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Supermarket tomato sprouting
PoppyLawler
Posts: 31
in Fruit & veg
a friend bought vine tomato in the supermarket she cut one open , thought it was alive with maggots but discovered it was in fact sprouting. the rest of them were normal.
has anyone ever come across this before and if so what caused it.
0
Posts
I've never seen it but I recall it being posted about here before. Inside the tomato, the seeds are coated in a greeny-yellowy gel. It's a naturally-occurring germination inhibitor designed to stop exactly what has happened. It's also the gel that has to be rinsed off if you're saving seeds to grow next season.
It's likely that for whatever reason, maybe a genetic glitch, the inhibitor has broken down somehow.
Thanks for that, not sure if photo uploaded so will try below again, taken day after cut open as see sprouting continue
Not what you expect to find when preparing a salad for lunch!
Good grief. You'd have to think the tom has been stored for too long at too warm a temperature. Ye the skin of the tomato doesn't seem to have deteriorated as it would in that situation.
So it can't be a result of self-pollination?
Ah, I see, I think. The reference to pollination by another tomato flower probably refers to the tomato being a hybrid variety. Seeds from a hybrid won't grow true to type.
I've seen this a few times, I don't think it's that unusual. Have successfully grown tomato plants from extracting and planting the tiny seedlings.
More rare with chillies, but I've seen the same thing with them and grown plants from them that way too. It was a thick walled variety that had kept enough moisture to set the seeds off when their seasonal biological clock told them they were ready to have a go at germination.
Pretty sure this is a simple example of 'life will find a way'
And Edd, don't believe everything you find with a google search.
I don't think this is actually an example of 'Vivipary', but happy to be corrected by anyone who's a proper biologist.
Chris, I'm not a 'proper biologist' but it's pretty obvious that it's a perfectly normal term in botany as well as in zoology, which is probably the usage you were aware of.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/viviparous
Definition of viviparous in English: adjective bringing forth live young which have developed inside the body of the parent. Compare with oviparous and ovoviviparous. reproducing from buds which form plantlets while still attached to the parent plant, or from seeds which germinate within the fruit.Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Really interesting, Edd, can you create the conditions for this to happen or is it a spontaneous thing? I've never seen anything like it, ain't nature great