Chapter 39

MacCoy and the New World Record

Dan MacCoy lives in Ely, Minnesota with his wife Sara and their 2 year old daughter, Aspen. Most weekdays you can find Dan at work. He works for a company that sells and installs fireplaces and stoves. It is cold in Minnesota and so business is good. Dan also likes to garden. He had been growing giant pumpkins and 2 years ago began to grow giant tomatoes as well. In 2014 he decided to concentrate on tomatoes alone and put his pumpkin seeds aside. Dan then shocked the giant tomato growing world with a tomato that weighed 8.41 pounds thereby breaking Gordon Graham's 28 year standing record of 7.75 pounds. How did he do it?

Here is a look at some of what Dan did. For seed he used his own from a tomato grown by him the year before, the 4.37 MacCoy (Big Zac) 2013. This seed was an F7 Big Zac, a seventh generation seed grown from Minnie Zaccaria's famous hybrid, Big Zac, a variety grown by most giant tomato growers. Big Zac was developed by Minnie, a cross she made between two large beefsteak tomatoes. The seed Dan grew had passed through the hands of five different growers before reaching him. He received his 5.07 Boudyo (Big Zac F6) 2010 seed from Fabrice Boudyo of France. With this seed he grew a 5.37 pound tomato in 2013 and with the seed from that tomato produced the 8.41 pound world record.

Dan started his tomato plants in peat pellets in mid- April. By the end of April he had potted them up into perforated 6 ounce plastic cups and was growing under fluorescent lights. By the middle of May his plants were in the ground in his small greenhouse. Because of the cold weather in Minnesota Dan grows in a 300 square foot greenhouse. The 10 tomato plants took up 80 square feet of the area. "They were about 2 feet tall by July 1st when the first blossoms appeared on the plants. The winning tomato was made up of 5 blossoms fused together, a megabloom. Dan picked that tomato on August 22. In all, it took 47 days to go from an open blossom to a record breaking tomato that measured 30.25 inches in circumference and had amazingly been grown on a plant that was only 30.25 inches tall!

When Dan was asked why he had pruned his plants so severely, he replied, "It's simple. My biggest most lush looking plant last year produced my smallest tomato. My 4.57 pound tomato was grown on a 36" high plant. I decided I would do that for all ten of my plants this year and it worked out." None of his 10 plants in 2014 were over 3 feet tall and he grew, besides the 8.41 pounder, four other tomatoes weighing 6.88, 5.30, 5.17 and 4.50 pounds. Dan actually grew a 4 pound tomato on an 18 inch tall plant. What a year! And on only 10 plants! And, none over 3 feet tall!

Dan pruned his plants by allowing only the main vine with the tomato on it to grow. He terminated the main vine just above the tomato. For his record setting tomato, "I grew it on a 30 inch tall plant that was heavily pruned from the beginning to have a single stem. I try to set all of my tomatoes on the first fruit truss. No more than ten days after I know the fruit has set I trim all suckers and vines down to a single stem of only 36 inches or less. I also prune and continue to prune off all new growth."

For Dan, soil preparation of his 300 square foot patch, roughly 15 feet by 20 feet, began in the fall. "I chopped up my 1122 lb. pumpkin and composted it into the garden. Over the winter I threw my wood ashes into the garden. I heat with wood so whenever my bucket was full from the stove, I threw it out there, overall about 6 buckets full." In the spring I tilled into the 300 square foot garden garden around 12 pounds of dehydrated chicken manure, 12 pounds of humic acid, 12 pounds of 10-10-10, 1/2 cup borax and 6 pounds of kelp meal. In the spring each tomato planting hole also received one hand-full of Xtreme Gardening Mykos (mycorrhizae) and nothing more.

Dan fertilized his tomato plants throughout the growing season. "Right after the seedlings popped up, I drenched my plants with Advanced Nutrients Voodoo Juice (a root stimulant derived from numerous bacteria) and then once a week through- out the entire life of the plants I drenched with 2ml. of Voodoo Juice in a liter jug."

Dan also watered with Xtreme Tea Brew (described as an organic soil enhancer) several times during the season and also drenched the plant several times using Dunkel's Tomato Turbo (fertilizer plus chelated micronutrients). "Early on I used a small spray bottle with Uncle Dunkels to foliar feed but once the plants got too big for that I didn't foliar feed again."

I fertilized my tomatoes during the growing season using mostly 0-0-25 (pH Booster 0-0-25 from Growth Products) after fruit set. I used the liquid form 0-0-25 and mixed 1/4 cup of it into a 2 gallon jug of water and drenched the 10 plants once a week after fruit set for the life of the plants.

Dan watered his plants using rain water collected in a rain barrel and water collected from a dehumidifier. "I watered just when the top layer of soil began to look dry. In the dead of summer it was every other day. I watered ten gallons over all ten plants when I did water, one gallon per plant. I think it helped to be in a greenhouse so I could control the watering and not have to contend with rain."

Although the temperature in the greenhouse reached 90 degrees several times, Dan tried to maintain the air temperature at around 80 degrees. "During pollination I like the greenhouse around 75. Any other time I don't like it over 85. There are two doors I can open to cool it off. I can roll up one side of the greenhouse and there are two windows I can open too. When it's really hot I have a cheap box fan mounted at the top of one of my doors blowing into the greenhouse that I can turn on. My system to keep it cool is, open doors first, then the windows, then turn the fan on, and then roll up the side. On very hot days when all of that wasn't enough to keep it around 85 I would mist the plants with cold water from my garden hose. I do not use shade cloth. If it's too cold I build a smaller tent around the block of plants that I want to keep warm and I have an electric Stanley garage heater in there. I only had to do this at night during the last week before harvest.

Dan supported his tomatoes using old panty hose. "I staked the plants with rebar. I tied the plants to the rebar with soft ties. The 8.41 I supported at first with a strip of sheet and tied it to the closest branch above the tomato. It got a little bigger and needed more support so then I had my wife make me a black nylon strap with Velcro so I could wrap it around the tomato and onto the rebar. So it was then supported with both things mentioned at once. It got bigger yet and I needed more support again and that's when I sent my wife to the store for panty hose. I used two pairs (4 layers) as a sling. So the hosiery scooped up under the tomato and tied to the top of the rebar to hold it up. Then during the last week I used a scarf as extra support over the nylon strap."

Dan did not use any mulch. He felt there was no need since the plants were inside a greenhouse.

Dan harvests his tomatoes when they stop growing rather than at first blush. He measures his tomatoes' circumference twice a week. In the last 2 days his big tomato grew 3/8 of an inch.

A soil sample was taken the day the winning tomato was harvested. Results were as follows: The percentage of organic matter was 8.2 percent. The pH was low at 5.2. Nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, zinc and iron were very high but not toxic. Calcium and magnesium were low.

"Bacterial speck is the only disease I have encountered. I did nothing to prevent diseases and I only got bacterial speck on plants that were outside of the greenhouse in my compost pile. After I picked the tomato I left the 8.41 plant growing in the greenhouse so I could get some suckers off of it and towards the end that also got bacterial speck. None of my other greenhouse plants got any diseases. They all looked healthy right up to the end. I feel like the plants stayed healthier because the green- house protected the leaves from rain and debris. For instance, rain beats on the ground splashing dirt onto the leaves and also rain keeps the plants too wet. I never had a problem with insects. I have had aphids on my pumpkins but haven't had issues with anything on tomatoes. However, I've only been growing tomatoes for two years".

Does Dan believe his new world record will stand up as long as Gordon Graham's 26 years?

"I'll just be happy to just make it into the Guinness Book of Records."