Is this blight?.....

11 years ago

I am in a Pittsburgh suburb and WAS having my best tomato season ever...got the plants in 3 weeks earlier than usual and had more than 3 weeks now of major heat and sunshine. Have Romas and Cherry tomatos all mixed in together. The Romas are about 2 inches average and suddenly today I find THIS...(pic attached). A rotting developing on the very bottom side of about half of the Romas....the Cherries are unaffected so far....

I have had no sign of blight since the plague of '09 but normally grow Beefsteaks without problem....

I know this is bad...but it has been so hot and basically dry as opposed to the cool wet '09.

I have watered the plants daily as usual any other year...

Don't know what to do....

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Comments (6)

DNJ500
Original Author
11 years ago
The leaves seem OK....
Djole
11 years ago
Looks like blossom end rot (BER). You can search this forum for information, there have been many discussions about it. Nice looking plants and foliage btw, sorry you have to deal with BER.

Cheers,
Djole
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Ohiofem 6a/5b Southwest Ohio
11 years ago
Not blight. It looks like blossom end rot (BER). Roma's are quite susceptible to BER. It will probably go away after a while. There's not much you can do. Read the FAQ about it.

Here is a link that might be useful: BER FAQ
ally99
11 years ago
You would see evidence of blight on the leaves. Like others have said, this looks like BER. I've use hydrated lime to combat BER (a debatable solution, but it's seemed to work for me in the past!)
green_grandma
11 years ago
Agreed this looks like blossom end rot. I have had similar problems with my San Marzano tomatoes which grew like crazy when hot humid weather hit. Same problem hit some of my peppers too. This is supposedly caused by a calcium deficiency ... which is aggravated during periods of very rapid growth.

I've had pretty good short term luck with foliar feeds of 'Rot Stop' ... which is a calcium bearing spray that is readily available online, from Ace Hardware etc. A longer term solution is to add some gypsum to your garden soil ,,, but this isn't going to do much good in the short term.

I have also heard of plain old skim milk being used as a calcium 'watering additive' ... but I've never tried it myself.
foolishpleasure
11 years ago
Blight or whatever. I had the same thing yellow spots on the leaves and the fruit gets injured. Fungi is the biggest enemy of backyard gardens. I lost have of the peach on my peach trees the peach gets injured and fall. I consulted with the county extension. They recommended spray program to all my trees and all my vegetables. I started the spray every 10 days I use spectracide all purpose fungicide. I saved half of my peach crop and my tomatoes recovered. For three weeks now not even one tomato got injured and all my plants look very healthy. The lady at the extension told me without fungicide spray the commercial producers will go bankrupt. The hot weather and occasional rain is a fertile condition to fungi.