16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes

That caterpillar is too old to be affected by Bt. (Must be less than half-grown.)

Roll up the leaflet & squish.

Then be alert for any of its relatives. Repeat above treatment as needed.

Thank you, Betsy!

Thanks for the responses on this!

Another opinion: Doubt it's a disease. Likely environmental. Some of the damage looks to be due to drying out.

Remove the seriously affected bottom leaves
Thin out excess foliage/branches to allow good air circulation. Water at the bottom of the plant while ensuring that the bottom leaves remain dry.

This post was edited by jean001a on Sat, Aug 17, 13 at 16:27

I just wonder how a man with no schooling at all, like Radiator Charlies developed, hybridized and stablized a variety in a few short years ?
But Those "GENIUS" people in Japan keep making, F1, F2, .. F infinity. haha

"But Those "GENIUS" people in Japan keep making, F1, F2, .. F infinity."

No, they are breeding for F1 only. They don't want F2 or later generations. You don't ever see commercial hybrid seeds labled F2 or later.

"I just wonder how a man with no schooling at all, like Radiator Charlies developed, hybridized and stablized a variety in a few short years ?"

M. C. Byles (Radator Charlie) spent 7 years growing out his selections of Mortgage Lifter until he felt it was a stable selection. Mortgage Lifter Story on NPR Living on Earth

When dehybridizing a tomato, one should plant as large a group of F2 and subsequent generations as possible and select from plants that most resemble the results you want, save seeds from several and repeat until you have a stable selection, generally at F7 or later.

Keith Muller's site has an excellent tutorial on tomato genetics.

Betsy

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Gene Basics

Here's what I picked today (Aug 16).

Thanks, qaguy!

Also, wow!!!!

I want to try this (Earl's method)

What's the easiest (and cheapest) way of testing my soil...one of those little kits? Are they accurate enough?

Thanks!

Is Earl still around?

Yes. experimenting and practicing Dry Farming can be done where there is water/rain scarcity. Then you can easily implement it. But where you have too much rain , doing it is just like swimming against the current.

Unfortunately, I think people who do dry farming actually do get a lot of blossom end rot. They just do it anyway. I recall reading that a farmer said he gets smaller tomatoes, lower yield, BER, and the plants really struggle, but the taste of the tomatoes is superior. So... not for the faint of heart I guess.

the soil seemed dry but I made the judgment that the plant's stems were firm and not mushy and from what I am reading that means they were probably under watered. I poured about a gallon for every patch of dry soil across that 2 by 5 foot patch totaling about four gallons of water. when I was done the soil had puddles of water and I checked the soil just a few minutes ago and it was still nice and wet. its been five hours since I watered it and it doesn't look super perky, but it also hasn't wilted any more and in fact seems to have perked up just a tiny bit.

here's to hoping I did it right!

First off, Those plants look about normal.

Best judge to water or not to water is your index finger. Go about an inch or two down. If feels almost dry, then water.

AND you did the right thing. One gallon per plant will be enough. One time slightly over or under watering is not going to hurt anything.

Baxter's is a regular leaf not a rugose leaf plant. But even if this was a regular leaf plant there still wouldn't be anyway to put a name to it.

We get lots of requests here every year to ID tomato plants and the answer is always the same - it isn't possible to do. You can pull up all the 'id the tomato plant' posts here to confirm what I am saying,

People simply do not understand that there are thousands and thousands of tomato varieties out there and hundreds of each type, size, shape, and fruit color that look exactly like each other.

Even DNA testing of the plant could not confirm the variety name since so many have the same parental line contributors. So don't worry about it.

Dave

At the very first look at the picture, I thought it looks lik my SWEET_N_NEAT dwarfs. They are less than a foot tall, and span on the ground about one foot. A long shot of the plant can be helpful to better narrow down its variety.

here is a picture of mine

Suggest go to this section of the forum http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/tompests/

was set up for that type of ?

ml

I use fertile soil, drip irrigation, and a mulch to cover the ground to try and hold down the viruses. So far I am getting some problems on the lower leaves of some plants but am doing much better, here in northern CT, than I have before I started doing this. I use cardboard boxes for mulch - they are cheap (free from the dump) and easy to lay down.

We had our very first voles ever this year -and- that looks just like the damage they did for us. The only reason we know for sure it was voles is because we saw them running across our driveway one night when we came in late. They took up residence in our raised bed. We gave them an eviction notice with some PermaTill (tiny little sharp rocks). At season end we will mix a large amount of PermaTill into all of our raised beds.

Cheers,
DL

I think , your other (better ?) option is to pick the maters at color break and ripen them inside.

On the suspect front, I can name THE RATS. That is what I have first hand experience with them. Sure other criters are capable of committing the crime as well. (Grin)