Deformed Tomato Seedling - permanently?

[GoDawgs]

I have this one tomato seedling without a central leader. It just never developed one as if the apex was damaged somehow or just never developed and I've never seen this before. Anyone have any explanation or other input?

It's just 2" tall while its surrounding buddies are 5-6" tall. Should I just toss it or might it eventually put out a shoot near the top that will become a leader? Maybe toss it as it doesn't seem to be getting any taller.

[worth1]

Just toss it because it won't do anything but die anyway.

[PNW_D]

it depends on how precious your seed is ...... I've had a few like this over the years - some die, but some throw a very weird tiny first leaf, then take off

I have one right now - old seed that really struggled to free itself from the seed coat - not sure which way it will go - but it is the only one I have .....

[Gardadore]

I learned last year (maybe on a TJ thread) that it’s called a blind seedling. I think it was suggested to remove those first leaves and sometimes the real ones will emerge. I must research that again.

[Tormato]

You actually have "something" very small in the middle of the seedling. The ones that have nothing but a clean notch in the middle, produce nothing.

I've seen enough of them to guess that it will either produce nothing (and take 3 to 4 weeks to eventually die), or there is the much lesser chance that it will start to grow.

[GoDawgs]

I appreciate the input! The seedling is an SOTW that I have since reseeded in another pot. I think I'll just keep the oddball just to see what, if anything, happens.

[mention]Gardadore[/mention], "Blind seedling", that's a good term for it.

[mention]Tormato[/mention] , there is the slightest hint of "something" in the middle. A magnifying glass still didn't really reveal what it is. I'll keep an eye on it.

[GoDawgs]

I just searched "blind seedling" and after scrolling past braille books for the blind I found something about tomato seedlings.

https://www.seedquest.com/technology/fr ... efault.htm

Interesting. It also shows two other types of blind seedlings.

[Whwoz]

Must agree with comments above, sometime they grow out, others don't.

[Ginger2778]

Personally, I would toss it out. They're not that uncommon, and I've had 10 or so over the years, but they mostly never do anything, and those that do are always stunted runts compared to their seed "siblings". I certainly wouldn't want to save seed from it's fruit.

[Gardadore]

Interesting that after reading this thread I went up to my porch for my daily seedling check. Most of my seeds for tomatoes and eggplants are started in moist paper towels and then transferred to cups once they germinate. I noticed that two eggplants already in cups (Prosperosa) looked odd and sure enough on close inspection see that they are “blind”. I have never had two of the same variety do that. It is a new pack of seeds and I was happy to get 4 that germinated. Now only two have made it but I started some more. This must be a challenging variety since the old pack never germinated well so I bought a new one. The four seeds germinated quite quickly but only 50% continued to develop. Very unusual. Wish I knew the cause. No other seeds are doing this.

[Tormato]

On a rarity scale, I place the blind seedling between tricots and quadcots (a plant with 2 headers). In a very rough estimate, tricots are perhaps about 1 in 1,000 seedlings. I'll see one or more, on average, every year. I'll see one blind seedling about every 3 to 4 years. I've only seen 2 quadcots.

[Shule]

It's also possible that an insect just ate the growth tip, by the look of it, but yeah, everyone else could be correct that it's a malformation.

To me, if looks like it'll probably grow leaves if it has enough light. To save it, I'd probably put it as close to the light as you can, in order to stimulate the growth of new branches. That's worked for me on leafless plants without growth tips, putting them like an inch and a half from a row of CFL bulbs (I haven't tried it in your exact scenario). Removing one of the cotyledons to stimulate growth as someone mentioned earlier is an interesting idea; I'm not sure if it'll work, but it might be worth a try.

Closer light makes tomatoes grow faster.

[goodloe]

I have a similar situation going on. These are all the same variety, Spectrum's Surpriz. All grown from my 2020 saved seed...

20210412_184022.jpg

Thoughts?

[MissS]

[mention]goodloe[/mention] I have never had any luck with a plant that looks like those two. I did try though. They eventually just died after taking up my time and space.

[GoDawgs]

[mention]goodloe[/mention] , that's strange that it's happening in the collected seed. I take it that the original plants you collected from were OK as seedlings?

My blind seedling looks like there's something that wants to emerge from the top. Still too small to tell.

[Tormato]

I have a similar situation going on. These are all the same variety, Spectrum's Surpriz. All grown from my 2020 saved seed...20210412_184022.jpg

Thoughts?

You gotta stop using Montgomery Burns' line of Excellence! garden products.

[Ginger2778]

@goodloe I have never had any luck with a plant that looks like those two. I did try though. They eventually just died after taking up my time and space.

Exactly.

[slugworth]

Lucky me,I have 2 of them.
One was a precious 10 year old saved seed from my late mother,the other was from a six pack of bought mortgage lifter plants.
The cotyledons are fat,but no sign of any true leaves forming at the plant, just cleavage.
One I hit with aspirin for my headache.

[Rockoe10]

I had a growth mutation last year. I left it go and it turned out even more interesting that i thought! At first i didn't think it would grow, but it turned out to have two grow points. I then noticed the leaf shape was a little odd, but didn't pay to much attention to it. Then, when fruit set started, it was abundant! More than any other, so early. It turned out that it didn't require pollination to set fruit! Later in the season, the fruit started to have more seeds however. I say, don't give up, it could turn out better than you thought

20210721_193817.jpg

20210510_195701.jpg

[slugworth]

The aspirin one is starting to stick it's tongue out at me,so that is a good sign.
Mortgage lifter bought seedling.