My San Marzanos are 100% being hit by BER and dying before they get bigger than a grape, and my hybrid Heatwave tomatoes are being affected at about 20%.

What the heck? My peppers are fine. The native soil here sucks and last year I lost all my peppers and about 90% of my tomatoes. This time with the new soil, the peppers are doing well but the tomatoes are suffering.

Something is causing this BER and its not calcium. PH perhaps? My PH is 7.0, which is a bit alkaline.

Any ideas?

It is a soil moisture consistency level and the immaturity of the plant's root system, NOT any lack of calcium. Inconsistent soil moisture levels - soaked, dry, too wet, too dry, soaked, etc. - results in inconsistent calcium transportation to the fruit and BER. The shape of the fruit also contributes which is why paste types are more susceptible.

In the spring with all the spring rains it is difficult, but not impossible, to stabilize the soil moisture levels. The rest of the time it is the garden watering regimen that is at fault. Once the soil moisture levels are stabilized and the root system matures the BER disappears.

Dave

Second, certain varieties are much more prone to BER than others. I've never grown San Marzano before, but every paste tomato I've grown has struggled a bit with BER while other types are typically not bothered by it at all (in my soil at least). What may reassure you, though, is that plants that have it will often grow out of it and do just fine, after dropping the first 5-10 fruit or so. I don't know how far along your plant is... I don't bother trying to correct it anymore, myself...

And as others have pointed out, the plants usually outgrow BER as the season goes on, although a couple of my Opalka's last year never did.

I had lost this article, but Bets, who posts here, posted it and I was able to get it back thanks to Betsy,

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With BER there is NO problem with absorption of Ca++ though the roots. The problem is maldistribution within the plant that can be induced by a number of stresses which include uneven delivery of water, too much N, growing in too rich soil, too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry you name it.

As the plants mature they can better handle the stresses that can induce BER so usually it goes away.

The two exceptions are first, if the soil has NO Ca++ as confirmed with a soil test, and that's a rare condition, and second, if the soil is too acidic in which Case Ca++ is bound in the soil.

Again, adding lime, egg shells and on and on can not and will not prevent BER b'c absorption of Ca++ thru the roots is OK.

Paste tomatoes are especially susceptible to BER and I think someone in a post above mentioned that.

If you go to the top of this first page and click on the FAQ link and scroll down you'll also find an article about BER in case some of you have never looked at the FAQ's And there's some darn good articles there as well, but I wouldn't pay any attention to the variety list b'c it's way out of date.

The old information about BER being caused solely by lack of soil Ca++ has been shown to be wrong with research that's been done in the last 20 years or so, but it's going to take another generation before the real story gets into books, websites, magazines, etc. Most of the better websites already have the correct information.

BER affects not only tomatoes, but peppers, squash, cabbage, cauliflower, etc., and it's a huge multimillion dollar problem for the industry, which is WHY all that reasearch was done. For instance, when tissues were taken from a plant that has BER fruits and was assayed for Ca++, the normal level of Ca++ was found, it just wasn't getting to the blossom end of fruits. And there's also a condition called internal BER where the fruits look fine, no evidence of BER externally, but when you cut open the fruit the inside is black

Hope that helps

Carolyn

I will be passing on the info about the egg shells, etc. to the few serious tomato growers I know. I think we always tend to think BER is caused by something we did or didn't do when it seems more likely from what you wrote that it's probably something we can't necessarily control, at least not when growing outside where we can't control the weather.

Caryl