16,949 Garden Web Discussions | Growing Tomatoes
"regardless how hot it is during the day, tomatoes can set fruit at night as long as overnight temps fall below 75"
I hope you're right, but I don't see it happening. I think the pollen is cooking in the heat. It's 105 with 20% humidity and a breeze. It feels like a convection oven outside. My whitefly infestation probably isn't helping, either, but the only green plants around are my tomatoes and the whiteflies can't stay away.
There has been a lot of research regarding corn pollen and high temperatures. Basically, it's bad :(
I've been growing tomatoes for more than a few years now and I am having the same situation you are. I am about 10 miles south of Pittsburgh, PA. Mine is weather related. I have 4 cherry/grape types that are thriving with fruits ready to pick for the 4th. Of the other varieties I planted this year only Goose Creek is setting fruit as usual. 4 other varieties are 5 to 6 feet tall and have few if any fruit set yet. Blossoms just drop. Not to over simplify it but I think 90% of my success or failure is weather related. We had early warm temps this spring and since then wide temp fluctuations with some cold nights and some hot. Now we are into a heat wave. I had the happen several years ago and still got plenty of tomatoes. They just came later in the season than usual. Time will tell for this year.
If you did plant the whole tomato without cutting it somewhere and some seeds germinated, OK, but having planted the whole tomato without cutting it a rotting process would have started with that tomato to expose the seeds. And that rotting process of all the tomato components I'm sure would have killed any that germinated.
You can take the seeds out of a fresh tomato and without processing them plant them and they will germinate OK. But as others have said, it just isn't the best way to germinate tomato seeds and get good results by planting a whole tomato.
Carolyn
So are you saying you just sprayed it on straight/concentrated? No dilution? Then yes hose the plants off with water and respray.
Or are you saying you added the water to the Daconil in the sprayer but didn't mix it well and didn't keep it mixed? Didn't do the shake-well-as-you-go bit?
Then the end result is the same since the Gilmore sprayers suck from the bottom - the first plants got sprayed with undiluted Daconil and the later plants got sprayed with 90% water.
Dave
Dave - looking back at my original post, I really didn't
explain it properly.
The Gilmour sprayer is the hose-end type that mixes it as you go.
No dilution is needed provided the concentrate is the same
viscosity as water.
You pour in the concentrate, attach to the hose and set
the dilution rate on the sprayer. The sprayer mixes the
stuff for you.
What I did was forget to dilute the concentrate so it
flowed properly. The Daconil, being much thicker than
water, didn't get picked up by the sprayer as well
as it should (if at all).
It's a known situation and, in fact, the instructions
specifically mention thicker than water concentrates and
how to do it properly. I just forgot that part.
You'd better believe I won't forget that little bit of
information again.
Guess I'll wash what little stuff that got on the plants
off and start again from the beginning.
Thanks for the assist and for all your very intelligent
and informative posts.
I'm in the Seattle area and my tomato plants look the same...and I don't think it's anything to worry about. The last time -- several years ago -- that my tomato plants looked like this I had a bumper crop. I think we finally are getting some decent weather and the plants are responding with strong, healthy foliage. I've got quite a few tomatoes setting on my plants and am looking forward to eating them.
You should be fine. Grasshoppers typically don't eat tomato plants. Tomatoes are part of the nightshade family, and their leaves are toxic to most insects. Horn worms are what you need to watch out for. They will eat an entire tomato plant in a day or two.
Here is a link that might be useful: 
Dallis_rene, you can pick tomatoes when they start blushing (getting their first pink or other final color). Most people agree picking them when they start ripening and then letting them finish inside improves the texture, and provides less opportunity for critters to go after them.
Thanks everyone. I will do an experiment and use 'Take Down' spray on only one plant in late evening (8PM). The other plants will just get the AzaMax. If after a few days there is no damage - I will return to my spray program. I will report back.
Cheers,
DL
My first question would be why none of your plants are mulched? That alone could resolve the Physiological Tomato Leaf Roll - that's the name of the condition you are seeing and a search will pull up lots of info on it. Since you have already read through many discussions here, you likely know it is caused by something causing stress on the plants.
The possible causes of that stress are many - root development, fertilizing, poorly draining soil, hot soil temps, etc. etc. - but inconsistent soil moisture levels is one of the most common.
It can be difficult to diagnose from pics unless they are close ups but those leaves look like early Alternaria so personally I would begin a fungicide spraying program.
Hope this helps.
Dave
Lyn,
My best to you. Effort counts!
Planting late isn't bad as long as the plants weren't stunted in small pots long. Warm weather can shock them, too. DO they look worse now that they're planted? Perhaps, they need a bit of shade in your hot weather climate. A bit of TLC & they'll recover from shock if that's what you're describing.
Deep watering 1x a week is usually sufficient unless plants wilt. Mulch will help prevent wilting. Your plants may have been quite root bound before planting and just don't have sufficient roots just yet to support growth. Soaker hoses water well and work great for me when I set a timer to turn off after 3 hours. You'll need to figure how long it takes for yours to soak the soil. Another idea is to bury a gallon milk jug with a few holes in it partway in the soil about 5" away from your plant. Water plant, fill jug. Can fill jug, move on to other garden plants, let drain & fill again as you go back to that 1st jug filled.
Feed plants: depends on what you have used. Plants in pots may have lighter green leaves for a few reasons one being nutrients & other being lighting.
I usually apply organic fertilizer (+ lime, bonemeal, crushed egg shells) at planting time and no more, so I can't give you good suggestions for feeding other than mulch with compost and cover compost with straw or dried grass clippings. Neither are fast feeders & won't burn plant if you also have applied another fertilizer.
Roses are heavy feeders, but tomatoes aren't. Be careful as too much feeding = big leafy plants with no fruit.
Sometimes, when I've kept plants in starter pots too long they become root bound & do flower earlier than I desire on smaller plants. Maybe your plants haven't yet flowered because they are too immature to flower.
What kind of damage is there to leaves?
Remove any leaves that might touch soil. Meaning 4" of stem with no leaves present. Those lower leaves won't produce your flowering shoots anyway. Removal of any other leaves above that first flower truss will reduce total number of fruit and yield. However, if damaged or diseased better to remove the leaves and save the plant.
Did you plant them deeply?
wet leaves = higher chance of disease, but if they dry off during the day should be okay
always better to water soil, not the leaves, so again soakers might be useful to you
sprinkler set too high can wreck havek as can a forceful blast of the garden hose
another option is to bury a bottomless large coffee can at least 6" away from stem to fill with water (directs the blast & helps you measure how much water you're applying
For next year - attempt to dig through that glatial rock using a pickaxe or pry bar for a drainage hole. It's not necessary to till it all up -- just layer materials upward to build a deep bed. We have a lot that same rock and have built up with lots of organic matter. Some gardens here have wood sides, but we also have layered up along the driveway and mound the beds pulling material from now permanent paths.
Many posts on GW about building good soil, lasagna gardening, sheet mulching, etc. Any organic matter applied after harvest (+ removal of all tomato foliage) will improve your chances of success next year. It may seem overwhelming to source enough material, but your family probably generates a lot of compost ingredients on a regular basis. When I set up additional paper trash baskets in our bathrooms & a step on trash can in kitchen for compost we increased our compost ingredients with minimal effort. Used facial tissue, toilet paper rolls, soiled paper napkins, cereal boxes, paper wrappings, junk mail, newspaper, etc. More info on the soil forum about what to gather & spread on garden space to improve soil.
Remember one step at a time.
Hope that helps,
Corrine
Corrine...
Thanks for the encouragement.
Some of the things I've learned about growing roses up here are transferable to growing other plants. When I first planted the tomatoes, they did look wilted. I knew the root system wasn't working yet and carrying moisture up to the top growth, so I did shade the plants by hanging a sheet over the fence and across the tomato cages. I do the same thing when I transplant a rose in triple digit temps....no, you aren't supposed to do that, but I can make it work ... Within a day, the wilting had passed. Whew !
Again, with roses, you never feed them until you see new top growth because that is the signal that the root system is working, so that's why I held off feeding the newly planted toms.
Re: the leaf damage. A couple of them look like water stress damage, which would have been caused by the plants being in the small containers for too long. A couple look like they have some insect damage, but I can't see any eggs on the bottom sides of the leaves... possibly katydids. I've heard them in the garden. There is one spot that looks like rust on roses. It's the color of the leaves that makes me sense that the plants are not getting any nutrients. The organic compost that I mixed in with the planting soil hasn't had time to break down to make nutrients available to the plants. I know that won't be an issue next year.
I am a gleaner at heart. I live in the mountains, so I often go out to the forest to get leaves from certain trees and forest duff to put into the rose beds. I also go to the utility company's chipping pile for wood chips to put over the leaves so that they will stay put and not blow away. Yes, any kind of wood will steal nitrogen, but that's easy to fix with some calcium nitrate in the spring. (I also age bags of chips over the winter, so they turn into beautiful stuff by spring.) I do understand not to use anything with a heavy nitrogen content on the toms.
I removed the bottom leaves of the plants before planting and planted deep because I had read that the bud eyes at the leaf nodes mutate to grow more roots, so I don't have any leaves touching the soil.
I generally don't put kitchen waste in the garden because I don't want to draw critters to the garden. We do have some nasty ones up here.
But I had not thought to use my paper goods for mulching. I usually have to recycle all of that stuff. I can see another mound coming ...lol.
I am still not certain as to the "why" you don't wet the leaves. Is it the force of the water ? I know that when I spray down my roses when the triple digits hit for weeks every day, it helps them to be more heat tolerant because the plants absorb moisture through the leaves and the area around the rose is more humid...my climate is quite arid during the summer months. The daily spraying also totally keeps the roses free of spider mites. Is this one of those things that is NOT transferable ? I do know that if I wet them, it would be earlier in the day and I know they will be dry by the time the night temps start to cool things down.
btw ... this has been a very, very cool and unusual spring. We've only hit the 90s for a couple of days and then it has cooled off back down into the 70s & 80s. Generally once the temps hit the 90s, it never cools down until fall. We do have a 40 to 50 degree variance between night temps and day temps. Does that matter ?
Sorry this is so long.
Smiles,
Lyn
First, I would like to ask everyone: when you spray with Daconil, what sort of mask do you use?
===
And secondly ... Coconut Head, when I look at them in my mind's eye ... well, at the moment they are arguing tactics. And arguing. I don't understand the languages, but the mutual insults are unmistakable. The Wizard looks disgusted. Some of the ballista underlings have their slide rules out.
Hope the dragons don't take advantage and ambush them before they come to a consensus.
As far as vegetarianism is concerned: these are obviously canny dragons with the good sense to enjoy broiled beefsteak tomatoes with their beef. None of our plants are safe.
No, Bacterial infections do not spread from plant to plant unless you've been handling the affected leaves and transferred them yourself. And I spoke to splashback infection is a post above. All of the foliage diseases that are NEW are spread by wind and rain.
Am I remembering correctly that you aren't that far from where I garden? I just can't remember. Yes, we had a T-storm that reached here in my area about 4 AM and aside from the one period of high heat it's been cold and rainy here. So foliage diseases, both bacterial and fungal are happy happy.
Have you looked at some disease sites as I sugggested? At the top of this page the Pest and Disease Forum is linked to and when you go there you'll see a thread called Problem Solver.
The best two sites that I think are still there are the Cornell one and the TAMU one.
With no yellow halos around the spots I'd take a good look at Bacterial Spot which does have black somewhat necrotic soft lesions at some of the leaf margins and internally on the leaves as well/
Hope that helps.
Carolyn
I have been washing myhands after dealing with that guy. Now that it's out Hopefully this will all be acedemic. I'm a couple hours west of you but it's certainly possible it was the same storm, and yes, it's been cooler and damp the last few days.
My oneida county extension offices are Cornell Cooperative and actually a few of my facebook gardening group members are Cornell staff. I have looked through thier material pretty well. With no pictures looking exactly like what I had, I was trying to read the descriptions. I wish I had something better than my cell phone to get good pics with, then I could have taken some nice pics. All the ones I tried with my phone didn't have enough detail to really see the damage. The spots were pretty small.
CH
Last year I planted everything out mid March. This year I spread it out much more which seems to be working well. I have a long growing season and dont usually get killing frost until late Nov. or later.
Lots of Early Blight this year.
Brandywine Red, Landis is a real star and trooper. Heavy fruit set and seems to be the least impacted by EB. Moravsky Div has been a great early with lots of golf ball size and larger fruit but it will succumb to LB in the next week.
Have also harvested Rosella Purple, SunGolds, Early Girls, Moskvich (a fave) Druzba, Fourth of July and a few Orange Bananas as well as a few others paste types.
Planted Brandywine, Brandy Boy, Black from Tula, Prue, Better Boy, Cherokee Green, Cherokee Purple, Pink Girl, Opalka, Aunt Ginny, Eva, and Black Krimm (my favorite) on May 1. Lots of fruit set, some the size of softballs on Better Boy, Brandy Boy and Black Krimm. Ate a Black Krimm a week ago. I have never had tomatoes prior to 4th before, except for cherries. Another Black Krimm and Prue will be picked in next couple of days. Better Boys and Cherokee Green are turning. Brandywine is my only poor producer so far, the rest are doing great. This should be a bumper crop year even though we've only had 2 inches of rain total in two rainfalls since May 2. Mid-Missouri is experiencing a drought so I have quite a water bill. I have noticed little disease on plants this year, but I spray every 10 days with fungicide.
See discussion running on it linked below.
Here is a link that might be useful: Proof that breeders....
Clickable link to bcskye's article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120628181729.htm
Where you can see the veins run through the discoloration, that is a nutrient deficiency. The green veins through yellow patches is from nutrient problems. But where the brown dead spots grow over the veins and destroy them too, that is fungal in nature, likely blight. If the plant is weak from nutrient deficiency, that is going to open the door for the blight.
Ok, maybe my weak solution is TOO weak. I'll try a different solution/interval. thanks for the input.