what causes 'beaks' on sides of tomatoes?

[patandchickens]

I've wondered for years and now have a chance to ask where maybe somebody knows the answer

You know what I'm talking about? How sometimes a tomato will develop a pointy 'nose' sticking out of the side of it? Photos used to show up in Organic Gardening magazine all the time (back in the good old days) dressed up as Groucho Marx or chickens or things like that.

I've gotten a whole lot of them this year; some years I get none.

Anyone know what's up with that?

Pat

 

[Rosalind]

I believe it is a weird genetic accident of the hybridization process. I could be wrong. Pretty sure that the key research being done on bizarre fruit shapes in the Solanaceae is by the Van Der Knaap lab at OSU-Wooster. She just had a Science paper and I may say is a very nice lady with great molecular skills.

Apparently fruit shape in tomatoes and peppers is controlled by single nucleotide polymorphisms. You know how easy those are to come by...

Kinda strange to me how fluid and alternately fragile plant DNA seems compared to mammalian. I don't know that much about the peculiarities of DNA repair in plants, sorry.

 

[punkin]

We just call them "boy tomatoes".

 

[theOEGBman]

We just call them "boy tomatoes".

Unfortunately.... I call them the same thing!

 

[me&thegals]

Hee hee! I had some with belly buttons, but as they were heirlooms I think I just shot a hole in the hybridization theory...

My kids have books completely illustrated with photos of veggies created into characters. So, that funky tomato would get black-eyed peas for eyes, a carved out funny mouth, etc.

 

[janetnjim]

We just call them "boy tomatoes".

Does that make this a boy carrot?

 

[punkin]

 

[me&thegals]

My goodness!! That carrot is uncanny!

 

[poppycat]

OMG! That's a boy carrot if I've ever seen one.

 

[OaklandCityFarmer]

Pat-

I do know that we have had some pretty strange looking tomatoes when the temps dip lower than around 50 degrees. We've had the 'beak' before on many different varieties so it's hard to say if there is one that is particularly susceptible. Since we only grow maybe 2 or 3 hybrid varieties and have seen the issue on many heirlooms I'm not sure about the hybridization mutation theory.

Either way, at least you're getting tomatoes, right? I know a lot of folks haven't been so lucky.