Lexiegurl I'm going to cop out on you. My suggestion is you either take a plant to your local extension office or send one in to a diagnostic lab. First I will expand on why I say this. I fought some disease issues late last summer and fall although minor compared to other years. I was fairly positive what I was dealing with. This year I rotated the tomatoes to a different area like I try to do every year at least in the main garden. When this last hot spell hit plants started showing disease signs. First one in one part and then another further down the row. I finally yanked them after trying to mature some fruit. I sprayed them but only after being infected with copper and daconil. I also sprayed the immediate plants around them. It has now spread to them. I'm becoming less confident in my diagnosis. So I just got back from the Post Office mailing a large package with a 6 ft plus plant in it. They want to see the whole plant from the roots up. It cost me 22 dollars to mail it. But in less than 14 days I have removed plants with at least 4-5 hundred tomatoes on them. And if I yank many more my crop yield will be severely hurt. I'm considering spraying large areas around each of these areas this evening with Daconil and following up with copper in 7-10 days or vice versa. By that time hopefully I have a diagnosis back from the lab and can decide if I need to change my preventative measures or not.
My first impression of your pictures was a bacterial infection then as I looked at them longer I kept second guessing myself. I would decide on something and go look at diagnostic picture of it and change my mind. After I receive confirmation on my plant depending on whether I'm correct or not I might venture a guess then. For now I'm not even sure what I'm dealing with let alone someone else. I could name a list of possibilities but that don't help a lot. Jay

Jay,

Thank God for your answer. Let me explain.....

Dawn (Lexiegurl) and I have been discussing this for a couple of days via email, and I have gone through my Petoseed Tomato Disease book looking for similar symptoms endlessly and still feel no closer to an answer than when we started.

So, I urged her to post it here and told her "I want to see what Jay says". I was hoping you'd seen something like this before and could ID it. Now that I know you cannot, I don't feel so bad that I couldn't figure it out either. You know, if the Tomato King cannot identify this, and no one on the Tomato Forum could/did either, then I don't feel so bad that I was totally unable to help either.

I did exactly what you did and felt close to an answer several times. What is most perplexing to me is that her leaves do not yellow at all. They just go tan or brown. The absence of any yellowing rules out anything I can think of that I have seen here because most of what I see involves some yellowing at some point.

I am sorry to hear that disease has hit your plants there. You got off to such a great start this year, and I know it must be a bitter disappointment to have this happen.

My vote is to spray, spray, spray and try to save your beautiful plants so you get a harvest.

Please be sure to let us know what they diagnose. At least one small bit of good will come from your sick plants if all of us learn something new about a disease or pest issue to watch for ourselves in future years.

It should not be as hard to raise tomato plants to maturity and get good yields as it has been in recent years. I feel like we are "doomed". It doesn't matter what the plants look like in May or June---they can be stunningly beautiful---and then July ruins it all. July is not my favorite month.

Dawn, Welcome to the forum. I didn't want to say anything earlier because I was afraid I'd knock this thread down the page and Jay wouldn't see it.

I meant to ask. When you get the little holes on the leaves, are those from some of the pests you describe, or do the middle of the tan sections rot out. If they do, that would support Jay's feeling it might be bacterial in nature.

Since we've already decided nothing on VegetableMDOnline or the TAMU Tomato Problem Solver match your symptoms, I've been visiting west coast University websites, but nothing there looks right either.

Y'all, I think my plants are mostly done, and the ones I was trying to save for fall may not survive this heat wave. Ever since we hit 111 last week, my plants are going downhill super fast and I don't think I can stop it. I think they've lost the will to live.

Dawn

Thank you Jay and Dawn for trying to help me figure this out. I wish I could send my plant off for diagnosis, but I don't have the money for the fee and I don't trust my local Ag center people.

Dawn, I'm pretty sure the holes are a result of the wonderful flea beetle infestation I have. But it's not bad enough to treat so I'm just letting them do their thing. The pinworms are taking a bigger toll. No actually, let me change that to... the hornworms are taking this biggest toll! My wonderful, lovely, bushy, almost 6 foot tall Black zebra plant had one of the growing tips, flowers, leaves, stems, everything eaten off a moderate portion of the plant overnight by a 3-4 inch hornworm. Grrrr. This is my first year having to actually deal with these guys and the destruction is just amazing. *sigh* Oh well, the tomatoes are starting to give out anyway overall.

Dawn and Jay: Some other things I figured I'd mention. I decided to pull the plant up since I won't be able to monitor it for a few days. I figured it was the best option at this point just in case it was something that could spread. The leaves between yesterday and today greatly detoriorated to crispy, twisted, brown, wilted mess. One of the suckers was wilting at the top, but that may have been because the soil was drier than I realized.

However, is two more clues that could potentially help:
-When I removed the outer layer of the main stem (like the skin, I guess that's the way to describe it), The first layer after that was light brown. But when the stem was cut lengthwise, there was no browning on the actual inside, just on like one of the inner outer layers (lol, that's the best way I know to say it). The stem itself on the outside, before being disturbed, appeared a normal, healthy green.
-The plant stopped growing, literally. I noticed when I closely examined the top that flowers were falling off before they even got bigger than 0.5cm or smaller. At the size wayyy before they were ready to bloom and they were falling off and the tip were the flower was was brown. It appeared the growing tip had turned brown as well. And the tomatoes that had pollinated prior to the symptoms began, just like froze in time and refused to grow in size.

Don't know if this info helps at all, but that is other symptoms I noticed. I'm in the process of trying to root a sucker from this plant but I don't know if it will work. I have nothing to lose anyway ;). Let me know if you have any questions! Thanks again!!

Lexiegurl I'll attach a link to a site for Mississippi State that gives some good info and also provides some good pictures. It is for greenhouse tomatoes but the diseases are found both in greenhouses and in the outdoors and they symptoms are the same. Take a look at the pictures and read the info and see if any of them are close. I'll think about what else could have the brown vascular tissue. Those they show are Bacterial Canker, Bacterial Wilt and Fusarium Wilt. If I think of anything else I will add it. Just go down to the stem section and click on a disease and it will show you pictures of what it looks like. Jay

Here is a link that might be useful: MSU Diagnostic site.

I got out my old reliable Petoseed Disease Book and looked up issues with brown vascular tissue and looked at those three plus Pith Necrosis. It made me think hard about Pith Necrosis when Dawn mentioned the brown vacular tissue, but when I had Pith Necrosis on a plant it was pretty much the whole stem, inside and out that went brown, and there wasn't a layer of green outside the brown.

I've been leaning more towards Bacterial Wilt, but still don't feel 100% comfortable with that either.

I thought of Bacterial Canker too, but I thought it developed more at cooler temps like we'd see in May some years, and not in the very hot July temps.

I also have wondered if it is an atypical strain of Fusarim that goes straight to brown without the typical yellowing.

Dawn, I forgot to email you back about the variegated peppers. Go to the website of Tomato Growers Supply. They have a couple there listed under hot peppers. Two I'm growing this year are Tri-fetti (this is the triple variegated one with purple, white and green foliage) and another one that I think was called Purple Splash, which has dark purple (almost black) foliage with splashes of lighter purple and white.

Dawn

Dawn you echo several of my thoughts. When I've had pith necrosis there has been a section of the stem turn leathery and when cut open there was basically nothing inside if left to death. I feel it is likely one of those I mentioned or at least a strain of it. With the unusual things I'm seeing I'm not surprised at anything now. Onions and potatoes are real late maturing this year. Other things were 2-4 weeks earlier. And with the Candy onions from Dixondale I've been picking a few here and there that the stem has died for a month and still some that haven't fell over yet. I've dug a few potatoes mainly volunteers but some others. Good numbers but modest size at this point. Most years they are out by now. My beans all except the Fowler have to a sabbatical during this latest heat spell. Everything survived the first two real well. The last one is taking it's toll. The later planted plants are doing better but some of them are struggling. The melons are doing good. Some of the okra is and others isn't. The Stewart's Zee Best didn't handle the heat well last year or this year. I sprayed all of the tomatoes except the container plants last evening and got them this morning. Most of the peppers are doing very well. The biggest that I've raised at this point of the season. I have some NM chile types 7-8 inches long and not mature yet. Out of 40 plus I've pulled 3 I think and have 1-2 more with issues. The rest are looking very good. I feel the liquid feed I've used has made a difference. The tomatoes not infected look good. If things don't slow down though in two weeks most of my plants maybe gone. The next two weeks could easily determine the fate of a lot of my garden. The things I planted the first part of July I wish I had waited two weeks on. I need to do a little searching and confirming on what insect I have on one Grandma Suzy's plant. I'm really impressed with this variety. And started picking Randy's Brandy this week. The best Brandy type for fruit production I've tried and great flavor. Jay

Jay,

You and I think alike when it comes to tomatoes, don't we?

The heat is ridiculous, but today I felt like the NWS is more ridiculous. This morning I looked at the point forecast for Bomar because we're only about a mile west of Bomar, and that's the one I use. It said our Forecast High for today was 100, which made me laugh. We were at 100 before noon, currently are 102 and I expect we'll hit 105-108 or so. I'm just going to stop looking at the NWS Forecast because it is so wrong, temperature wise, that it makes me crazy. We were 106 yesterday. Last week we hit 109 and 111. All of this has led to one thing....a miserable garden full of plants struggling to stay alive.

The cucumbers gave up and died. Most of the summer squash has done the same, although I still have about 6 plants producing. Melons look fine. Okra wilts daily, but is producing well. Peppers wilt very badly ever day. I harvested oodles and oodles of peppers today and wonder if it is the last big pepper harvest I'll have. Fowler green beans have been producing, but now the grasshoppers are eating them down to the ground. The same is true of Kebarika. The southern pea plants are being devoured, as are the lima beans. Tomatoes are mostly done. A few plants have a few small fruit, but now the leaf-footed bugs have shown up so I think the plants really are done now. Winter squash (I only plant C. moschata types) is fine. Armenian cucumbers are producing very well, but now have something that looks like cucumber mosaic. It's enough to make the gardener throw in the towel or, hmm, throw in the trowel. Everything was doing pretty well, producing and overcoming all the insects and diseases until we started going over 105 a few days a week. At that point, the plants sighed and gave up.

On pepper plants, especially habaneros, the fruit are wrinkling up and dying. They look like they are being dehydrated, but they aren't full sized and mostly are still green, so it has to be something else. Jalapenos are doing it too, but not nearly as much. In this heat the sweet peppers are smaller than usual and having a hard time with sun scald.

It isn't been a bad warm-season over all, and better than the cool season over all, but I think the heat is going to shut down the garden this week for good. I cannot imagine having a fall garden, though I've already planted beans and southern peas under row covers.

I may be able to keep a handful of pepper plants and tomato plants alive in containers near the garage, but it isn't going to be easy because the grasshoppers are flocking to them. However, they're relatively disease-free so they might survive.

Dawn

Thank you for your thoughts Dawn and Jay. Sorry for the late reply. I enjoyed a nice long week of camping in the TN mountains and it was soooo nice, I didn't want to leave lol.
Anyway, just for an update: I think the tomato plant had some kind of bacterial wilt/disease. Here's why: remember when I mentioned I had one small sucker that was unaffected? Well, I tried to root it in a cup of water (failed miserbly lol), BUT I started noticing small black spots (similar to the larger ones that were on the main plant) of which some fell out creating a shot hole appearance (in the absence of flea beetles). Some of this 'blackness' spread to the stem part (petioles I assume) of some leaves and girdled it resulting in wilting. The good news is whatever it is, it's not on any of my other plants and I got some good fruit from the plant. I picked the fruit green the day I pulled the plant and they are ripening as they should be, so whatever it was, it didn't affect the fruit. Bad news: I believe I now have verticillium wilt or something similar that causes yellowing and browning of large areas of leaves and possibly Zonate spot (those spots look like early blight with the concentric rings, but without the yellowing). We were pretty wet while I was gone in addition to the large amount of watering my mom did, which resulted in tomatoes cracking severly. Oh well, I've done pretty well so far. Oh and the HORNWORM. I can't believe it. Two tomato plants completely eaten down to the stem in like 2 days by ONE WORM!!! At least they were plants that weren't producing well at all, so no big loss. Still amazing though.

Other things I'd just like to let yall know. My watermelons, cukes, and cantaloupes have been a total failure so far. Not sure what happened in the beginning. They were VERY slow to start then once they took off the watermelons got some kind of disease which involved browning of the stem and leaves and the cantaloupe and cukes are getting mutilated by aphids and seem to have gotten some kind of disease of this aphid infestation in the week I've been gone. I'm going out tomorrow to prune the plants and give them so miracle gro to try to revive them, otherwise they are going to get pulled in the next couple weeks if they can't make a comeback.
Peppers are doing okay. I have like 5 plants going gangbuster while the others are just producing a pepper here and there. Squash and pumpkin, total crop failure lol. I do not know why, but where I live I cannot grow a squash to save my life!
And the beans... what to say about the beans. WOW!!! I'm super excited about them. I've already gotten one dinner's worth of snap beans and have a second round in progress, not sure how well they are going to grow though. The cowpeas are amazing. I picked the plants clean two weeks ago and they are already producing again. My lima beans are not producing as well as I hoped, but they are starting to make a come back. Got half a sandwich bag full shelled just in the week I was gone, so can't complain too much. My pole beans have produced lots of leaves, but few beans, until now. I think the weather finally broke to allow these to start producing and they are now flowering like crazy, so I am hoping for lots of snap beans soon (many varities). I think I'm most excited about my red noodle yard long bean. That is the most amazing thing I've ever seen!! Don't know about taste yet though. Is it a snap or shelling bean???

I will be starting my fall stuff this week even though NCSU says I should be transplanting in the next two weeks. I've read a couple posts over on the Carolina forum that says to start seeds in August and transplant in Sept. as the heat is just too much for them in August. I planted store bought cabbage and broccoli last year the second week of Oct and they overwintered but grew well, so I'm not overly concerned about dates. I'm also going to try my hand at carrots, onions, fall lettuce, rutabaga, radish, turnip, etc. Hopefully this stuff will grow pretty well.

Anyway, overall I'm pleased with everything so far and glad yall have at least had a decent year even with the heat and drought. I still have a hard time believing were almost 11 inches below average. I'm worried a hurricane will solve that problem though as it seems to be getting active out in the Atlantic. *sigh* Unfortunetly, we're overdue for a Cat 2 or 3. Oh well, I've survived many so far and I'll survive the next one.

Sorry for the long post, just wanted to update yall and let you know how everything is going.

Hi Dawn,

Welcome back from your vacation. It sounds like it was lovely.

I'm sorry your tomato plants didn't make a miraculous recovery while you were away. Wouldn't it have been nice to come home to plants that were recovering and looking better? It does sound like it might be bacterial wilt, and y'all are so prone to so many diseases there in your more-humid area that it is mind-boggling. I'm sorry the tomato diseases continue, but that's par for the course at this time of year, especially if it is raining.

Tomato hornworms are voracious eaters. To help control them, I plant the herb borage near my tomato plants, and have 4 o'clocks outside the garden fence. I almost never have any hornworm damage at all on my plants or fruit, which is remarkable because I see the moths flitting around my night-blooming flowers every evening.

Have y'all had cucumber beetles around lately? They transmit all sorts of diseases, including bacterial wilt. Some years I cannot keep cukes and melons alive because of them, but this year in the absence of cuke beetles here, my melons and cukes have done well. My plans for the future years is to grow all my melons and cukes under hoops covered with row covers because most years the cucumber beetles are heavy and disease is rampant.

Heat often causes peppers to stall, and it is more common in sweet peppers than in hot peppers. If you can keep them alive through August, they should produce just fine in the fall.

Your pole beans should produce well this fall. Here where I live we call them October beans because that's when we get the big harvest from them before the typical first freeze in mid-November.

With your yardlong beans, they seem to me like they are more like southern peas than green beans, so just treat them the way you great southnern peas in terms of harvesting and food prep.

I do think you can get away with planting a little late there since you stay warm for so long in fall. I tend to plant later than OSU recommends here because August is insanely hot some years. At our house, we've been between 108-111 most days for the last couple of weeks, and hit 112.9 on one memorable day. It seems crazy to contemplate planting anything in those temps, doesn't it?

I've been watching the tropical waves coming across the Atlantic and thinking that at least some coastal areas may get some nice rain from a hurricane, but if y'all are going to get a hurricane, I hope it is only a Cat 1 and not something worse.

Please don't apologize for the long post. We love to read updates from other folks about what is going on in their gardens.

While you were away, parts of Oklahoma had incredibly bad wildfires so it has been a sort of gloomy week with lots of bad news. Your garden update is like a ray of sunshine.

You know, y'all could send your Cat 2 or Cat 3 to the TX or LA Gulf Coast and maybe it would spin off rainstorms that would make it this far north. I promise we would love the rain and wouldn't complain. One year, Erin still maintained her circulation when she reached Oklahoma and restrengthened, and we had lots of people get really good rain out of that system. Unfortunately, it happened in 2007 when we already had great rainfall and many areas suffered a great deal of flooding even before Erin arrived.

In the link below, you can see a radar image of Erin as she traveled over OK. She did not meet all the Tropical Storm or Hurricane characteristics, so I guess we'd say she was a low pressure system when she got here. We need something like that this year!

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Tropical Storm Erin Over Oklahoma

Hi Dawn,

Yeah, I wish my tomato plants were doing better, but truthfully I can't complain. I know I've probably gotten over 20 tomatoes over 3 oz (which is large for me lol) and probably over 100 cherry tomatoes. Our fridge is full of tomatoes lol! This is MUCH better than last year when I harvested a grand total of, wait for it, 4 tomatoes off of 16 plants! Yes 4 tomatoes. Truthfully, I could only improve this year as far as tomatoes were concerned. Same with the peppers, except I got like 2 small bells off of like 12 plants. So I could only go up haha.

I was excited just in what I harvested from the 8 days I was gone. It makes all the frustrations and hard work worth while. I have learned that one spot where I currently have my tomatoes and peppers just doesn't get enough sun, which is why there is not much production. This spot gets maybe 4 hours of sun a day, but it is midday sun. I thought it would be enough since it is so hot here and it gets 'bright' shade a couple hours a day, but obviously not. Apparently this area of the yard is perfect for beans. Although the production may not be maximum, it is sufficent for us, so this area of the year will be the bean area next year. There is a total of three beds here so I've already allocated 1 bed for snaps/poles, 1 bed for limas, 1 bed for cowpeas/southern peas. We should be swimming in beans next year lol.

This is actually the firs tyear I've ever had a problem with hornworms. Last year was the first year I saw them, but they came after my tomatoes were done and I didn't care they were there. So now I have to figure out what is the easiest/best way to keep them out next year. I'll either plant something else like you Dawn or I'll just use Bt. Not sure yet.

The beans I've noticed have started picking up since I left since our highs have gone down into the 80's although our lows are staying in the 70's. It's horribly humid though which is probably why I'm having such disease issues. I haven't seen any cuke beetles, but I have plenty of aphids/ants and some other bug that is a tiny bit larger than an aphid but it is white and it is on the underside of the leaves like the aphids on the cukes and cantaloupes. Oh well, at least I planted more cukes on July 19 and they already have 3-4 leaves. I'm going to give them a shot of Miracle gro to try to give them a boost so hopefully they will get going good before the weather gets too cold. They are in a seperate part of the yard so hopefully I can avoid the aphids on these.

It's been hot here but not as hot as yall. We had a few days in the 100's but not usually above 103-104. I'm just glad that is hopefully done with for this year here.

I'm watching those tropical waves as well. I'll try to send something tropical towards Texas, but I don't know if they would appreaciate a cat 3 ;) Maybe a large, heavy rain producing tropical storm. Too bad Ernesto won't make a turn toward the north, but the activity is increasing so I'll keep my fingers crossed one will head your way. That was impressive about Tropical Storm Erin. I don't even remember that one, but that is def. something you don't see often.

I'll try to post pictures of everything and how well (or not so well lol) all my plants are doing in the next day or two if the rainy weather would end. It's not raining a whole lot, but just enough to be aggravating and cause the humidity to go up.

Well, time to go get the fall seeds started and start preparing seed lists for next year! I'm already excited about the changes I will be doing next year!!

Dawn

Lexiegurl,
Glad you are picking some produce and that things are at least picking up and improving a little. I posted an update about my garden last weekend. With the temps moderating slightly I have seen an improvement also. I have started spraying the tomato plants on a 7-10 day schedule. Alternating with Daconil and an organic copper spray. The grasshoppers have ate some of my beans planted for the fall. Going to try to control them if I can. The main reason of this post was to state I still haven't received any feedback from K-State. Saturday I received word that the first two were going to require tests and if the first tests proved positive for anything I should receive word in 2-3 days. That has come and went. So beginning to think they might have to send them off for further testing which they said would be an additional 4-5 days if that was required. In the end it will probably be something simple I should of recognized.

Dawn I will look for the other post about the TSWV. As always once a person makes a statement then he sees something they haven't seen before. About 3 weeks agon I picked my first yellow spotted fruit (with all smooth skin) from a 4th of July plant. Along with ten or so normal red fruits. The spotted fruits have increased but still outnumbered by solid red fruit till Monday evening. When I picked the first two that had raised areas. The plant looks fine, still growing and setting fruit. I'm positive it is TSWV but almost tempted to send it off for verification. As I have never seen a plant with TSWV act/look like this one. The plant isn't stunted and besides the fruit you would never suspect anything. Some of the young fruit already have raised areas. I will either yank it tonight or tomorrow. Depending on whether I decide to send it off or not. I can't think of anything else which causes fruit to look that way can you? I will post pictures if I can. My old Mac has froze up. So somewhat limited on what I can do. Jay

Jay,

The very first time I ever saw spotted wilt on a tomato, it was only on the fruit and never on the plant. I am positive about that. I picked the fruit, and didn't know what to do with them. This was about 10 years before I ever even heard about spotted wilt, so likely in the 1990s. They had the classic raised areas and rings of spots, so not knowing what it was, I put them in garbage bags and threw them away. When it kept happening on a plant that still looked perfectly healthy, I pulled up the plant, which still looked fine and was producing, and threw it in the trash. About 10 years later I saw images of tomatoes with spotted wilt and instantly knew that's what my plants had had.

About 5 years after that, I had one plant with the typical symptoms on the vegetation and was slow to figure out what it was since I'd never seen it in person. That is one thing that is so vexing about this disease--the way it is not consistent in how it presents itself.

I am sorry to hear that you have TSWV on your plants. Do you remember if it is on varieties that are supposed to have tolerance of TSWV?

Since it is a virus, I wonder if there are different races, but maybe they haven't been isolated and studied as well yet as the different races of fusarium, so maybe the scientists remain puzzled much as we do sometimes when the plants do not all present symptoms in the same way.

Are all your sick plants growing in a row....or scattered around your garden? Just curious about that one.

Dawn

Dawn,
I received a report this evening. I'm puzzled. Not for sure if it was for the first two or all four. She says there is no disease issues and I need to quit spraying copper/daconil. Don't feel she paid attention to the part where I said I had septoria issues and also TSWV but didn't send them in as I can diagnose them. She kept repeating you don't have TSWV. I sent an email stating the plant that has it I didn't send. She says it is stress only and they will recover. I know better than that. When I sent the second plant I debated which one to send. The one I didn't send I pulled last night. It had shriveled up to where it was a foot shorter and the fruit was starting to shrivel. The roots look fine and the soil was very moist. I have left some in the past to try to ripen fruit. If it gets to breaker stage and you pick it and let it ripen inside it will be bitter. I have never seen stress affect plants in this fashion. I also had 3-4 plants that exhibited the same symptoms last fall from mid Sept to frost after the cooldown. So I'm puzzled and not sure what to think. Like I told her in the reply. I will continue to pull them as I've found even if they live 3-4 weeks they never grow again even if it is cool and the fruit from them isn't fit to eat. I yank them and plant squash in their place. At least I get some good from the water I'm using. So basically I don't know anything. I know for sure the last plant had wilt. It was completely wilted at 6 am last Sat morning when it was in the 60's. Again the soil was very moist and it had a great root system. I had the wilt hit two more plants. The one in a container was toast in 3 days. When I pulled it one morning even the stem was limp.

Being that I've started I will continue to spray Daconil/copper till at least Sept and maybe for most of the season. I've been trimming leaves. It takes at least 30 minutes a plant. I feel the reason I had septoria was we did have over and inch of rain during that time. Also I had the sweet corn on the south side and our winds quit for several days. And the plants were 6 ft or taller with lots of foliage and canopy. One evening when picking fruit I noticed it was like a sauna in there. I think the combination caused the issue. Being that I've cut the corn down and it hasn't rained and i've been spraying the issue is under control for now. I plan to remove all dead and diseased looking foliage although it is a very slow process. It is just on the caged rows. They were the early plants. I've trimmed up either 4 or 5 plants in 4 evenings. I do everything else first. Will get out early this weekend and try to get several done. Have at least 20 plants to go. This evening I finished up a Prudence Purple from George's seed. It is setting fruit good now. And then moved to the Cowlick''s Brandywine. Knock on wood it has considerable fruit set. One reason I won't quit spraying. I hope I can taste a few this year and save some seeds. I'm guessing maybe 20 or more. From tinies to some around 2-3 ounces. Due to the heat I have some malformed fruits. Mule had some pictures on his site of some he has picked. I have some real oddballs. The one Grandma Suzy's plant that shows heat stress has several with big scars on the bottoms. The other GS's plant so far knock on wood hasn't shown any stress issues. It is at least 2 ft taller and I haven't noticed any problems on the fruit on it. But it is fast proving to be a good setter here. Hopefully both plants will last through the season. Both plants are fairly well loaded. So the fruit set on the Cowlick's was the good news I needed after finding out they didn't find the reason the plants decline and eventaully die. I just never heard of stress causing a change in the color of the top leaves and stems to a light yellow and the blooms all die. Some very small fruit set drops off. The leaves usually never curl till later as the light yellow color works it's way to the bottom of the plant. As it goes down then the stems and leaves curl. She said the one almost looked like herbicide drift. I guess that is possible but why not all the plants in an area and whyt does it continue to happen 1-2 plants a week or so sometimes several feet a part for most of the season? May never know the cause. If it continues I will send plants elsewhere to get a second opinion. Jay

Dawn another thing I forgot to mention is the blooms die but don't fall off. The petals turn black around the edges. The They yellow turns brown but basically the whole bloom stays on the plant. Jay

Jay,

It must be frustrating to know she didn't pay attention to your comment that your plants had septoria and that you didn't send the TSWV plant that you were sure about.

I'll tell you what I think about the stress diagnosis. I think it is the standard catch-all diagnosis they're giving everyone if they cannot determine what the plants do have. Give me a break. Every tomato plant growing in most every state of the union this year has had stess issues. Can't they do better than that? As many hot, dry years as you've had there, you know what stress looks like and the many ways that it presents itself, and if you do not feel comfortable with her stress diagnosis and you believe it is a disease issue, I think you're right.

I feel like the fact that the blooms die and turn black around the edges but don't fall off is a good clue, but I don't know where that clue leads. I cannot remember ever seeing blooms doing that and at this point I think it is the best clue you have.

What kind of wilt do you suspect? Bacterial Wilt? Fusarium?

When you pull the plants, do the root systems look healthy and do the stems look healthy or do you see browning in either the internal or external vascular tissue?

Depsite what she said, I think it is something viral. If it was fungal or bacterial, I think your spraying would stop it in its tracks on at least some plants, and it doesn't sound like that is happening. So, either it is in your soil or insects or spreading it from plant to plant, as evidenced by the fact that plants continue to sicken, wilt and die.

I just hate that this is happening to you. No one works harder to have healthy soil and plants than you do, and no one faces more consistent drought and stress issues than you do. I feel like if there is any one person on this forum who knows every single thing to do to avoid stress issues or to at least mitigate their impact, it is you. To see this happening to your plants makes me shake my head and think that sometimes life is just so unfair.

I'm going to keep mulling over the symptoms and see if my brain comes up with anything. It probably won't, but I'll keep the symptoms in my brain. I am really fixated on the flowers. When my plants are stressed, my blooms drop. They don't hang on to the plant. That makes me feel like the best clue at this point is the flowers.

I need to go look at Mule's website and see his photos.

Dawn

Dawn,
I already knew 2 coworkers at work were seeing very similar problems. This morning when I said they didn't find anything wrong my immediate boss went to telling his problem. Identical to mine. And now his still green fruit is shriveling and turning soft like mine. He has had a few vines already get so far he has tossed them. All of his are in the large mollasses feed tubs. I told them I feel like the person who knows they have a medical problem and keeps being told the tests are negative. I went through that for 2 plus years with a stomach issue before they finally found the problem.

Dawn the wilted plant I sent in along with the other in ground plant with wilt showed the classic wilt signs. Started on one side and then spread over 3-4 days to affect the whole plant. At first they would look better in the morning. By last Saturday morning it was the whole plant and didn't recover over night even in mid 60's temps. The one in the container was the whole top when I first noticed it and it was toast in 3 days. If there was any partial wilt I didn't notice it.

I had told the other two coworkers I would let them know when I found out the diagnosis what the treatment should be. For several to have the same problems and the plants of one have shade from mid afternoon I feel it has to be a disease issue of some sort. And to go from dark green foliage to a sickly yellow in 2-3 days before the leaves even curl on the top and then work its way down isn't how I've ever seen stress affect plants. And for them to decline to the point that even the novices feel there isn't any hope and they pull them means they really look bad. The fruit going soft and the flavor being bad also wouldn't be what I would expect from stressed plants. I know some growers who shut off water to their plants in late August/early Sept in a normal year to stress the plant as they feel it intenifies the flavor.

I agree with you. I think stating it is stress. She did give a type. I will have to post it later. Is like a doctor saying you have a virus. Take two aspirins and rest. Jay

So sorry to hear about the problems you are having Jay. I wish I could help, but I can only identify like 3 or 4 diseases, which is an improvement from the beginning of this year :). I hope the weather yall are heaving will hurry up and break and hopefully that will help things get at least somewhat better. If you find anything else out though, I'd love to know just for future reference.

I had another question for yall as well. Since this is the first year I've really paid attention to growing tomatoes (beyond sticking them in the ground and water), I've noticed a couple things I've never noticed before. The main issue I'm having is with several plants, not just one. A couple of the varieties include White Wonder, Kelloggs Breakfast, Palo Alto, and others I can't think of right now. I have gotten ZERO tomatoes off of these plants. The flowers that form and open never develop. It's not blossom drop. The flowers will open, appear to be successfully pollinated, the flower falls off, leaving what appears to be a tiny tomato (you know what the tomato looks like the first day or two the flower falls off?). Well, they never grow beyond that size. Literally on these plants, the tomatoes stayed at that size for almost a month and then finally turned yellow and fell off. What is this and what causes it? They are in the same raised bed with the same conditions as the black cherry in my first post. These plants are also from seeds I got from trades/other members, not commercial. Any insight would be great. Thanks!!

Lexiegurl,
I will attempt to explain what I feel you are seeing and also attach a link that might help. A tomato is grown from a fertilized ovary. I have been fooled before by what you are seeing. Usually when an ovary/bloom isn't fertilized it will turn yellow at least at the knuckle and fall off. But sometimes you will see the petals fall off and what you see is the ovary. It may stay on the vine for a month or longer. But being that it wasn't pollinated/fertilized it never grows. I've had some of it this year. You will see it worse during extreme heat. Why some fall off immediately and others don't I can't explain. I have several internet friends who could. Taking care of the garden is more than I can keep up with. I pulled the petals off a non pollinated bloom this evening and looked at it to verify what I think you are seeing. I know it is frustrating.

As for my disease issue for now i will continue to spray and those that develop the yellowing and start to decline will be removed. I read the report again and she said abiotic stress. Which basically means they are suffering from non living factors. Environmental ect. I know the one plant had the wilt. The symptoms were there. The one plant in a container that wilted was in the same container that had wilt in it last year. I meant to dispose of the potting mix in it and forgot about it till the plant developed the wilt. I will dump that mix on the backside of the property and use that tub for something else after I spray it with Clorox. Hope your plants continue to improve. Jay

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Bloom

Dawn, I totally agree with Jay's explanation that you're seeing unfertilized ovaries. For some reason there's been a lot more of these this year, and I am 99% sure it is the heat. A lot of people who have grown tomatoes for many years and who've never noticed the unfertilized ovaries staying on the plants ever before are seeing it this year. Cooler and more moderate temps should help improve your plants' fertilization as we move towards fall.

Jay, I still think abiotic damage is a catch-all for "we have no idea what this is". (sigh)

Dawn

Ok, that makes sense. I had never heard of that before so I was baffled. I always thought blossom drop was pretty quick and presented in one way. Guess not. I now also have Septoria *sigh* oh well, t's only a couple plants and it's time to start getting the fall stuff going, so I'm not too upset. I actually went out and pulled about 10 plants or so that had not been good producers/stunted/etc. None of them were diseased badly, just taking up garden space that I could use for other things. But then at the same time, some of the plants I was going to pull, I didn't have the heart to. One of them had the first tomato I've seen all season (since I planted them in April), and the others were producing normal flowers instead of megablooms and our weather is getting better for tomato production, so I decided to leave them there and see what happens.

I wish I could send some rain yalls way. I'm sick of it. We haven't had an insanely large amount of it, but when it rains, it pours. Literally it's like the sky opens up and POURS! On top of that, my plants are suffering because it's been raining off and on for at least a week now and the ground has been saturated this whole time unable to dry out at all. I think that's why I'm seeing more yellowing, cracking, and disease problems. The long range forecast shows some hope of dry weather though. What and interesting year this has been thus far. Wondering what the fall will bring!