I’ve never had tomatoes do this before. I planted 6 OP Early Cascade and got 3 distinctly different results - the top pic is a normal, and the second two are distinctive.
I’ve never seen tomatoes wrinkle like that. The other distinction, on a different plant, is that the tomatoes are more like paste tomatoes in shape.
Originally Early Cascade was a hybrid. For some reason the hybrid became unavailable, but somebody claimed to have developed an open pollinated version. The first two years I grew the OP type they did OK, with a lot of variation in size, but this year is, like I said, weird.
Wilt from lack of water? Shouldn’t be a problem - I’ve been pretty thorough about watering this year. And the compost was purchased from the city program and dug in last fall.
I’m wondering if they’re a throwback to something; there’s just a hint of Japanese Lantern Plant look to them, if you squint just so.
I would be curious what @Fusion_power might have to say. It does look like they are drying out somehow and the only thing I can think of is one of the wilt diseases. Do you happen to have really low humidity there and possibly a breeze that is somehow drying them out on the plant?
The only time I’ve seen that was some very odd genetics, a tomato that was bred to be dried like a raisin.
The best suggestion I can give is to keep seed only from plants that produce fruit like you want. Either plant in new ground next year or dump out the soil you are growing and start fresh with bleach sterilized pots. If it is a disease, you definitely want to get rid of it. IMO, this is a viral disease, maybe ralstonia or perhaps some variant of fusarium.
“Hi Mark. I’ve never seen it happen before but this is a condition called “catfacing.” It can happen when there’s a sudden temperature drop when the plant is setting fruit or flowering. It can also be a sign of fast dehydration in the fruit from excessive temperatures. Like too hot temps in a greenhouse for instance. They are edible as long as they don’t have broken skin or oozing or smelly. I personally would use those as canning tomatoes. Hope this helps in your sleuthing.”
I searched “catfacing” and I don’t think this is it. I’m taking @Fusion_power 's advice and pulling them. I suspect that next year I’ll try something else.
