Once the plants/weather stabilizes it goes away.

However given your zone and time of year I have to assume these are being frown in a GH, correct? If so then the artificial growing conditions could be contributing to the problems and you may have to intervene somehow.

Stabilizing the soil moisture levels more helps a great deal but you'll have to figure out how to do that based on your set up. Increasing the soil and air temps in the GH helps too.

Dave

Thank you both for the information - it appears stabilizing is the problem with these paste tomato plants as our other non-paste varieties planted at the same time are doing fine - so far. The Marzano also set fruit a week or two earlier than the other varieties which may have contributed to the problem.

I know some of you have seen this before, but with the number of questions posted about BER (Blossom End Rot), I think Carolyn's incomparable explanation bears repeating. Why try to reinvent the wheel when she explains it so well?

Betsy

"you add gypsum, the Ca will be immediately available if you water from the top so it can disperse through the soil a little. Be careful because gypsum does contribute to the level of EC/TDS and you don't want that getting so high you burn your plants.
The reason BER occurs is because Ca is not mobile in the plant. The plant can 'borrow N, P, and K from other plant parts and translocate these nutrients to new cells, but since Ca is not mobile, it has to be continually present in the nutrient stream for new cells to form normally. The blossom end has the newest cells in each fruit, so anytime the nutrient stream is interrupted (cultural) or Ca is unavailable, the cells on the blossom end don't form normally. This can occur not only from an actual deficiency of Ca, but also from high humidity (usually coupled with clouds and calm winds), too much/too little water in the soil ..... anything cultural that interrupts the constant and sufficient supply of Ca to newly forming cells in the fruits."

First, I've been having major DSL problems and it's still not solved, heaven help Verizon, so I don't know how long I'll be on here or elsewhere and have been offline since last Friday.

Just a couple of other points.

Growing in containers is not the same as growing inground whenit comes to BER..

Second, BER iS primarily found with paste type tomatoes, but can affect other varieties as well, so shape is not the determining factor.

THirdly, different varieteis can have different physiologies, which also plays into BER,.

When I used to have my tomato field there were some low spots and after torrential rains some ares would find the plants under water. The normal progression to death of the plant is yellowing leaves, can 't get oxygen and nutriens via the roots b/c the soil is waterlogged, then the leaves turn brown and then RIP.

Some vaiteites would go the death route and others wouldn't go beyind the yellowing leaves and would recover,

So with different physiologies plants handle Ca++ differently as well.

All for now,

Carolyn