Have you ever seen a tomato flower quite like this? It’s known as a megabloom! A megabloom is defined as a single, massive cluster of tomato flowers that form into one. These blooms are larger than the average tomato flower, and can be unusual in appearance compared to regular tomato flowers. The large dense clusters of flowers have fused ovaries, pedicles, blossoms, and eventually tomatoes! Often times a megabloom can also be one large flower, or 5 in a ball-like formation. When a tomato plant has a megabloom, it’s putting forth a significant amount of energy into that flower.
Tomatoes require a balanced nutrient regiment. An imbalance of nutrients – such as too much nitrogen – can cause atypical blooming. Excess amounts of nitrogen encourage vegetative growth, but can also bring on unusually large or densely clustered flowers. This is the plants attempt to bloom more, and compensate for its deficiencies.
When a tomato plant is under stress, it can lead to megabloom development. Stresses include; high heat, extreme cold, lack of water, or inconsistent watering schedules, and changes in the light intensity/ exposure. Tomato plants can experience abnormal flowering behaviour and a sure in flowering within a concentrated area.
Some varieties are more prone to producing Megablooms. Megablooms are most common among open-pollinated heirloom varieties because they may be genetically predisposed to produce larger fruit, and an abundance of flowers. It is not clear if this is exclusive to heirloom varieties or not.
Pollination is essential in order for most plants to set fruit, while some varieties are able to self-pollinate. When growing in an indoor environment, some heirloom varieties must be hand pollinated. Insufficient pollination can lead to flowers maturing in an unusual, ununiform way. Lack of pollination can lead to fused blooms, or larger than normal flowers.
Megablooms can be both good and bad, depending on what your goal is. If your goal is extremely large and unique looking fruit, then Megablooms are exactly what you want. There are some negatives to keeping a megabloom on your plant. Harvests may be smaller, as the megabloom consumes most of the plant’s energy. Many gardeners opt to pluck the Megablooms off, to redirect the energy to normal fruit production, this is because a megabloom requires a significant amount of the resources designated to the plant. The dense flower cluster can also contribute to excess humidity leaving the plant vulnerable to mildew.
If you spot a megabloom on your tomato plant, no need to worry, you have a few options on how to handle it. You can keep the megabloom, and see what kind of franken-tomato it produces, or you can prune them off in order to redirect the energy to regular fruit production. Its important to understand that keeping a megabloom on your plant may affect the yield. If your goal is freakishly large tomatoes, keep it! If the goal is to have a bi yield of average sized tomatoes, prunin them off is the best practice.
Some may see the super-sized blooms as a bonus, while others view this as a garden mystery. Nevertheless, this gardening phenomenon is one of the many wonders of plants! At The Fresh Princess, we are ALWAYS looking for cool and exciting things that happen in the garden, so if your garden has an exciting mystery – share it with us!
