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lori_holder_gw

powdery mildew? mineral deficiency? something else?

lori_holder
13 years ago

I have 2 plants this year, a Pineapple beefsteak type and a Green Zebra.

The Pineapple is having some SERIOUS problems that don't appear to be affecting the Zebra (at least not at present). The weather here has been hot (for this area, consistently in the upper 80s or 90s for the last several months) and we've been in a drought. We're not presently allowed to water our gardens, but I don't usually water much after the fruit has been set anyway. Before the plants started setting a lot of fruit, I was fertilizing every 2 or 3 weeks with Neptune's Harvest.

The images are for my Pineapple. The leaves are dying from the ground up. The fruit appears to be healthy, other than some splitting due to epic rains this weekend after a drought. The leaves are NOT falling off of the stems - they are remaining firmly attached. It's continuing to set and ripen fruit at this point. The stems look ok, except that when the leaves totally turn brown and dry up, the stems will too. But I still had to use my clippers to remove all of the dead bits, so they're not breaking off super-easy.

I looked at a bunch of tomato disease sites, and combed through this forum, but I haven't seen any pictures that look just like what I'm seeing. Some look like powdery mildew, some like iron deficiency, but I am not experienced at this kind of thing and can't tell the difference.

If anyone can firmly ID this problem and possibly tell me whether it's something nasty in my dirt that means I shouldn't plant tomatoes in future, or whether it's something I can actually fix at this point I will be *deeply* grateful!