each other probably longer than any of you have known him OR me as far as that goes.(smile)

So carry on.

And I'll share with you that someone transferred this thread to where I spend most of my time and the latest there is the suggestion to have TWO categories of large fruits, one that originates from fused blossoms and one from single blossoms.

Can anyone tell me if there's a genetic possibility to get a really big one from a single blossom? I don''t think Minnie was working with fused blossoms, fact is that was many many years ago when we called them fused blossoms, not megablooms. (smile)

And can anyone tell me if Gordon's fruit was from a single or multiple( there's a new word) blossom, I doubt he even knew since the plant was found in the weeds and I bet he didn't venture in there much to look at the plant.

Carolyn, who many years ago , I mean many years ago, would see what she called a wierd blossom, but back in the paleolithic ages we had no words describing fused blossoms, aka megablooms.

Hi Carolyn,

Very interesting how Miracle Gro got involved with that casting or whatever it was. I believe Mr. Graham's Delicious record was a double blossom, which it seems can be seen held by a young girl in the youtube link that Marv posted. You can just click on the link I posted, which I'm adding again, and it will directly open to a color picture of the original unless I am interpreting Marv's video incorrectly about that being the actual big one.

Regarding the Miracle Gro fake that was initially posted, it does look like a reasonable match to the video here, except if we compare it to this image with the girl, it looks as though they only molded the larger drupe of the fused compound fruit.

I agree that there ought to be two categories, and also botanically, as we are dealing with two distinct situations. But from a grower's point of view, the fused fruit IMO ought still be the grand record holder, since collective fruiting seems to be part of tomato genetics, love it or not. Suppose you got a huge singular fruit as part of a fused fruit ... separating it to weigh seems impractical and disqualifying.

I bet two neighboring fruits in a cluster could be grafted together with a wily competitor, LOL, and they have been plucking them off instead...

PC, who would like to go to Buñol one day after using words like drupe and not knowing the blossom end from the peduncle.

Here is a link that might be useful: Looks like a double blossom, doesn't it?

This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Mon, Aug 25, 14 at 19:22

Pupilla, Mario and Pietro, two brothers in Canada who competed with one another every year for biggest tomato, gave me some seeds from their big tomato. It was an heirloom named Brutus Magnum. They originally purchased it from a seed company. I grew a 6.25 pound tomato with that seed and still grow it. I don't think MegaMarv is related to Delicious. The person who gave it to me, lost track of their name, said their family had been growing it for years and that some big tomatoes had been produced. I have grown it for 10 to 15 years and it is very productive and has for me produced five or six tomatoes over 5 pounds. I think it can grow bigger but not yet for me. Hope that answers your question.

growneat, Thanks for passing along the history on Brutus Magnum and what you have on the MegaMarv tomato line.

Sounds like MM is stable and productive which is good news. I just want to get a 2-3 pounder OP for once and not surrender taste. My Big Zac is bullying the plants around it so I need to tone the Giants down due to space limitations, and I can just see putting all that effort into one compound fruit just for some crepuscular Florida creature to make me miserable.

Clarification: I have made a mistake in referencing "Dale Pennington" at least twice. Pennington is another champion grower in the Big Zac lineage, but I was refering to the kind gentleman named Dale in Utah who runs the Delectation of Tomatoes, etc., operation, who holds the Utah giant tomato state record.

PC

And can anyone tell me if Gordon's fruit was from a single or multiple( there's a new word) blossom, I doubt he even knew since the plant was found in the weeds and I bet he didn't venture in there much to look at the plant.

OK, Dr. Meisner was interviewed in 2007 for an article in the Washington Post:

"Meisner now possesses the replica of the world's biggest tomato, which was 26 1/2 inches in circumference and could have made more than 20 tomato sandwiches. Meisner believes this jumbo fruit was formed from as many as five fused pistils. Tomatoes, by the way, are berries, botanically, but are classified as vegetables."

1. He "believes" it was from five fused pistils means this is not an authoritative statement but only an assertation and there likely was no definitive record made. You would need another witness...

2. Interestingly, botanically, that "tomatoes are berries" is mentioned in the article, and in botany texts, (and "tomatoes are simple fruits" in the literature), contradicting what we are seeing with fused pistils - simple fruits, single pistils or botanical berries are how the tomato is classified. That excludes the botanical classification of multiple fruits which these fused masses are.

Fused pistils create "multiple fruits" like pineapples, the terms used to describe "conjoined", "fused", etc. in other posts. So it would be more correct to call the grower competition one of an empirical pastime of creating selection pressure for a new domesticated species distinguished by its multiple fruit. Since I am the first to describe it as a new species, I will name them Megatoes. (And in parts of the South, "Megahtoes". ) LOL

We are witnessing a very interesting speciation in our lifetimes, as breeders will eventually create pure bred Megato plants. It is the logical conclusion of the crowd-sourced breeding program with Big Zac, at least. In 50 years these will be recognized as different as a pomelo is from a grapefruit, and then some.

Some food for thought anyway. As soon as the new species is recognized, all the records can be reclassified and solve the judging/nomenclature controversy. Just like when Pluto was reclassified.

Pupilla, as to how many blossoms fused together to create Gordon Graham's record tomato, I read that in an article written about him a good while ago. That may or may not have been something said by Gordon Graham so who knows for sure? But, I can say with some certainty that the huge tomato grown by Graham was the result of fused blossoms as no single Delicious tomato could ever reach that weight.

As to why tomatoes have been referred to as vegetables rather than fruits comes from a Supreme Court decision written by Judge Horace Gray in 1893 having to do with taxes on fruits versus vegetables. It seems that taxes were higher on fruits than on vegetables and so the case came before the Supreme Court. The decision was made by the court on the basis of tomatoes being served with the main meal, the principal part of the repast, rather than as a dessert, which is the usual case for fruits. And so tomatoes were taxed as vegetables.

I really like your comment on the crowd-sourced breeding program for tomatoes. There is presently mass confusion regarding the origins of seeds as tomato growers name the seeds after themselves with no regard to parentage etc. Already you have no idea of the history of some of the seeds. Growers are more interested in the size of the tomato and record keeping is poor.

Here is an interesting thread from 2007 about Gordon Graham and his real and replica tomato from awhile back.
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tomato/msg0717582529184.html?19

I can't figure out how to get the above so you can just click on it. I will try to learn

Marv

Marv, in order to get that link ACTIVE, use this HTML code:

TEXT

Remove the blank spaces before and after .

If you want to quote in Italic, the code is:

>

As above, remove the blank spaces before and after ..

"As to why tomatoes have been referred to as vegetables rather than fruits comes from a Supreme Court decision written by Judge Horace Gray in 1893 having to do with taxes on fruits versus vegetables. It seems that taxes were higher on fruits"

Growneat, Thanks for the thoughtful reply. As the child of a botanist, I am familiar with the Supreme Court debacle (only in America), and you have it backwards (fruits were free, vegetables were taxed at 10%) and it was quite the political issue in its time. I think it is worth exploring from the point of view of counting *one* tomato and whether their decision has an impact whatsoever on counting tomatoes, in case someone else got that idea.

It should be pointed out that the Court did not address the question on what constituted *one* tomato, nor how to count tomatoes, so any attempt to use the decision to count fused-fruited tomatoes is a grossly inappropriate application of case law.

On the contrary, the Supreme did not *rule* the tomato was generally a vegetable, which is widely misquoted, and as you mentioned, but rather were just talking about how to tax their import, quoting:
Tomatoes are "vegetables," and not "fruit," within the meaning of the Tariff Act of March 3, 1883, c. 121.

Note: they did not rule what a single tomato was, only “tomatoes” as an import, in the plural form.

We need to look at the intention of the 1893 Supreme Court ruling tomatoes a "vegetable" under the 1883 Tariff Act .

Does this lend to calling botanically defined multiple fruits as *a* or *one* tomato?

In fact, I think no, and that it is just the opposite. The Supreme Court in this 1893 case agreed the tomato was botanically "The *fruit of the vine*, that were taxable as vegetables under the act, only and limited to the sense that they were eaten, according to the Justices, integrated into the main course and not afterwards for dessert.

The intention of the resolution was that commercial import of vegetables were subject to 10% taxation, and fruits were free. One importer brought suit asking Uncle Sam to give him his money back after learning tomatoes were botanically fruits, although, everyone had been paying tax on them all along. Not to mention that politically tomatoes were grown in NY and area farmers wanted them to be taxed as it subsidized their pricing. The Court upheld the government’s right to keep collecting taxes on imported tomatoes, and essentially told the importer who filed suit not to be a wise guy and mess with the tax man.

Now, we must ask a reasonable hypothetical question of these justices and discuss how they might have seen it: What if the Tax Act taxation were not ad valorum (per value) but rather a per unit (per tomato) tax. And what if a sly importer bred a plant cultivar that made multiple fruited tomatoes and tried to import them as single tomatoes and get away with paying the tax due by failing to acknowledge that they were the product of two or more pistils fusing together. I think they would throw him out of the courtroom much quicker with a decision that they had to consider the botanically fused multiple fruits as more than one when it came to paying the tax man.

Note: The 1893 case treated imports of tomatoes coming from the Caribbean Islands into the Port of New York. Fruits were not taxable because there was generally no local competitive commercial growing of them. However, the threat of imported tomatoes getting in tax free was probably not taken lightly. It was not uncommon for the government to protect local interests and dismiss people who tried to cheat the system with rulings such as these.

If tomatoes were vegetables in the way multiple fruit growers compete, I have a 50 pound plant I’m going to enter in the next competition and I will claim it is a vegetable. Tomato leaves are arguably edible and all the tomatoes on the plant are connected, after all it is one big vegetable ...

This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Tue, Aug 26, 14 at 14:57

Just wanted to add one of the references I used to write the above post about the politics that led the tomato to be called "vegetable" for trade purposes. The major part of it was that tomatoes were processed and canned and this was a basic industrial powerhouse and political um, hot tomato, at the time of the case. It is no coincidence that the NJ state "vegetable" is the tomato, while Arkansas named it the state fruit and vegetable to avoid stepping on anyone's toma-toes.

Campbell Soup Company founded in 1869 in New Jersey provided work to thousands including immigrants and farmers alike with canned vegetable products (and nothing they called fruits). NJ is synonymous with tomatoes since then and has always had immigrants greatly passionate about them.

Campbell's had a well organized political lobby and was developing a competitive advantage due to their dealings with locally grown tomatoes and development of their stranglehold in the area’s produce.

Since processed tomatoes had a shelf life, it was a political manipulation and major coup for them so we can basically thank the Campbell's Soup Company for the US calling the tomato a vegetable since their idea of a vegetable was anything they could can which they promoted as "what Americans call vegetables" - their vegetable soups of course. If someone else had a cheap source of tomatoes, it would erode their competitive advantage with the produce markets and farmers in the NJ/NY area since the shelf life made it possible for a competitor to import tomatoes from the Caribbean cheaply without dealing with the strong arm tactics they utilized in the local produce markets, and did not sit well with farmers either who didn’t want to compete with imports either.

Hopefully this add perspective to the infamous historical "Supreme Court" tomato decision for what it really was about.

Here is a link that might be useful: NJ Tomato history

I thought that tomatoes are actually berries? This thread is getting interesting.

Deeby, botanically they are berries. Berries in a botanical sense are a subset of fruits, in that a single flower with one pistil and ovary gives rise to a single fruit.

It gets confusing, since strawberries (each seed-like thing is a fruit), blackberries and raspberries are not botanically berries, but aggregate fruits.

Regarding tomatoes, I just read as best I could the Wiki pages on vegetables, fruits and tomatoes in Italian Spanish and French, and I gather the rest of the world is unaware of the raging fruit/vegetable subject in the US since they all only referred to it as a fruit. I wonder about Canada.

And what's an aggregate fruit? I read somewhere that a strawberry is a seed pod? Or seed bearer or?

And what's an aggregate fruit? I read somewhere that a strawberry is a seed pod? Or seed bearer or?

I'm going to try to answer that in tomato terms. Have you ever looked carefully at the stems of your tomato flowers when the fruit doesn't set? There is like an elbow joint from the flower base/calyx to connect it to the main flower "stem". That connecting segment falls off at the joint when the flowers dry up and die.

The official name of that mini stem is the receptacle of the flower.

OK, in strawberries, it is that receptacle which balloons out into the fleshy red edible thingy we bite into and savor. The seeds on the surface are each fruits, because one strawberry flower typically has around 200 ovaries arranged in it.

So your strawberry flesh is botanically an "aggregate accessory" and not even part of the fruit. The accessory being the receptacle, since the receptacle is not the fruit, just the stem portion leading to its base. The things that look like seeds are actually tiny complete fruits with hardened flesh and skin around them and since they are multiple is can be called an aggregate. Raspberries are not accessory but each little one is a fruit, so a raspberry is an “aggregate fruit”.

That is a very different from a tomato which has one flower, one pistil w/one ovary. But …

The giant tomato varieties have higher incidence of a mutation or otherwise different genetic trait in that when the pistils fuse. That why giant tomato growers routinely extract pollen from other flowers since the anthers/pollen are not always sufficient to fertilize all the ovaries in the fusion, unlike typical garden tomato flowers that are sufficiently self-pollinizing.

Hope that helps, because it's the best I am able to do and still need to study more.

This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Tue, Aug 26, 14 at 18:26

In case you wanted to see a close up I just went out to my plants and saw some fused blossoming just now, so I snapped it.

Compare the foreground blossoming to the background regular one, and if you can count the sepals. It is on the same cluster, so you know something is up. I suspect these are very minor fused blossoms compared to the cables of sepals going on in other fused blossoms, but I do want her, since I'm not taking any special measures to direct my plants energy and a nice big juicy fat vegetable to show off would be a great bonus.

This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Tue, Aug 26, 14 at 18:05

It was suggested that I bring my question here rather than elsewhere. Does anyone have any idea as to how such big tomatoes can be grown on plants that are less than 3 feet tall?

Pupilla, thanks. You're right-it's confusing. But interesting.

"Does anyone have any idea as to how such big tomatoes can be grown on plants that are less than 3 feet tall?"

That's what we're supposed to ask you!

I don't know the growers but assume the Giant bunch does and can vouch for them, but still, for a record like that someone needs to seriously verify it carefully, especially if the loveable old record of kind Mr. Graham is going to fall since most everyone thinks his looked as uniformly crimson and symmetrical as the MG tomato statue. To be honest the new one looks like a 4-pack of beers and my first thought was whether they were even connected, and I would wonder if it were a joke. I don't know the growers who may be dear friends of some of you, so anyone, please, there is just official accounting to take care of so when the next guy comes along you are sure it is no hoax.

That said, grow-n-eat, I think you already had the best idea in a post a few months ago. Big roots and just one place to shove all the nutrients and sugars, but I think the roots don’t matter after a point, wouldn’t that be logical? That’s because eight pounds isn't such a great fruit load if that is all the plant had, is it really? Is there a metric for leaf area per pound at, say, at a daily average 400 W/m2 or some other Solar standard ... as to how much a given area of leaves can produce? I think that might be the scientific question with a zillion variables? Because the roots sure aren't fixing carbon dioxide, they are just there to meet the needs of the leaves.

Are you fishing outside the box on this one, like Dr. House ... cause when it comes like this I'm feeling like intern #13 in present company, but I do know how to wash cars ;-)

This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Wed, Aug 27, 14 at 17:23

I am thinking that for sure the vegetation has to be in balance with the fruit. You can count and measure the leaves and weigh the fruit. I think most us have overestimated how many leaves it takes to support one tomato. So, when the rubber hits the road, seeing has got to be believing. If a 30 inch plant can support an 8 pound tomato, it is what it is. And maybe a root system does not have to be all that big either if it does not have to go far for nutrients and water? The tomato is for real and you will be seeing it in the Guinness Book sometime soon unless someone grows a bigger one this year and a grower by the name of Boudyo in France could do it.

It’s very counterintuitive to me, since I always thought extra vine with foliage would always provide a net positive nutrition to the developing multiple fruit. Who would've thought... This is a good question not only for giants but also related to the ongoing "to prune or not to prune" controversy.

Time to put your thinking caps on and come of with a good theory. My entry is the plant is stressing and kilter so it goes for it with every last bit of energy it can muster ... to give it its everything. This theory would have a healthy plant with more growing nodes “knowing" setting energy in storage for future production, given what we are hearing.

I haven't looked back at the picture (thread got long ;-) and it wasn’t particularly easy to see everything, but what impressed me was how each component fruit or whatever the word is for them, reached roughly equal size. Most of the others I've seen seem to not have that uniformity.

I don't know if you think that would be worth further study: So far, we only have a statistical basis of one so it is too soon to conclude anything except by you guys skilled in the art with the feel of what's happening.

Dan MacCoy just weighed in a 6.88 pound tomato. This one was grown on a plant that was 30 inches tall.

Anybody can tell me why those leaves are so… CURLY ?

There has been speculation about that. Some believe it is a virus contained in the seeds. Quite a few plants from Boudyo, a grower in France, have been curly and even some of the entire new leaves. Others believed it was due to fertilizers sprayed on the leaves. Other than that your guess is as good as mine. Does anyone have a better answer?

I'm wondering if it has something to do with watering ?

Trying to catch up here.

Marv, you asked me if I knew the man in the video viz Gordon. I never met him but did talk to him once since Faxon Stinnett, one of the first members to join SSE,now deceased, also lived in OK and grew lots of tomatoes and did know Gordon and gave me his phone number.

User names? I've got 5 more registered so maybe I'll surprise someone sometime. LOL

About the curled leaveson thoseplants grown in MN.

Not a resultof a watering issue IMO, if so the leaves wilt first.

What else is known about those plants as in are they grafted, if so on which root stock.

Wasn't it posted here that they were grown from a Big Zac F1 branch or something like that.

Not a virus IMO b'c most of the viral diseases are not found in the north, an exception being CMV, but those are not CMV diseased leaves.

Leaves can curl like that for many reasons, too cold,too hot, too windy,too dry, too wet, and if theleaves curl over into a tight tube structure then consider aphids.

But something tells me that those guys wouldn't pose in back of affected plants,so my next suggestion is that the plants are hybrids, since it's well known that many hybrid varieties do curl leaves.

If grown from a BZ branch, that would be hybrid as in cloning.

So how do these suggestions appeal to you, or not.

Some of you complained about a bit of back and forth between Marv and myself, but in catching up I've been reading veryl ong posts about surpeme court decisions and Campbeill soup company, both of which I know all about. ( smile)

Last question. Why are Campbell soup cans red and white? No fair looking it up, just suggest why. LOL

Carolyn, who has her priorities so is going back to watching the US Tennis Open in the burbs o fNYCity. Smile) And who has another suggestion, but not until the above has been shot down by the experts here. ( wink)

This post was edited by carolyn137 on Thu, Aug 28, 14 at 17:54

The new record tomato was grown from a Big Zac F7. The new plants are much smaller than the original Big Zac and don't have nearly the root system. They are not all that vigorous from a vegetative standpoint. They seem not to be able to stand much heat as they are the first to want to wilt. Lots of chemicals have most likely been sprayed on the leaves including various fungicides such as Daconil, Manzeb and Immunox and most likely several different brands of chelated micronutrients such as Uncle Dunkel's and MG All Purpose. Its a wonder the stomata are not clogged up. Does that help? Also, I don't think anyone is eating them. I am not.

Yeah, I was wondering how it tastes... I wouldn't eat it either.

OK, so not cloning as I thought might be possible but saved F7 seeds at the F7 generation.

And we don't know if the seeds were saved from fruits from how many plants and how many fruits/plant at each successive generation, or do we.?

Which leaves lots of questions as to the genetics involved as I see it. There is genetic diversity within a variety which could also be at work.

Bottom line, a big fruit happened, but we don't know why in terms of how on such small plants as well as all the stuff that was thown at those plants as you mentioned above Marv and how those might have altered plant growth. etc..

Carolyn

Most generations of Big Zac are seed saved not only from one plant, but the largest fruit on that plant. F4 is one of the genetic bottlenecks for sure. The good guys keep records of this, and they have independent lines that can be backcrossed at any time so we can relax about that. Anyway it’s being done as best as a collaborative project can handle that (ROFL).

Once thing, just because Big Zac has a name, I don't think there is any proof that Big Zac F1 was ever stabilized. Or can someone come forward and give that proof?

There was a lot of hocus that went on with the parents as many of you well. Information is now lost to independent review. So although in some ways disorganized, the variety is evolving quite rapidly due to all the cooks working on the broth.

I can't help thinking that as uncomfortable as this can be to the purist, it is an opportunity to watch a process similar to that which developed the earliest heirlooms in American history from the tomatoes that founded America's heirlooms.

PC, who is so very excited to get an email today with a tracking number for my almost new copy of "100 Heirloom Tomatoes for the American Garden" for $9.70, after patiently waiting, waiting, and wading through some vendors asking up to $100 for it.

Interesting article from 1987 about graham setting record in 1986. seem Clearence Dailey the previous holder was not happy about graham's conjoined fruit beating him.

Here is a link that might be useful: milwauki jornal article from 1987 about graham record tomato

I really can't imagine that these tomatoes taste good. And I actually don't get why people grow tomatoes just for world records :D

Yeah, other than being ugly, how those tomatoes taste.

I dont mind discusing, even off the topic. This is just a forum. I don't even mind seeing some punches thrown. Actually it is interesting to me. BUT, i don't care how much those ugly, fused, cat faced tomatoes weigh. They resemble like some cancerous things from Dr. Frankstein's laboratory. hehe
JUST KIDDING.

Diversity is what makes the world go 'round. Where would we be if everyone liked the same thing? Some people like football, some basketball and some baseball and some even like soccer and don't forget the tennis people. Then, there are the cat people and the dog people. Ever watched an exciting checkers game or is chess more to your liking? All are doing their thing and having fun and that is part of life. I am trying to figure out how to grow a ten pound tomato. Hmmm, there is a new product called Uncle Dunkel's that looks interesting. It contains amine chelated micronutrients which apparently the stomata suck right up into the leaves of the tomato plant. And I am in the process of negotiating to get a seed from a new hybrid variety called Zaczilla, apparently a triple cross. Stay tuned.

growneat wrote:

> I am trying to figure out how to grow a ten pound tomato.

I wish you all the luck in the world !

This year Dan MacCoy used these two products:

Voodoo Juice Fertilizer (Advanced Nutrients) and

RTI Xtreme Gardening Mychorrhizal Innoculant (Mykos).

BOTH have EXCELLENT reviews in Amazon. Mykos was on my list this year, but it’s pretty expensive - 2.2-Pound Bag $27.05 (with Prime.) I’ll definitely use these two products next year.

Dan MacCoy also used Dunkels tomato turbo.

Never heard of Dunkel's fertilizer.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, by imho of newbie, the Dunkel's fertilizer - with its NPK 15-1-4 - will give me an Amazonian jungle foliage and few tomatoes.

Here is a thread in GardenWeb Dunkel's Original Tomato Plant Fortifier.

This post was edited by Daniel_NY on Fri, Aug 29, 14 at 11:38

Interesting article from 1987 about graham setting record in 1986. seem Clearence Dailey the previous holder was not happy about graham's conjoined fruit beating him.

Super link bananamelon. Great eye, screen captured keeper. So Mr. Graham's 1986 multiple fruit had the appearance of 3 tomatoes connected and then we look at the phony Miracle Gro fake. I will plant 1,440 tomato plants, so I can watch a sucker being born every minute.

Clarence Daily's 6 pound 8 ounce single fruit "Delicious" tomato record

Once thing, just because Big Zac has a name, I don't think there is any proof that Big Zac F1 was ever stabilized. Or can someone come forward and give that proof?

********

I mentioned, I think, in a post above that Bob Ambrose in NJ was doing a newsletter in the early 90's and featured article after article about Minnie Z,withpictures.

She represented it as being an F1 way back then, and it was as reported by those she shared seeds with..

But when she sold the rights to Totally Tomatoes which was then owned by Wayne Hilton, who had a stable of companies, a problem arose.

At the website it was said to rogue out all plants that were not typical of BZ F1, without saying what those were. With a true F1 there should be no reason to rogue out any F1, with few exceptions as to mule plants and the like,

Minnie was then invited to here by someone and what she said was that when TT subcontracted out the seed production they had lost one of the parents.

When Hilton sold TT to Jung's that agreement with Minnie went with the sale. Jung's was able to get the other parent from her and what they offered was true Big Zac F1.

So it was stable, until it wasn't stable, for the reason I just gave. I win.LOL

Congrats on getting such an excellent price price for my book,now out of print. Elsewhere there's a long thread about it and prices as high as $400 are being asked for, triple gulp.

I still have three pristine copies here at home and will sell out when the price reaches $1,000 and put that in my dark bittersweet chocolate budget, good diabetic that I am.LOL

Carolyn,now back to tennis and also says that it's good she's an elderly senior citizen who has participated at many message sites since 1982 so she can still relate some histories/background info now and then. (smile)

So it was stable, until it wasn't stable, for the reason I just gave. I win. LOL

That stealthy lubadub seems to have gone *poof*, I'd consult with him before even conceding Love-15 since he is more fun than me LOL!

I think in order to judge the merits of "Big Zac F1" as a cultivar; we need to compare opinions on what constitutes a cultivar. It can be subjective and perhaps with heirlooms much more so, but now we are asking about traits that result from inbred parent lines. That the seeds were an F1 cross certainly is reasonable acknowledgment. However, anecdotal reports of “Minnie’s friends” are not sufficient proof IMO, that Big Zac F1 ever was a hybrid cultivar. To know that for sure, IMHO, we would have to have a record of the breeding of both parents to form stable inbred parent lines such that when crossed they always gave a vigorous seed and always had the same combination of characteristics to clearly define the seed plant characteristics every time in terms of its characteristics not limited to consistent fused blossoming and vigor. Porterhouse is probably a good example of a hybrid in this sense.

If you mean to say that our heronie Ms. Zaccaria worked on both parent lines and Big Zac F1 was not drifting this or that way then I'll readily concede in straight sets. I vaguely recall as an armchair blabbing analyst who was off somewhere in the tropical jungles when this whole thing went down, a somewhat different version: That she simply crossed two heirlooms and used that as her F1 and little by little improved it, which I assume was via the parent lines.
I would need more than a a few friends waving their arms calling this a quality F1 hybrid that always performed "the same" There is a limit to how much "in-variety genetic diversity" there can be, and everything may not be recognized as a cull when this is done in a home garden. At some point you need to say the genetic diversity did not justify calling it a stable F1 hybrid, and you are just dealing with a cross.

Dealing with a cross is great, but the decision to name a variety is subjective and I'm sure plenty of varieties have been named that had parents that later were show not to breed true.

The scandal of losing a parent to me is highly suspicious and the loss is hearsay which may or may not be relevant or true. To be honest, after watching the passion with which giant tomato growers behold their seeds like Smeagol's "My Precious", given the nature of the egos in the competition, my only conclusion is that Big Zac F1 was simply a cross between two heirloom lines which had a higher frequency of expression of fused blossoms. I wonder if it is more accurate that Ms. Zaccaria discovered and should be credited with a higher frequency of fused blossoms, possibly a mutation, possibly not, which was still quite variable and requires significant resources to achieve the heterosis and uniformity a quality hybrid needs to give.

New breeding has probably advanced BZ (OP) well beyond the F1 from what we are seeing, and they still do not consider it stable (Unless the F* from Monsieur Boudyo has reached that point for a single specific trait).

I may have different thinking, since I also believe if the mutation is fixed and a consistent tomato producing multiple fruits is bred, that the new stable cultivar should be the beginning of as new subspecies at minimum recognized as different as broccoli is from cauliflower.

Perhaps when my great heirloom book arrives in the Male (smile), I’ll have a better understanding of hybrids ;-), but these are my thoughts as all-wet as they might be.

PC who really wants to ask a question about the systemic or not characteristics of initial Leaf Mold (whimper, frown) when I get up the guts to start another thread. and also subscribes to the academy of "it isn't how big it is but how well it eats" though still finding this fascinating in other people's gardens.

This post was edited by PupillaCharites on Sat, Aug 30, 14 at 14:25

My post will be shorter than yours. LOL

Another person who also contributed to Bob Ambrosesnewsletter was a coordinator of all theNJ expetion servies, a Ph. D withtraining, perhapshisnameis SteveMiller, andIknow that healsomoved tothe USDA station inGeneva, NY, asIjustposted about in another thread lessthan 5 minutesago.

SoIdon'tthinkMinnieZ waswithoutknopwledge of hybrids, and theonlywayyouhaveof determining ifyojuhave ahybridis tosave F2 seeds, plantoutalotofplants andseeifyouget genetic segregation,andIthink, yes, Ithink that was done, or WayneHiltonwouldnothave dealtwithMinnie onthat.

Also, whenMinniewashere at GW, andIwaspresent shewouldn'thavesaid that oneparent had beenlost for TT tosayto rogueoutplants/

IfyouknewWayneHilton,whichyoudidn't, it wouldn't have surprised you to seeproblemsarose whenhe subcontracted out for commercialproduction of her F1 hybrid.

You wrote:

(New breeding has probably advanced BZ (OP) well beyond the F1 from what we are seeing, and they still do not consider it stable (Unless the F* from Monsieur Boudyo has reached that point for a single specific trait).)

Your theory, not mine,

(I may have different thinking, since I also believe if the mutation is fixed and a consistent tomato producing multiple fruits is bred, that the new stable cultivar should be the beginning of as new subspecies at minimum recognized as different as broccoli is from cauliflower.)

Your idea,not mine,

(Perhaps when my great heirloom book arrives in the Male (smile), I’ll have a better understanding of hybrids ;-), but these are my thoughts as all-wet as they might be.)

Perhaps when the book written by Male arrives in the mail you'll quickly find out that NO hybrids are included in the book,(smile)

Carolyn,missing some excellent tennis right now and no time to edit so you can seperate the fused words yourself. LOL

Perhaps when the book written by Male arrives in the mail you'll quickly find out that NO hybrids are included in the book,(smile)

YES, that was the punch line of my joke which is why I smiled first! I get a few in there every once in a while ;-)

The rest of the fused stuff, are all plausible assumptions and tend to demonstrate more people were involved ... well, except one opinion, I prefer tomatoes over tennis anytime and anyplace LOL

It is a richer background on the subject. I take it that no pre-fiasco BZ F1 is still available for anyone new, and viable, and that Ms. Zaccaria for whatever reason sold, disposed, destroyed or held back every seed she saved from her breeding efforts for the lost parent of her singularly amazing claim to fame. Hmmmm.

That's probably something you've discussed at some point, but after being the Champion of NJ and investing so much into it, regardless of what others did, that she would at least not have had some seed to re-establish the parent line doesn't add up. But I guess life changes and crap happens, priorities change, people sign papers, and that loss might be as unbelievable as it is true.

PC off to tend some tomatoes