Close-up of hairy stem and flowers of tomato!

Anyone who has grown tomato plants would have noted the tiny hair like projections from the stem of tomato plants. Thought of taking a close up view of those fine hair like projections, which are extending well into the stalks of flowers! The hairs can turn into roots whenever the plant is in contact with the ground and moisture, especially if the vine’s connection to its original root has been damaged. I have noted roots springing up from tomato plants in contact with soil several times. Read that tomato flowers are able to self fertilise. An interesting information that I just came across is that modern varieties of tomato have been bred to ripen uniformly red and the in the process the fruit’s sweetness and flavour have been impaired. We used to eat raw tomato, sliced and sprinkled with sugar in childhood and it was very delicious. But now I do not find the taste of tomato that favourable. Wonder whether this is due to the change mentioned above which has made it less palatable for me! Of course there seems to be thousands of cultivars of tomato varying in size, colour shape, and flavour.

Here is an interesting picture of a ‘tomato tree’ from Wikipedia. This was located at Walt Disney World Resort’s experimental greenhouses in Lake Buena Vista Florida, may have been the largest single tomato plant. More than 32,000 tomatoes weighing a total of 522 kg was harvested from this plant.