A tomato progress picture.

It has been really dry and we have basically not had a real rain for 5 weeks. I read somewhere that the man that set the world record for maximum fruit production watered his plants daily. So that is what I have been doing. He said they should grow about 1 to 1.5 inches per day, and I think mine are. They are somewhere between 3 and 3.5 feet tall and filling in the crw cages nicely. His record was some where around 300 lbs per plant. If they continue their growth they should hit eight feet some time in August. If necessary I plan on putting another 5 foot cage on top of the eight footers to keep the plants going. Last year I never watered once and all the plants over grew the eight foot cages. I was picking really nice tomatoes into October. So my experiment is to see what happens with growth and fruit production if they are never stressed or limited with water availability. I have a 3 inch drainage tube with holes buried underneath the plants and in two or three minutes with the hose the watering is done. The varietals this year are Purple Cherokee, Radiator Charlies Mortgage Lifter, Neve's Azorean,Big Zac, Opalka,Gold medal, and Brandywine Sudduth strain.