Guinness World Record Holder Outdid Himself With His Largest Tomato Yet
Talk about an overachiever, one farmer just broke his own record for world's largest tomato.
This article is more than 2 years old
Tomatoes come in all shapes and sizes. Some are tiny like grapes, while others grow large like peaches and onions. For some farmers out there, producing the world’s largest tomato is their life’s most remarkable work. A Guinness World Record holder has topped his previous record this year, making him still the official record-breaking tomato grower.
This British farmer didn’t just grow the world’s largest tomato. He managed to produce the world’s largest tomato plant, with the most fruit available on one single vine. The Guinness World Record title was first introduced in 1997 and continuously beaten almost every following year. For this British farmer, Douglas Smith, his first attempt to grow a humungous tomato plant was immediately successful. Smith grew a plant last year that had almost 850 cherry tomatoes on one single vine, the most fruit in Guinness history. Nearly a year later, he managed to top his previous record.
Though the world’s largest tomato plant that Smith grew was submitted for this year’s Guinness entries, his record-beating creation was found a few weeks after his miraculous cherry tomato discovery. On one stem, Smith found a vine that had 1,269 tomatoes on it, wiping the floor with his previous record. The outstanding plant had 1,000 more tomatoes than the first entry in the Guinness records. This fruit miracle impressed everyone, from the fans online to the farmer himself.
Douglas Smith is no stranger to growing unbelievable fruit. In 2020, he set the record for the world’s largest tomato, weighing 6.85 pounds. After this, Smith decided he wanted a task even more challenging to complete. This was when he started transferring his energy to growing the most tomatoes on one single plant, a feat he accomplished a year after his first induction. Though Smith was shortly beat out of the world’s largest tomato record in July 2020, he remains the two-time holder for the most tomatoes grown on a single plant.
Douglas Smith gained quite a bit of traction online after his previous induction into the Guinness World Records, amassing a considerable Twitter following. After winning his most recent title, he was eager to tweet his world’s largest tomato plant to the platform. Images uploaded with Guinness’s private horticulturist inspecting the plant show how seriously the organization takes these record-breaking opportunities. Ultimately, the inspection led to Smith overriding his previous record, making him a true tomato expert.
Though Smith would identify himself as a farmer, his full-time job is as an IT professional. As a scientist, he incorporates his methodical thinking and knowledge into the field of cultivation. He’s even sent his soil samples to labs around England, accruing further analysis about his tomato plants and their environment. By receiving information about his farming abilities, then using the criticism to construct the perfect temperature for the fruit, Smith has concocted the ideal setting for the world’s largest tomatoes.
Growing the world’s largest tomato plant is nothing to sneeze at. Smith’s practices may be unorthodox, but one thing’s for sure, they help grow massive amounts of fruit.
