Topic: Cordon tomatoes with "sunflower" blooms

[weedin project]

I have some cordon tomatoes called "Black Krim" (beefsteak from Russia) and many of them have developed an unusually large flower at/near the growing tip; the flower is many times larger than the others developing on trusses below them.
I have done gone and pinched them off - now I wonder if I should have done it. ::)

Does anyone have any info about this type of flower?

[Mrs Ava]

I somtimes find big, almost flattened flowers on my beefsteak toms, but I leave them to it and normally get an odd shaped tom.  Wonder if it is where the flower bud is damaged in some way when it is a teeny. 

So, is the flower actually at the top of the plant, so the to won't grow upwards any more?  Curious!

[weedin project]

Hi EJ

it's not right at the very top, but usually the highest point - the size of it seems to force the new growth to one side.  Don't know if it continues to grow or not, that's what I'm worried about :o

[beejay]

Would this be an example of fasciation where stems & sometimes flowers flatten out & enlarge. It happens to lots of plants the commonest that I know being forsythia.

[Merry Tiller]

It's genetic, most of my large toms are the same

[ruud]

No worry a lot of my tommies got them.mostly there is a big odd shaped tommie as result.It is as if more flowers grow as one.

[weedin project]

I've never heard of fasciation before.  However this seems to be happening more than "sometimes" - out of 14 plants I think about 10 have had this feature so far.

Merry Tiller's post seems the most reassuring so far, so I'll assume there is a genetic disposition and that the plants will continue to develop OK.

[cleo]

Fascination?-who ever said they grow like boring hybrids?-the proof is in the eating