I’ve never focused specifically on getting large fruits, I’ve only had them up to about 1.5 lbs. i did recently read Marv Meisner’s book, which was interesting and had a few general principles that maybe I’ll list.

-Very meticulous soil prep, compost, mulching etc.

-Picking strong seedlings and burying them deeply to maximize roots.

-Pruning to one or two stems, pruning off any small flowers, pruning off any small fruits, until eventually you’re left with only the giants.

-Heavy fertilizing, changing with the stage of life of the plant and fruits. Lots of focus on foliar feeding.

-Watering just right, enough for great growth and large fruit without any loss due to splitting.

-Really pollinating your mega blooms, since those blossoms are the ones that will give you the giants.

Anyways, @Rockoe10 and anyone out there who wants to share, spill all your dirty secrets so the rest of us can grow big boys too

I'll be trying a few this year and will probably graft them like I do for all my heirlooms. It will be interesting if the strong rootstocks will help at all with size. I'd be curious if any of the regular jumbo tomato growers have tried it.

I've gotten a few KBX approaching 2lbs and a 1884 pink that was 2.1 last year. But in the past I usually pinch off megablooms since splitting is such an issue with them, plus you get weird cores that can leave you with a lot less useable tomato than expected from such big fruit.

But this year I intend to try to win my county fair, so megablooms will get priority!

If you are a TV member AKMark grew a world record tomato his first time out. You could ask him some tips and tricks and perhaps get him to start posting here. He is a member but has not made a single post. Also take a look at some of the Giant Pumpkin sites. Those folks grow giant tomatoes too. They have some great information and glogs to follow. Many years ago I grew Giant Pumpkins and I wouldn't think that what you need to feed and do is not too far from growing the giant tomatoes.

I haven't grown any records, mostly because i haven't tried, and partly because i wanted more usable tomatoes (so no mega blooms), which i intend to do differently for this little competition.

However, i do grow particularly large tomatoes. Bigger than most of my neighbors and friends, even though our varieties aren't that different. I contribute it to a couple things.

1) And most important, is water. Water makes big, tasteless tomatoes. Fill them fruit full of water. I do this with daily watering, and lots of it. Soak the roots deep to prevent cracking.

2) Composting. I take all my kitchen scraps and bury them in the garden. Take a shovel, and put it 1 foot under. I even put meat bones in! Yes, this is very effective. Just make sure you dont put too much fat in, and no salt. So i stay away from bacon and stick with chicken and beef.

3) I mulch with straw. In more specificly, my ornemental grass. When i cut it back, i spread it on my garden. And during the spring, before the seeds start, i put my law clippings on my garden too.

4) I've staked and Ive let them crawl. I haven't noticed too much difference. It really seems to depend on the variety. For example, My Kellogg's Breakfast did AMAZING this last summer. 40 lbs of tomatoes per plant, easily. I let those plants crawl.

Those are my regiments. I'm constantly adapting, and changing. I'm eager to hear what others do, and utilize some of their procedures.

MissS wrote: ↑Wed Feb 09, 2022 11:39 am If you are a TV member AKMark grew a world record tomato his first time out. You could ask him some tips and tricks and perhaps get him to start posting here. He is a member but has not made a single post.

Without being a member over there I can’t see pics unfortunately. But from what I’ve read just lurking AKMark grows indoors hydroponically? Really wish that site showed its pics, it’s amazing how much knowledge is over there

Start with big, overfertilized plants. Don't be afraid of those super thick stems, curled tops and huge leaves. This will also encourage mutant flowers. For this you will need well prepped soil with good amount of humic acids, organic fertilizer, aeration, and good pH. Then top the plant at the most at 4th level of flowers (prune to one stem, I guess that is obvious). And pick one tomato from that plant before topping that you think will make it big (prethickening of the pedicel). Continue to feed heavy K and a bit of everything else as the fruit grows and watch for any imbalances (like lack of Mg, Zn, etc).

Watering a lot can make some varieties grow bigger fruit (but not all varieties).

Copper is said to help fruits absorb more water. Not sure what difference it has with fruit size, though. I don't mean excess copper. Too much stops roots from growing.

Here is a very informative thread on TV.
http://tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=38899

Big Pumpkin has some monster tomatoes and grower there keep glogs. http://www.bigpumpkins.com/Default.asp

What’s the consensus on fertilizing before they go in the ground? I’ve never fed them when they’re under the lights but have heard people recommend diluted MG. Is there an organic option or does that risk bringing on the diseases?

@Mark_Thompson
Do you mean amending the soil that you're transplanting into, or fertilizing the container before the transplant into the ground?

Either I guess. But mostly fertilizing the container (in my case a quart size yogurt cup) before I transplant into the ground when the plant is about a foot tall.

It really makes no difference when you actually start "growing" the plant, but when you start don't let up. Keep nutes and moisture constant, especially N and K.

Once my plants have set their first fruit I keep the soil moist enough to plunge my fingers to my knuckles at all times in the root zone. If plants are severely undernourished even at fruit set, they can be turned around on a dime with proper care.

I'll add a little about judging plant health.

A plant should be kept lush and healthy throughout the season. One way to gauge the health is by stem thickness. The stems of a plant should be right at 1/2 inch thick about a hands width from the top of the plant. This rule will apply to basically any variety det. or indt. Another quick way to judge whether the plant is receiving max moisture and nutes is how tender the tops are. The tops should be lighter green, tender, and continually growing throughout the season. If within a few inches of the top it is tough, woody and doesn't snap easily the plant needs moisture and nutrients.

Keeping a younger plant healthy is pretty easy. When the plant starts loading up with fruit, water and nutrition requirements will start to compound quickly- and I mean quickly! In order for full production, and quality fruit all needs to be met. Those tips are just a few of the things I have picked up on over the last few decades of growing maters by eye.

As a rule, I no longer will use organic fertilizers indoors. I did one year and mold grew everywhere that I used the organics and I lost all of my plants. Given that, it's now MG or something similar until I move them outdoors.

I wonder if this old French method of dwarfing tomatoes for increased fruit size might be useful for those growing giant tomatoes. I've never tried this method, and had never heard of it before today (it was published in 1863).

Shule wrote: ↑Wed Mar 16, 2022 8:01 pm I wonder if this old French method of dwarfing tomatoes for increased fruit size might be useful for those growing giant tomatoes. I've never tried this method, and had never heard of it before today (it was published in 1863).

That isn't a bad method but for growing the giants I would wait until you have a few fertilized fused blossoms. To get the biggest fruit, you need fused blossoms. After you have chosen your fruit(s) then terminating the plants growth is not a bad practice at all.

Is it even worth letting single flowers set fruit? Or should I keep pruning them and hold out for a fused flower that’s a double or better?

One of my plants has a double that is looking promising, so definitely keeping that, just wondering about all the singles on the first few flower trusses.

@Mark_Thompson
I don't know about other people's experience, but in mine, tomatoes usually only grow megablooms at the beginning of the season, and that's it; sometimes they do it longer, but it's rare.

One thing you can do to help get giant tomatoes is this:

- Grow a lot of plants of the same giant variety.
- Save seeds from the plant that grows the biggest fruits (not seeds from the biggest fruit overall, if the plant doesn't reliably produce them like that). Plant genetics are supposed to be more likely to make a bigger genetic impact than individual fruit genetics.

Keep doing that. Supposedly, people weren't making much headway with tomato breeding back in the day until someone decided to select for the most desirable plants instead of the most desirable fruits.

EDIT (8 Apr 2022--after the initial replies to this post):
My source for that selection method was the following link:
https://www.grit.com/food/history-of-to ... z1504zdeh/

See the heading called 'Early Tomato Seed Saving', which says:

"Early efforts at improving tomatoes focused on saving seed from particular fruits that exhibited a desired characteristic. This proved to be unsuccessful, and it wasn’t until Alexander Livingston’s breakthrough — using single plant, rather than single fruit, selection — that a reliable tomato-improvement method arose. . . ."

I believe it's true that giant fruit breeders (especially in the watermelon community) tend to select for the largest fruits, instead of the plants with the largest fruit, but I'm not sure how many of them actually know about this piece of history (and I'm sure the largest fruit often coincides with the plant with the largest fruit). Fruit-selection can sometimes yield results, though (I've seen such results myself): I'm not saying it doesn't, but I'm saying this article seems to indicate that there's an easier and more reliable method (if you can grow lots of plants, that is).

It should be noted that selecting by plant with watermelons probably wouldn't produce as reliable results as selecting by plant with tomatoes, since watermelons are monoecious (where flowers don't pollinate themselves) and tomatoes have perfect flowers (where self-pollination is generally what happens). What I'm saying is, you never know which plant was the father plant of a watermelon, if you're growing lots of them (although you know the mother, at least), but there's a good chance the same plant is the father plant of a tomato. It's possible that the giant tomato community began to emulate the giant watermelon community in their methods of developing giant tomatoes, and that maybe there is a better way (for tomatoes, anyhow; it should help with watermelons, too--since the mother plant has 50% of the genes, as well as all the mtDNA and such--but probably not as reliably as with tomatoes where cross-pollination isn't as big of an issue).

This method would probably be pretty great in the development of improved wonderberry varieties (since picking out a single fruit out of so many small ones can be difficult, but picking out a whole plant would be a lot easier)--but wonderberries aren't tomatoes, even if they're in the same genus, have perfect flowers (I believe), and have similar uses.