This is just classic BER that you just happen to see at 1 stage of it because you just happened to be there at the time. Steve, you know what causes BER and that "melting blooms" isn't it and that roma/paste types are more prone to it. ;)

Dave

Keep watering even, and don't let the soil get too hot if they are growing in containers. The blossoms may stick to the ends, but they don't cause BER. I've got plenty of tomatoes with dead blossoms still attached to the ends.

I hope you get some good fruit from your SM's

hehehe...thanks y'all...just got me a bit worried for a minute. =)

Steve I also got ber on my san marzanos. We had a heat spell and the batteries in my water timer decided to die so my plants went without water for who knows how long.

Happy to report that as digdirt advised the plant seems to have corrected itself.

Here is a link that might be useful: blog with san marzano ber pics

tammy: Excellent pics for this thread. That's almost exactly what mine look like. They're a bit smaller than the one in your BER pic. I am still leaning towards the dead blossom causing the issue, but not too worried about it with all of y'alls input now. =) It's on 3-4 of the 6 on the first set, just like y'all mention. I guess i'll wait & see what happens. I'm not worried at all if I loose those 3-4 to BER cuz it's only mid July & tomato growing weather here in TN can last until late October at times. So, I should still get plenty of San's.

I'm following your blog now. You're growing some beautiful cool stuff! I am a big fruit & melon person. I just haven't grown many yet due to limited space. I imagine they'll be on next years list though now that I have a yard!

Peace - Steve

Hi steve
Thanks for checking out the blog. I wouldn't worry about your san marzanos. I picked off about a dozen with ber but since then have a lot of toms without ber.

I am super excited about melons. They were slow to get going but once it warmed up they took off. I am going to narrow it down to 2 types of melon next year.

For fruit trees I am going to keep tropicals potted. You can always do that.

One last question...should I go ahead and yank those wee San's off the plant, assuming the blackness is BER or let them grow all the way just to make sure? If i'm just going to toss the maters once they ripen anyways, i'd rather yank them now & let the plant concentrate on healthy ones.

I was pretty sure mine had ber so I pulled them off the plant. Figured it was just wasted energy going to fruit that was inedible.

Yea...that's what i'm thinking...gonna try to get the wife to take a pic of them, confirm again that it's BER, then i'll prob yank them off. :-\

Here's 2 pics of thw most upsetting cluster of Marzano's I've had to yank so far because of early BER. Am I just to wait for the good ones. This is normal, right? If this continues, I might switch back to Roma's for next year.

- Steve

Am I just to wait for the good ones. Yes. Assuming you are avoiding the contributing factors, it will go away.

This is normal, right? Yes, insofar as BER is "normal" and likely would be there this year given the weird weather no matter which paste variety you grew. ;)

Dave

Cool...thanks, Dave. I'll continue to take good care of the plants & just hope the next sets on them are good. =)

Steve

My first batch had ber and I had to pull off about a dozen because my watering system stopped working.

Once we got the system working again I have a bunch more fruitset and none with ber (knock on wood)

NO, that's not normal.

Didn't you water them daily?

I find that, instead of watering deeply infrequently, I don't have BER when watered daily.