Marv, I've never heard of the term leathering with regard to tomatoes except processing tomatoes for what's called edible tomato leather.

But I am familiar with the term weathering, aka weather checking, sometimes called rain checking as it affects fruits, and have linked below to a general Google search , with several links with good pictures.

I've seen weather checking many times, just the concentric scars around the shoulders, not what some of the pictures show with other lesions on them. And there is no consensus on what causes it.

Single fruits affected yes, but maybe the clefs between fruits from fused blossoms create conditions conducive to weather checking.

Carolyn, who threw away the bulbs for the black tulips b/c they finally rotted, and never really got back to you for seeds for the so called "monsters", but there's always next year, she should live so long. LOL

Here is a link that might be useful: Weather/rain checking

I never heard of leathering, but this year I had some BER on some Cherokee Purples that seems to have healed over and turned into a leather-like scar. I didn't notice it until I picked a few of them that were ripe. Just sliced off the bottom of the tomato and ate the rest. They were delicious.

Thanks Carolyn. I don't know where I got the term "leathering" but I do know it was from another grower, maybe in Canada. It is similar to "cantelouping" as seen on pumpkins where the cracking and healing of the pumpkin skin makes it look like a canteloupe on the surface. I will post a picture of what I am talking about here after I find a really good example. What it looks like is a thick heavy brown area which is sort of leathery but it is not a disease as it does not progress and can be removed surgically when it comes time to eat the tomato. Thanks again.

Removed surgically?

Give me a break b'c with what I went through in Feb of this year and some prior experience with scalpels being used on me I don't want to go near anyone with access to a scalpel. LOL

Did you look at any of the pictures I linked to above and saw nothing that resembled what I think you're talking about. The catalouping was interesting and I'm assuming that was a kind of netting feature, which isn't that removed from the weather checking one can see on tomato fruits on the shoulders.

So I'll look forward to seeing what your pictures look like.

Carolyn, who in Feb had 7 stiches put in, butterfly stiches at that, with BLUE whatever, so she looked like a punk rock star with those stiches, just above her right eyebrow. The Dx was a critically low K level which was responsible for her rather spectacular fall at home b'c she was absolutely paralyzed. The cardiac unit was nice, though, after she got transferred out of the ER. At least in the cardiac unit they buffer the KCL going in whereas in the ER they put it in straight and by G that hurts.LOL

I looked at the pictues but it was not what I am asking about. I will post pictures when I get a really good example. Thanks. Sorry about the low potassium and the fall.