Thanks...but I do think it's an Early Girl as the tomatoes are identical to all the other plants. This one just won't stop growing & producing! I've never seen anything like it!

Sure it could be. As I said that is only the most likely explanation for the differences and it is a common thing to happen - one plant in a 6 pack doesn't make it so someone sticks another plug in its place. But there are easily over a thousand varieties of tomato plants that produce fruit identical to Early Girl - red, round, and 6 oz. - so it could also be one of them. ;-)

It could also be a cross-pollinated seed or a hybrid throwback but there is no way to know one way or another. Just enjoy the healthy plant and don't worry about it.

Dave

Well, it is nature not a factory to produce identical items. So maybe one seed/plant had much healthier genes, grew healthier roots and so forth. We often complain about how one plant is doing so poorly or even being mule. So the opposite can happen too. JMO

Sey

Thanks very much to Dave & Sey! I'm not worried...just curious. I have never in my life seen a tomato plant so prolific & so huge!!! I've been a gardener for years & years & have never had anything like this happen. I named it 'Audrey' (from Little Shop of Horrors). I feel like it should be a 1st prize blue ribbon winner! LOL! Thanks again!

Where I have lived (Ohio, Ky, and Pa), Early Girl should be about 8 feet by Sept when planted in the ground, and an EG always produce 50-100 fruit. The question is what's wrong with the other three plants?

Could be a different cultivar, as mentioned above.

But I suspect the other three were allowed to produce fruit too early -- since they seem to be stunted. I see this problem with almost every casual tomato grower in the US. Most people are not willing to pick blossoms off before the plant is rooted well and growing. That will dramatically dwarf any nightshade (incl tomato, pepper, eggplant). To have healthy nightshades, all blossoms must be removed until the plant is rooted in its permanent location as shown by plant growth. It is impossible for a nightshade to make roots and fruit at the same time. If you do not allow it to grow roots after it is planted, it is permanantly dwarfed.

I usually waste an extra EG or two to give me extra early fruit, but that plant is pretty useless for the rest of the season- produces about 1/4 to 1/3 the fruit it should, and the stunted plant is only 3-4 feet tall and rather spindly.

The one successful EG out of these four may have escaped being forced to bloom too early. They usually try to bloom too early if they remain in a small container too long. Or early blossoms may have been knocked off allowing it to grow normally.

Next year, only dwarf one or two plants for extra early fruit, fertilize properly, and your EGs should be like this one plant.

I don't pick blossoms off, have sometimes transplanted seedlings that were already flowering, and my plants routinely get to 8 or 10 feet. It's actually kind of a pain to keep them orderly. I suspect it depends on the variety. I grow almost entirely OP plants.

I have 2 Malakhitovaya Shkatulkas, one of which went in the ground with buds and the other which went in as a replacement plant as a much younger seedling with only 4 true leaves. They are indistinguishable now, and I had to start topping them when they reached 12 feet and draped too far over my trellis. I've had monster production off of them, even despite this challenging year.

I suspect hybrids are pushed in the direction of behaving in a way that prioritizes production at all costs Most OP plants will simply not set those early flowers or abort buds if they're working on other aspects of growth. I would suspect that it would also depend on when you plant them. Maybe those with 2 tomato seasons in a year see different behavior with respect to production and pruning of early blossoms depending on which season they grow in.

Maybe I should not have said "dwarf". This year I missed picking off a bloom of an OP pepper. It was a dwarf for several months. Then it shot up one skinny branch. It is now as tall as the others, but skinny and not at all robust, producing 1/3 the peppers as the others. It is a perfect example of what happens when a poor plant tries to make blooms and roots at the same time. Can't do it successfully. My fault. The blooms are clise to being green and hard to see, so I missed one. Plus the plants should not have bloomed that small. Next year, the seedings will be transplanted an additional time into bigger pots to prevent early blooms.

Every true gardener knows that plants can not produce roots and flowers at the same time. When you plant new perennials, you ALWAYS pick off blooms. Same with all vegetables.

I´m seeing that every year when I grow several dozen plants of the same variety from seed. There are always some which do better than the rest (some spectacularly so). Like in children, ideal conditions in early childhood may have something to do with it. And the same variety develops differently over multiple seasons in different places, so there is variety within a variety which allows for adaption.

gardenpictures: there is variety within a variety which allows for adaption

Agreed. Just because plants are the same variety doesn't mean their genes are identical. It just means that genes for the characteristics that distinguish it are stable.

tarolli2011: Maybe I should not have said "dwarf".

I haven't seen significant stunting from plants that put out a bloom or two early.

tarolli2011: This year I missed picking off a bloom of an OP pepper. It was a dwarf for several months. Then it shot up one skinny branch. It is now as tall as the others, but skinny and not at all robust, producing 1/3 the peppers as the others.

I've never had a plant stunt just because I missed one blossom. That seems to me a sign of something else being wrong.

Obviously, one should use common sense. If a plant is very young and blooming, I would actually discard that plant, as very early blooming is an indicator that the plant has something major wrong with it to begin with. With healthy plants of good size that have a bud or a bloom before plant out, it hasn't been a big deal for me. With tomatoes in particular, the plants generally do what they want to do. When they want to bloom, they bloom, and culling flowers seems to just prompt the plant to redirect energy into replacing the pruned flower truss. I've often thought that leaving the early flowers on does more to prevent the plant from pushing out more trusses--there could well be some feedback or interaction that triggers delay in additional flowering, feedback that is lost when you prune. In general, I've never observed much difference between overall plant vigor throughout the season when culling the odd early bloom or not. If a plant is blooming profusely and insistently while still very young, I don't plant it out; I replace it.

tarolli2011: Every true gardener knows that plants can not produce roots and flowers at the same time. When you plant new perennials, you ALWAYS pick off blooms. Same with all vegetables.

Clearly I and many of the people I know who are not rigid about plucking off early blooms are not true gardeners, then. Luckily for us, our vegetables don't seem to recognize this particular criterion.

Another not true gardener here. I never remove those occasional early blossoms either and my plants don't seem to suffer......

Linda

I don't remove them either but most of those early flowers turn into nubs or very small tomatoes. But the plants keep growing normally.

Sey

Of course a tomato can grow roots, foliage, and fruit all at the same time. This is what most of our tomato plants do for most of their fruit-bearing months. If tomatoes could not multitask in this manner, there would be no such thing as an indeterminate tomato. I suppose it's possible that determinate varieties might be more affected by early blooming/fruiting, though. I don't generally grow determinates, though.

Other plants that would not be possible unless plants could grow roots, foliage, and fruit all at the same time would be basically all of the vining cucurbits, any pole beans, etc.