The biology of record setting plants

I think it grew 7 times taller than usual because it was supported by the gardener. Maybe they added support to prevent it from falling over, and fertilized the heck out of it. I don't see why a plant would stop growing if the conditions were optimized. There are a lot of unknowns here, so to dismiss this as being a genetic anomaly should be our last resort to explaining it.

Thanks for the reply, but that's not exactly what i was getting at. His methods were well documented, as was included in the video. He wrote a book on how he did it.

Having grown tomatoes and been around gardeners growing tomatoes 28 feet is unbelievable, if it weren't documented. My previous record without trying is 6 ft, a friend of mine once got 8 ft.

My question rather is there must be some real biological difference between a 4 ft plant and a 28 ft plant. In terms of maybe cell health, number of cells, what genes were activated and so forth.

Another way of wording it might be that a 4 ft plant is severely below it's "genetic potential". So we might ask, how do we define "genetic potential" and how do we measure it.

I'm curious how we would describe this, or quantify it.

Take humans, for example.  Asian Americans are way taller, on average, than their counterparts back home. Nutrition has a major role to play to maximizing genetic potential.

If what this person did with his tomatoes are well-documented, then his method can presumably be replicated. If you cannot replicate his work, then there's nothing scientific about it -- just a pipe dream. Tomato growth, as far as I'm concerned isn't endemic to any location, and their physical attributes are well-documented: they grow to 3–10 ft. in height, and their vines have a weak stem that sprawls and typically needs support.

Only woody plants can grow to those heights; given the quality of the video, I doubt any of that stuff is true.

Lol he has a Guinness Book World Record, he wrote a book on it, and here is a picture. I'm sure his methods are reproducible if I was sufficiently motivated.



More pictures online.

However the wide variety of plant size/nutritional content is well established. Below is a video of a world famous organic gardener with produce twice the size of what you would find in the store.

The question I have is can we quantify biologically what is happening with these properly grown plants.

Fair enough...

When it comes to plants, the only inhibiting factor is nature. If they can overcome gravity, they will continue to grow. The reason they grew so high is because the farmer was able to overcome gravity by supporting the vines. Otherwise the plant would just fall over and the stem would break. The genes don't turn off (epigenetics) as they do in animals when a certain level is reached, nor do the cells "age" due to telomeric shrinking like you see in humans.

I've found some details.  Tomatoes can be "indeterminate" which means genetically they can grow "forever". Some varieties are "determinate", which means apparently overall size of a life form can be limited genetically. Tomatoes can be determinate or indeterminate.

I have not been able to find any resources on the genetics of determinate/indeterminate biology yet.

In the case of the large tomato presumably the high nutrition and other cultural practices he employed simply let it rip beyond what poorer horticulture would result.

However I am still interested in the biology of poorly grown plants and animals vs well grown. Measuring genetic potential, if we can.

Determination in plants is controlled by the apical meristem. The meristem consists of undifferentiated cells capable of cell division. As you'd assume, it gives rise to various tissues and organs of a plant and it's responsible for growth by producing essential plant hormones like auxins that flow throughout the plant. As long as this meristem is present, the plant will continue to grow. Cells that have differentiated into tissue no longer have these pluripotent, indeterminate properties.


Agreed.


I believe it's easier explained with plants than with animals, since their biology is relatively more simple, less tissue types, organs, etc. I'm struggling to respond to this because I don't understand what genetic potential means in your perspective. For example, you and eye both have alleles that code for skin color pigmentation, relate your idea of genetic potential to that trait (or any of your choosing) so that I can provide you a well-informed response.