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springtogarden

Droopy tomato plant?

springtogarden
10 years ago

Do you ever have a weepy, saggy just sad looking tomato plant that always looks like you haven't watered it even when it is well cared for? It actually produced some nice sized tomatoes but it just looks so weird. Last night, I gave myself a panic attack thinking maybe it has mosaic disease and that's why it looks so droopy and I should pull it. But I wanted to ask others if you have had a droopy tomato plant and it was just that way and not a problem? Or is it disease-ridden and I should remove it? It is the end of the season so if I have to pull it, it is ok. I will take pic later today and post it.

Comments (12)

  • carolyn137
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    What is the name of the variety, and I ask b'c there are many heart varieties and some paste ones that normally have droopy,wispy,narrow leaves and it's perfectly normal for them to do so,

    Carolyn

  • seysonn
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Yes , I have one called "Black Krim". The other day my nepew commented" Whats wrong with it, Uncle ? Forgot watering it?"
    I said, don,t worry, it is normal for it to be this way.
    Some of its leaves resemble hard taco, maybe worse.

  • springtogarden
    Original Author
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Thank you both! I wish I knew the variety. This friend of a friend gave them to me because he heard I was renting a plot and he had bunch of extra seedlings. All the tomatoes are a mix of heirlooms and hybrids. It has some nice size tomatoes on it but we had a late start to summer so they haven't quite ripened so I can't tell what color they will be. Thanks to your advice, I am thinking it is just part of its personality :).

  • Bets
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Seysonn,

    You must have something environmental going on because my Black Krim have never looked like that and I have grown them several times in the last 10 years. Mine have had normal looking regular leaves on them, nothing hard taco like ever.

    They've occasionally been a little droopy in the evenings when we've had triple digit temperatures and I needed to readjust the dripper system to accomodate the faster water loss.

    Betsy

  • seysonn
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    @ Betsy

    I have researched this and have found quite few videos and pictures of black Krim just like mine. I appears that this particularity is shared with some othe so-called "Black ..." tomatoes.

    Check the video in the link below

    Here is a link that might be useful: Black Krim

  • carolyn137
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    seysonn, I don't want to look at a video,

    I've grown Black Krim as well as Noire de Crimme(Black Krim from a Frenchman), I can look at all the listings for both of the above in various SSE Yearbooks, and can look at pictures at Tania's site as well as google Images.

    And no wheres will I find anything about Black Krim, or OTHER so called black ones where anything is said about droopy leaves, when there's sufficient moisture, no hard taco leaves,just normal RL foliage.

    So I agree with Bets100% and since the mid-80's I've read at several message sites and seen lots of feed back as well, and have grown many so called blacks, event though few I'd say are faves, When I first joined SSE in 1989 there were just 5 black ones listed,now there are several hundreds and the black fad, as I call it, has lasted much longer than I ever exepcted it to.

    Several of us had predicted the next fad would be green when ripes, and that's happened and I'm glad b'c I love them.

    Sometimes I have the feeling that if I or some others make a comment that you'll say no not true at all or say you're wrong about that, just to be a bit contrary, LOL

    Carolyn

  • seysonn
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    @ Carolyne,
    First off, it IS NOT drooping, but LEAF ROLL.

    To prove my point, here are quotations from another site:

    I have noticed the past two years that the only tomatoes in my garden that exhibit leaf curl are black.

    Last year: Paul Robeson
    This year: Noire de Crimee and Black from Tula

    However, they grow big and produce well. Is there something genetically with some black tomatoes that causes this?

    Maybe they prefer slightly different conditions than the rest of my tomatoes, which includes about 18 different varieties this year? Do they require more phosphorous...more water...maybe that is just the way they are?

    2)
    I'm not sure if realted to
    black tomatoes but my Black Prince leaves "ARE" curling
    3)
    My Black from Tula and the Noir de Crimee both have leaf curl also
    4)
    me too..the black ones are curling.
    the leaves seem to be real long and narrow on these plants.
    5)
    And you(Carolyn 137), made the following comment :

    " I think it's a good to distinguish between leaf curl and leaf roll.

    Leaf roll, as noted above, is a physiological condition where early in the season root mass and foliage mass are out of balance. This self corrects as the plants grow.

    Leaf curl can be seen if the plants are too cold, too hot, it's windy, too wet or too dry. I also can occur if there's a heavy fruit burden. So I don't see leaf curl being exclusive to so called black varieties. Very seldom it can be a sign of disease, but that's rare indeed.
    __________________
    Carolyn "

    MY answer to your comment:
    a- there has been no cold (60 to 82F)
    b- I water them regularaly with the rest, twice a week.Approx.
    c- There has been no heavy fruit burden. That giant plant has less than 15 fruits.
    d-No winds at all
    e- never over 85F
    f- It is not disease. This BK is next to EG and branches are touching.

    The ROLLing leavs are mostly older ones. In the middle of summer new growths showed willing. The same happened to EG too but they all perked up after sundown.

    There you have it: This is ofter a characteristic with black tomatoes( Or some of them) A Texas University plant pathologist has also ruled out any disease and has mentioned as "Physiological" in nature. He also made similar reasoning like yours. But none of those conditions are applicable in my case. Whatever it is, it does not do any harm.

    This post was edited by seysonn on Fri, Aug 23, 13 at 23:01

  • Bets
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Seysonn,

    You said ”There you have it: This is ofter a characteristic with black tomatoes( Or some of them) A Texas University plant pathologist has also ruled out any disease and has mentioned as Physiological in nature. Whatever it is, it does not do any harm.”

    You live in Washington and you had your plants checked out by a Texas University plant pathologist? (scoffs) I find that difficult to believe.

    I debated for a long time on whether or not to respond to this post, and previously to some of your other posts. I hate to come down hard on anyone, which is why I did not respond to previous posts that I took exception with. We aren’t a clique on this forum, otherwise we would have blown you out of the water some time ago. But my debate with myself is over and I am responding to this one.

    My job for nearly eight years, dealt with researching questions and providing data to back up the answers, which is why when I provide answers on GardenWeb, I usually provide a link to corroborating information (and you complained about my linking information!) Believe me, I have done some comprehensive searches, and I can find NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that says rolled leaves are characteristic of black tomatoes. Nothing anecdotal and more importantly nothing credible or scientific. Additionally, I have grown more than a dozen black varieties and usually between two and four plants of each variety at a time, and I’ve repeated several of them. Except when I had watering issues, or other environmental stress factors, they did not have rolling leaves. When they did, I also had red, pink, yellow, orange and white varieties, both potato leaf and regular leaf that had rolled leaves. I’ve probably grown about 300 varieties of tomatoes in the last 20 years, and been on GardenWeb for 10 years, Carolyn has grown more than 10 times the number of varieties that I have, and neither of us find that black tomatoes characteristically have curled leaves any more than any other variety.

    Do you consider that you-tube videographer to be an authority on tomatoes, especially heirloom and open pollinated tomatoes?

    I for one, DO NOT. He makes some erroneous statements about Black Krim in his "profile" of the variety: “It’s an heirloom tomato from the isle of Krim on the black sea which is by the Ukraine…”
    and
    "...rumored to have come into the United States in the 1900s and it was brought over here by soldiers..."

    Admittedly, he may have had the erroneous information given to him, but even a simple internet search would pull up the correct information, and one would think if one were going to put a video profile of a tomato on the internet, that one ought to do a little fact checking first….

    Black Krim is a Ukrainian heirloom from the Crimean region of Black Sea (Ukraine). It was first offered in the SSE 1990 Yearbook by Lars Olov Rosenstrom of Bromma, Sweden. BTW, that region of Crimea, a part of the Ukraine, is a peninsula, not an island.

    The Black Krim in his video is in a five gallon bucket and in response to a comment with a question, he states that ”Yep plant leaves curl for various reasons. It isn't something to worry about if you are sticking with a good watering and feeding routing. Container tomatoes curl, in my opinion, more then [sic] earth planted tomatoes. In any cause [sic] it is just there [sic] response to environmental factors.”

    So, even the videographer says curled leaves are a response to environmental conditions, in other words his plant is stressed.

    He has others videos that are titled “Tomato Profile: The 'Brandywine's Red & Suddath's Strain' Heirloom Tomatoes: The Rusted Garden 2011”, and “Spank your TOMATOES for bigger harvests! Plus pruning and using apple juice for setting blossoms.” I tend not to trust anyone as a tomato authority who spells Sudduth’s wrong. (He pronounces it soo-dooths in spite of how he spells it.)

    Oh yeah, he adds lime to his planting hole in the ground to prevent BER (Blossom End Rot). I suspect he might put tums and eggshells in his 5 gallon buckets too. He considers bagged sand to be “sterile”, (it is not) but he probably means free of tomato diseases. When the plant (again, one in the ground) has fruit on it, he mixes organic pelleted lime into a gallon of water to “protect it from getting blossom end rot.” We know from many previous discussions (and scientific data that backs it up), that lack of calcium in the soil is not the cause of BER.

    Unfortunately, he is promulgating some outdated and erroneous information as truth, re: the lime and apple juice. I’ve only seen one other anecdotal instance of someone stating that spraying apple juice on blossoms helps them set fruit, and several others who say they tried it and it does not work, and even some that stated they had increased blossom drop when using an apple juice spray.

    What it boils down to seysonn, is that I think you tend to post just to be posting something, you can’t seem to stand not being the first to respond to a post whether it is pertinent to the issue at hand or not, and you tend to be negative or contradictive, and have even been pretty snippy or downright rude to some knowledgeable people who were trying to be helpful. Carolyn is right, you are contrary.

    My 78 year old mom always says, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.” (and I am breaking her rule now. Sorry Mama, but I think this needs to be said as enough is enough.) Concerning graffiti Papa said “Fools names and fools faces will be found in public places.” I think some of your comments can be equated to forum graffiti.

    Stepping down off my soapbox now.

    My apologies to gardengal13 for the hijack of her thread.

    Betsy

    Edited to apologize to gardengal13

    This post was edited by bets on Sat, Aug 24, 13 at 0:47

  • seysonn
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    "What it boils down to seysonn, is that I think you tend to post just to be posting something, you can’t seem to stand not being the first to respond to a post whether it is pertinent to the issue at hand or not, and you tend to be negative or contradictive, and have even been pretty snippy or downright rude to some knowledgeable people who were trying to be helpful. Carolyn is right, you are contrary.

    My 78 year old mom always says, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.” (and I am breaking her rule now. Sorry Mama, but I think this needs to be said as enough is enough.) Concerning graffiti Papa said “Fools names and fools faces will be found in public places.” I think some of your comments can be equated to forum graffiti. "
    Betsy
    *************************************************
    *I apologize to OP, for side stepping her problem. But so far I have been right on the topic. Whether or ont my comments were right or wrong is another matter.
    ***************************************************

    Take it easy, Lady Betsy !

    You have no right to judge my personality here.
    This is a forum. Do you understand the meaning of "Forum"? it goes way back to the glory days of the Roman Empire, I think.

    Asides from everything else, I just sighted some e-eyewitness to support my argument, weather right or wrong. Still I have the right in this forum to express my views without insulting and character judgement of the others, as you have done.

    You might be the most informed authority about the subject. That is fine with me. But it does not mean that I HAVE TO subscribe to your and somebody else's views. Although I always have an open mind and am eager to learn something new ,everyday. Admittedly I owe most of my gardening knowledge to the members like you in this forum and I remain indebted to them.
    A BIT ABOUT THE SUBJECT:
    To me, it is not important at all how somebody pronounce the name of a tomato, ... where a tomato originated from, .. or somebody planted a tomato in a 5 gal. bucket,.. so forth and so on. I was just talking about something a case that I am dealing with., have been researching it and reading all kinds of similar case and various views. And based on those information, after sifting them, I came up a view that satisfies my logic, which could be wrong.
    About the Texas, Pathologist, I read it on the internet, about the leaf rolling. It so happened that her analysis was similar to that of Dr. Carolyn. and I reputed them based on my real living case and example.

    To me, disagreeing with somebody, (no matter who he/she is), is far far from being an insult or being rude. We can have a discussion( scientific, philosophical, religious) and express views to the contrary. But it is not and should not be considered an insult or disrespect. I have studied some logic an philosophy and find some of your argument in the above response to contain " logical fallacies".(for example your reasoning about the video ...and how he pronounced certain words .. : therefore he is wrong about everything he said. Or he has been wrong about another subject Therfore he must be wrong here too.)

    SHE(Betsy) SAID ,
    Seysonn,

    You must have something environmental going on because my Black Krim have never looked like that and I have grown them several times in the last 10 years. Mine have had normal looking regular leaves on them, nothing hard taco like ever.

    They've occasionally been a little droopy in the evenings when we've had triple digit temperatures and I needed to readjust the dripper system to accomodate the faster water loss. Betsy
    ****************************************************
    HE(I)SAID:
    @ Betsy

    I have researched this and have found quite few videos and pictures of black Krim just like mine. It appears that this particularity is shared with some other so-called "Black ..." tomatoes.Check the video in the link below
    ***************************************************************
    Now I want to know what made Lady Betsy to lose her temper. here? We were just expressing views. Your tomatoes may not have been behaving like that BUT mine is. You may think that it is caused by this and that but I don't think so.
    Is this a disrespect or and insult if we do not agree ??
    ...................................................
    ...........................................
    George Bernard Shaw has said :
    , Keep your feet warm and your head cool.

  • carolyn137
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    If this is going to continue, and I hope not, it reminds me of what happened here in this Forum back in 2004 and 2005 when it was a mess, with all sorts of fighting and disrespect going on.

    At that time many left here and I'm wondering if this continues if I too should consider opting out as well.

    We shall see.

    I was raised to respect others viewpoints, to be open to alternative views from others, and to respect all persons I interact with, to the best that I can.

    And to admit when I am wrong about something as well,usually by posting a link, or indeeed defending my position by also posting a link or two.

    I'm pretty good in many areas of tomatology but for instance not so good at complicated genetics, and say so. Others here and elsewhere may know much more than I do in certain areas and I respect that as well. NO ONE is omnicient and should accept that as well.,

    You don't see me starting threads and asking questions, so my main purpose in being here is to help others by answering questions. After being up close with tomatoes for many decades and in several different capacities I do think I know quite a bit that I can share with others..

    QED

    Carolyn

  • Bets
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Carolyn, please don't leave!

    Seyson, one video is not proof (and you provided no other links), especially when the person who posted it said that tomato plants in containers will often exhibit leaf roll. As for my reasoning about the video, I was just stating points as to why **I**, as in me personally, don't consider him to be a tomato authority, and I did watch more than one just to make sure that one was not a fluke.

    I also don't consider myself to be an absolute authority on tomatoes. I answer questions based on more than 40 years off and on gardening experience and knowledge from reading credible sources. You will not often see me answering disease questions unless no one else has after a period of time, and even then I will include a link to visual diagnostic aids so the original poster can make their own comparisons. I have been fortunate and have not had to deal with much in the way of diseases in my own garden.

    On the point of pronunciation, I just thought it odd that he pronounces Sudduth's with two long u sounds but spells it with an a.

    I plan to say no more on the topics of negativity and contrariness.

    Betsy

  • seysonn
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    We have been talking about a tomato problem (BLACK KRIM...). We were not talking about somebody elses's personality; We were not making character judgments ; UNTIL .. The record is there and clear.
    If somebody feels being offended because somebody else expressed opposing views, that is his/her problem.
    For Pete' sake, in America we have the Freedom of Expression, part of our constitution. Can't we be free to express our opinions on some tomato matters ?

    This post was edited by seysonn on Sat, Aug 24, 13 at 17:50