Douglas Smith, n gardener from Hertfordshire. the U.K., recently set a new Guinness World Record for the most tomatoes grown on a single stem (茎), 1,269.
Up until last summer, the record for the most tomatoes grown on a single stem had stood unchallenged for over a decade. Then English farmer Douglas Smith set his sight on breaking it, thinking that he could grow more than 488 fruits on s single stem. He proved that last year, when he managed to break the old record by growing 839 tomatoes on a greenhouse -grown plant. It was quite an achievement, but he was only getting started, as only a few weeks later Douglas Smith broke his own record by growing no less than 1,269 tomatoes on a single stem.
Is Douglas Smith a gardening addict? He spends up to four hours a day in his back garden tending his plants, and has been working hard on becoming the best possible gardener the world has ever seen. To maximize his chances of setting a new world record. he read various scientific papers and even took soil samples to be tested in a laboratory. And in the end, they all paid off.
"I am over the moon," Douglas said. "This year was only meant to be an experimental year to see which varieties would produce the most fruits and we had to fight with early blight (疫病), which put paid to a number of other tomato plants. I'm amazed by how many tomatoes were on the plant in the end."
Growing 1,269 tomatoes on a single stem is only Douglas Smith's latest achievement. In 2020, he grew a 20-foot-tall sunflower, and also set a new national record for the heaviest tomato, with a 3.106 kg tomato. He likes to run little experiments on other vegetables and crops, and he is currently experimenting on peas, aubergines and potatoes.
