Thanks to some generous friends, I now have 9 tomato plants growing in containers in my patio. Most were planted on April 8, a couple just this week.

Two of the largest and healthiest looking plants overall are 1) Early Girl and 2) Aunt Ruby's German Green Heirloom. These two also have a couple problems.

The Early Girl showed immediate signs of lesions on the main stem. They may have been there when I purchased the plant. The German Green lesions (two on the stems and on one leaf) have been there over a week and have not spread. At first, I thought the lesions looked like bacterial canker. Then I found this Univ of Fla webpage that has a similar picture and identifies it as Groundnut ringspot virus (see Fig D). The German Green and Early Girl are about 7 feet apart, separated by other plants. So I don't think one infected the other -- but who knows.

A couple of leaves on the Big Beef have an unidentified problem that I haven't had time to track down. Any hints would be appreciated.

I am at a loss in determining for sure what the disease/virus/problem is with the plants and as such, am torn between pulling the two out and replacing immediately vs. taking a 'wait-and-see' approach. If they are terminal, they've got to go. And if there is a risk that they will cause problems in my other plants, they need to go soon. Any ideas?

I have posted lots of pictures of all of the plants on photobucket in the following album. If sorted by filename, each plant should be preceded by its identification tag. Some of the immediately relevant photos are posted below.

{{gwi:1291299}}Early Girl

{{gwi:1291301}}Early Girl

{{gwi:1291304}}Early Girl

{{gwi:1291307}}Early Girl

{{gwi:1291310}}Aunt Ruby's German Green

{{gwi:1291312}}Aunt Ruby's German Green

{{gwi:1291314}}Aunt Ruby's German Green

{{gwi:1291315}}Aunt Ruby's German Green

{{gwi:1291318}}Aunt Ruby's German Green

{{gwi:1291321}}Aunt Ruby's German Green

{{gwi:1291324}}Big Beef