Many Hybrids have been selected for perfect looking fruit in the past. Many farmers near me grow the Mountain series. I have grown Mountain Spring twice and indeed they all ripen (Det) around the same time and are picture perfect beauties. Many people equate attractiveness with great taste. It's human nature. Do you pick the best looking apples in the bin? Best looking bananas? Who'd you rather look at, Mother Theresa or Gisele Bundchen in a fashion mag? LOL!

But, in tomatoes taste has nothing to do with looks. Looks are dependant on variety and taste is also dependant on variety for the most part with a little cooperation from growing conditions and individual taste buds...;-)

I agree that many hybrids produce some picture perfect tomatoes. Try growing an old beefsteak (if you can find them) next to its hybrid, picture perfect counterpart like Beefmaster or Supersteak.

If you want to grow a picture perfect hybrid with great taste, try Burpee's "Brandy Boy".
Brandy Boy is a cross between Better Boy and Brandywine and will produce 1-2 pound tasty, pink fruit. They grow well for me in Western PA.

Thanks for the suggestions, they are helpful, but like you guys - I do grow my tomatoes for taste and I will probably always grow a few ugly varieties just because of taste alone. What I'm wondering is how people manage to get near perfect examples of heirloom tomatoes that are known to crack. For example, if you look at most heirloom seed websites. All of their fruit examples are perfect looking.

Here's a specific example to make my point: Go to tomatofest.com and look at the pictures of the heirloom tomato varieties. I didn't see a single one with a crack - or a blemish of any kind for that matter. If cracking is genetic and is going to happen no matter what, how did he get those pictures - are they all photoshopped?

If cracking is the main problem you want to avoid then just pick at blush stage and ripen inside. That way you eliminate the risk of cracking, bugs, disease, sun scald, hail, birds, etc. etc. Viola' - perfect tomato. ;)

Several current discussions here on the many advantages of blush or 'break' picking.

Dave

Photoshop. ( just like Giselle!)

What Dave said. I would have had some cracking/splitting right now had I not picked them yesterday.

I would recommend Big Beef OP if you want a blemish-free OP tomato - not a hybrid. I also had good results with Black Krim last year.

The advantage of the SWC (in my personal view) is the consistent water availability and fertilizer strip - - rather than "shock" conditions of hitting the plant with a bunch of water from the hose, or a periodic dose of fertilizer. "Steady-Eddy" seems to work.

Raybo

hi homegardenpa,

i have had very good luck with my aplause (3)i pick them at medium blush and so far i have picked 25 tomatoes and
only one had one crack.

they have been between 1 pound one ounce and the smallest one was 4 ounce,very nice looking tomatoes and they taste
as good as they look.

les

The best looking Tomatoes I've ever grown are Pale Perfect Purpleaka Purple perfect. This is a great tasing Tomato and the plant is a heavy producer. My favorite Tomato is Stump of the World and in a fairly nice looking Tomato as well
Jim

Eva Purple Ball is very attractive and uniform.

homegarden, OK, I better understand now. I think those perfect heirlooms in the catalogs and online pics are just lucky. I'll get a few beautiful Brandywines, KBX's, etc per plant. Just lucky. A few beauties, most middling and some truly uglies. Not consistant like a commercial hybrid ie the Mountains. The beauties you see were chosen by their editors like Hugh Hefner chooses from thousands of applicants for HIS magazine. LOL Also, picking early like Dave says also goes a long way on keeping a beauty a beauty!

afbg...Photoshopped Gisele?! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Thanx for ruining my fantasy! LOL

Look agaon when you look at pictures of tomatoes at websites, seed catalogs, etc.

Do you see any of them showing the stem end? You do not. So you aren't going to see the typical radial and concentric splitting that many of the OP heirlooms can show.

And since horizontal splitting is the result of uptake of excess water following downpours or too much irrigation, b/c the epidermis is at it's maximum size, so just splits, it's no problem waiting for the next flush or ripe fruits to photograph fruits with no side splitting.( smile)

So look at all the perfect fruit pictures you want to and then in your mind's eye visualize what the stem end looks like. ( smile)

Unfortunately such PPP's ( perfect picture photos) I think give a very wrong impression to those who are growing OP's for the first time and we all know it b'c of all the many questions here and at other message sites asking .....what's wrong with my tomatoes....they have rotten areas near the stem with splits, etc.

Carolyn, who doesn't grow tomato varieties for beauty contests, rather, she grows them for primarily taste.( smile)

you know the old saying / the uglier the tomato the sweeter the taste

Also, to prevent cracking; before planting dig deep and wide. Mulch your plants and keep evenly moist !