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Cracked green tomatoes....

All of my bigger tomato varieties are doing this.

I had a ton of tomatoes set early this year, due mostly to our pretty awesome weather I think. The fruits came out, looked beautiful. Now, a few weeks later, they are all splitting in half (still growing but you can see the seed and everything.

I pulled a few off and checked for bugs, etc but there doesn't seem to be any.

I don't think this is due to watering, the tomatoes last year got a TON more water thanks to rain and that only caused problems with almost ripe tomatoes with their thin skin and lots of juice.

The cherry tom's and roma types are doing great. It's just the larger types doing this. The problem is that 80% of the fruits are cracked nearly in half...

Should I pick off the ones damaged like this? Is there something I should avoid doing to remedy this?

Maybe I should find some pics...

Thanks!
 
Hmmmmm...well, you mentioned the water not being the cause but it can still be the cause. Only one session of watering can cause fruit to swell.

When this happened to me, they usually scabbed over and the fruit was fine, but I wouldn't mind seeing some pics of the damage to judge.
 
Nothing wrong with those at all! Sometimes the larger varieties grow like this. It's often called "Catfacing" and shows up quite frequently on heirloom varieties as well. Nothing you can do about this except cut out those pithy parts of the skin. They should taste fine though. If you have any more on the vine, leave them and they will ripen and taste great!
 
Even though the seeds are showing and some of the tears are kinda mushy around the edges?

And yeah, about 80% of my fruits are doing that.

Hmmm. I'll leave the rest and see how they do. Thanks all.
 
lostmind said:
But you know, I gotta go out and play with my plants everyday. If I don't look, then they don't grow! hahaha
I take the quantom physics/holographic universe route. If I don't inspect my plants many times a day then they revert back into a wave form and don't grow. :lol:
 
imaguitargod said:
I take the quantom physics/holographic universe route. If I don't inspect my plants many times a day then they revert back into a wave form and don't grow. :lol:

quantum physics... does it help grow hotter chili's and tastier tomatoes?
 
Ciao all-

For those of you who grow both huge beefsteaks and cherry tomatoes, catfacing is easily explained when you compare the flowers of both. Have a look at some of the early flowers on the large-fruited varieties. Sometimes you'll see enormous chrysanthemum-type flowers, sometimes even doubles. These flowers can be difficult to pollinate completely, especially during periods of high humidity because tomato pollen grains stick together then. Cherry tomato flowers, by comparison, are much smaller and simpler in structure, making them easier to completely pollinate, thus you don't really see catfacing in cherries. Grocery tomatoes are often grown in greenhouses with state of the art climate control, so the resulting product is a tasteless, perfectly round red globe. Enjoy your ugly duckling delicious home-grown heirlooms while your neighbours buy tasteless beautiful cardboard at the store.
 
Well I've found the uglier the tomato, the tastier it is! But I figured something was seriously wrong with these. Glad that I was wrong, a little upset I tore 3 tom's off the plant for pics. My big tom's don't produce well for me, I'm pretty lucky to get ~6 fruits per plant going on last years production.
 
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