My better boy tomatoes are perfect on outside but inside have hard core and dark-around seeds - Ask Extension
My better boy tomatoes are perfect on outside but inside have hard core and dark -around seeds.
Knowledgebase
My better boy tomatoes are perfect on outside but inside have hard core and dark-around seeds #845789
Asked August 15, 2023, 2:08 PM EDT
My better boy tomatoes are perfect on outside but inside have hard core and dark -around seeds.
Anne Arundel County Maryland
Expert Response
Hi- we rarely see this symptom and cannot find credible information about specific causes. It's not caused by a disease.
Internal puffiness and incompletely filled locules (where the gel is located) combined with a hard core and brown gel suggests one or more environmental stressors or physiologic problems like incomplete flower pollination and ovule fertilization, high temperature, low light conditions, inconsistent soil moisture, and excess nitrogen. The seeds do not appear abnormal, although one would expect them to turn dark brown to black in this scenario.
This is not a characteristic of Better Boy. We hope the rest of your tomatoes are normal.
Harvest tomatoes as soon as they turn color and bring them indoors to ripen.
Jon
Internal puffiness and incompletely filled locules (where the gel is located) combined with a hard core and brown gel suggests one or more environmental stressors or physiologic problems like incomplete flower pollination and ovule fertilization, high temperature, low light conditions, inconsistent soil moisture, and excess nitrogen. The seeds do not appear abnormal, although one would expect them to turn dark brown to black in this scenario.
This is not a characteristic of Better Boy. We hope the rest of your tomatoes are normal.
Harvest tomatoes as soon as they turn color and bring them indoors to ripen.
Jon
