Dead side.

More dead leaves.

v-shaped lesions?

Some of the discoloration is weird looking now. Originally the leaves would just turn yellow. Now there is a little bit of an orange halo, too. I don't know if it is the same condition or something else- I did fertilize recently.

Possible salinity buildup & drought stress. We also don't know if your fertilization is balanced. I think I answered your other thread with the former comment, but you were sure it wasn't. I still think it is. Maybe digdirt will take a stab at this.

Good luck

PC

Thanks for responding (then and now). I've been thinking about it and it's possible that it might be salinity or drought stress, but I still think that drought stress is unlikely. It's more likely that I've overwatered or drowned the roots since the tray underneath would have water in it for a couple days at a time. I'm new and didn't realize that was bad so I recently poked some holes in it.

This thing that gets me is the progression of the condition in both plants. It started out as a wilting on part of a plant that looked like it needed water, but didn't improve when I watered it. It then progressed to v-shaped yellow notched on the leaflets, moving up the plant. Eventually the other stems would be affected. Every time I googled symptoms it looks like a vascular wilt, especially VW, but that boggles my mind because these are container plants on a second-floor balcony. My peppers seem to be fine except for the stink bugs.

I cut the plant that died about an inch above the soil and saw no dark brown streaks, but the strong woody layer (the secondary xylem, I think?) is a light tan wood color. I have no idea if that is normal or abnormal. Also did the white ooze test for bacterial canker- negative. The leaves look just like the pictures of VW I see but I have no experience and some diseases look the same to me. It's just weird. I want to figure it out so I can avoid it next year.

Well, this is that lousy feeling everyone gets when facing something new, and it usually isn't cut and dry until the culprit gets caught red handed. I just want to add one thing. Drought stress sounds like a condition that can't happen when you overwater, but it is the flip side of salinity ... they are inseparable when water is plentiful, and this is purely my conjecture since I haven't researched it at all, but I'm going to quote the 1700's poem, the Ancient Mariner:

Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.

In fact this^^^ is a human version of salinity / drought stress. Just 'cause the water is there doesn't guaranty you can take it up. Though the plant works a little differently that we do, our kidney is basically doing what a root does in reverse. The degree of salinity directly impacts its ability to uptake water since it basically does it by generating osmotic pressure which is erroded at high fertilizer concentrations.

I don't know the pot size but it doesn't look to be too many gallons. As the plant grows larger, more root mass takes up volume and even increases solutes in the remaining soil more. I believe this combination is what is happening. You could flush the pot with distilled or rain water if your fertilization program allow that and see if that helps. You could use tap, too, but some of the salinity buildup migh come from the tap. Anyway, if you've had repeats in different seasons and plants, the case is stronger for this IMO.

Best Luck with it.
PC

"Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink."

OMG, that makes total sense!!! I looked into it and found these pictures of drought stress:

http://www.longislandhort.cornell.edu/vegpath/photos/drought_stress.htm

Which looks close to what I have, even down to the v-shaped notches. Actually, now that I think about it, the wilt diseases induce drought stress, too. Now I understand why it seemed like a vascular wilt.

The size of the pot should be fine. I had a bunch of tomato plants in 5-gallon buckets, thinking they couldn't possibly need anything larger, and they got completely root-bound. When I planted this one I put it in a pot that is much larger- a little over 12 dry gallons when I calculated the actual volume.

I'm going to flush it, but is it ok if I use tap water as long as I let it sit for 24 hours so the chlorine can off-gas? Thanks so, so much for helping. Hopefully this will work- it's my last surviving tomato plant!!

"Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink."

OMG, that makes total sense!!! I looked into it and found these pictures of drought stress:

http://www.longislandhort.cornell.edu/vegpath/photos/drought_stress.htm

Which looks close to what I have, even down to the v-shaped notches. Actually, now that I think about it, the wilt diseases induce drought stress, too. Now I understand why it seemed like a vascular wilt.

The size of the pot should be fine. I had a bunch of tomato plants in 5-gallon buckets, thinking they couldn't possibly need anything larger, and they got completely root-bound. When I planted this one I put it in a pot that is much larger- a little over 12 dry gallons when I calculated the actual volume.

I'm going to flush it, but is it ok if I use tap water as long as I let it sit for 24 hours so the chlorine can off-gas? Thanks so, so much for helping. Hopefully this will work- it's my last surviving tomato plant!!

Chlorine isn't usually a problem in an organic soil, but it will set back to some degree a healthy microbial community and I don't think it will have enough punch to damage the roots under those circumstances.

To make life easier, there is no need to immediately flush and if you must use tap water, (I much prefer rain, because the tap water is of undetermined composition).

Just water your pot the normal amount and then add an extra gallon at the regular water intervals which will overflow and if you can get a handle on it being about a gallon of excess that's best, not more than once a day, on a sunny days when the plant should be taking up a lot of water. Since it is a 15 gallon pot, figure effectively used as 12, figure there are about who knows ... five gallons of water at pot capacity. So do it about 5 times and you should cut the salinity in half. If you use tap, depending on the water hardness it may take about 8 overflows of a gallon, it may be somewhat hard and more dangerous to the plant than the reactive chlorine is the sodium and chloride. What ever you do, do not use water passed through a home water softener (the ones you buy bags of salt for, check you are not using one of these - you shouldn't for a container. Outside hoses usually don't go through the softener). Distilled water at Walmart is 0.88 for gallons here in the aisle that has water to drink. I don't trust the 0.25/gallon RO machines some places have since who knows whats growing in them ;-) Rain is free though, you want some, we just got an inch today...

Just because it looks convincing I'm not assuming ... keep the skeptical attitude, since it still isn't slam dunk. The attitude I took here was if it built up slowly you can take it down gradually. No big deal, just makes it a less messy job and plants don't get shocked from gradual change ... See if you can get some rain or distilled water though if you want to be sure you are getting the full effect of the dilution. Lots of ways to do it, some more predictable than others.

Hope that helps
PC