Bob,

I think this is one of those stories that gets bigger as time goes on, and I'm not buying it. I think whoever wrote the book is exaggerating. Just because something is printed in a book doesn't make it true.

When TIME magazine ran this story in the 1930s, the bet was for 10 tons of tomatoes on one acre, and he failed--raising only 7.95 tons. So, if the tomato wager in the biography you read is the same tomato wager mentioned in TIME magazine, then the book's account seems suspect to me.

By the way, in the world of commercial field production (with irrigation, I'm sure) of tomatoes, 7.95 acres is only slightly below what is considered a good yield---8.5 tons per acre. (Hydroponic growers can grow considerably more per acre in an ideal setup in an ideal year.)

So, I think the book you read is exaggerating and trying to turn a simple incident into an amazing legend. You know, it if sounds "too good" to be true, it probably is.

It is a good story, but I don't think it is a true one.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: TIME's mention of Chrysler's Tomato Challenge

To address the fun part of your original thread, what could one of raise on one acre? Well, if you have ideal soil and all the water you need, you should be able to plant between 4,000 and 8,0000 plants per acre. Commercially grown field plants probably average 5-10 lbs. per plant (doesn't sound like a lot, does it?), So, with 4,000 plants and 5 lbs. per plant, you'd have 20,000 lbs. of tomatoes. Or, if you had 8,000 plants and 10 lbs. per plant, you'd get 80,000 lbs. You probably could increase the number of pounds per plant if you drastically overwatered, but you'd just be producing big, watery bags of skin with little flavor.

Of course, what people get in the real world is very different from theoretical numbers on paper. I think the average in the tomato world nowadays with tightly controlled irrigation/fertigation, is probably 40 tons per acre in an average field in an average good year.

Ironically, a commercial grower doesn't want to grow too many....or, at least, they don't want to grow so many that they aren't worth much. It's the old law of supply and demand. If there is a huge oversupply of tomatoes at any given time, the price per pound will drop substantially and it costs more to harvest the tomatoes that you will be paid for growing them. Most commercial growers grow under contract and one of the stipulations is that only X amount of tomatoes will be harvested per year, no matter how many are on the plants. This prevents a 'tomato glut' that can bankrupt farmers by driving prices down through the floor.

This year, by the way, was 'a perfect storm' (in a good way) for growers in some parts of California and one farm is reporting 93 tons per acre on some of its acreage. However, they all have not been harvested and will not be harvested because of contractual stipulations.

If you are a small market grower, you want to strive for the largest EARLY crop possible. Tomato-starved people will pay a lot for tomatoes in late May and early June, and then as the summer goes on and the harvest increases, the price per pound drops substantially. So, if I wanted to make money raising tomatoes, I'd go for the early yields.

However, growing tomatoes is VERY labor intensive and I doubt 1 or 2 people could keep up with one acre of tomato plants even if that was all they did, 15-20 hours per day.

When I have grown 300-400 tomato plants in the past, they took every spare second I had to give to them...and they needed more time than I had.