Here's What Catfacing Is On Tomatoes—Plus, How To Prevent It

You’ve been eyeing your beautiful, lush tomato vines, and you know you’re going to have a bumper crop. But you’ve started to notice weird indentations and corky folds in the blossom end of developing fruit. What’s going on? And is your entire crop destined to end up in the compost pile? Here's what else you need to know about this disorder, known as catfacing.

What Is Catfacing on Tomatoes?

Catfacing is a common condition that makes your fruit unattractive and a little less appealing. “Catfacing is physiological and starts with flower formation,” says Barbara Smith, consumer horticulture extension agent at the Home & Garden Information Center at Clemson University. “A cool spring with temperatures lower than 50ºF a week or two before flowering causes poor flower formation, which in turn causes poor pollination.” This results in malformed fruit, which some people say resembles a little cat’s face.

Are Certain Varieties of Tomatoes More Likely to Become Catfaced?

Although the condition isn’t entirely understood, we know it tends to affect large-fruited cultivars, especially heirloom varieties. But the good news is that because it’s a cultural condition, not a disease or pest, it typically does not affect fruit all season long. Fruits that develop later in the season usually aren’t malformed.

What Should I Do with Catfaced Tomatoes?

Ideally, remove catfaced fruit because it won’t ripen evenly and will divert energy from other developing fruits. However, if a few of these tomatoes elude your notice and start to ripen, they’re fine to eat. Pick when slightly underripe because the blemished areas are more vulnerable to disease, then just cut off the bad part. 

How To Prevent Catfacing

The truth is not much! But for starters, don’t transplant tomato seedlings until one to two weeks after the last expected spring frost. Aim for soil temperatures of at least 65ºF. “Cool spring temperatures will affect the fruit development if late frosts don’t get them,” says Smith.

Keep in mind that tomatoes like it not too cold, not too hot. They grow best between 70ºF and 80ºF during the day with nighttime temperatures between 60ºF and 70ºF, says Smith. That’s why when temperatures get too hot, tomatoes may shed their flowers and not set fruit.

Because beefsteak and heirloom types tend to be affected most often, you may want to consider planting smaller-fruited varieties, such as cherry and grape tomatoes. Or try newer hybrid varieties that are less likely to be affected by this condition, such as Homestead 24 or Floradade.

Finally, exposure to common herbicides, such as 2, 4-D, used to control broadleaf weeds in lawns, may drift toward your garden and cause catfacing. Plants exposed to small amounts of these chemicals may be able to outgrow the problem, but severely damaged plants will not.