Are these two the same variety, are they next to each other?

hope this helps

Here is a link that might be useful: tomato diseases

Hi Chandra,

First, don't panic. Tomato plants often have small setbacks from which they completely recover with virtually no assistance from us. So, sometimes the best thing you can do is avoid touching the plant (you don't want to spread the disease if it is viral or bacterial) and to not give it any special treatment.

Sometimes in our haste to fix a problem we can inadvertently give the plants too much fertilizer, too much water and and too much handling, which is commonly referred to as "loving our plants to death".

Now, it would helpful to have a little bit more information about what is going on so we can strive to come up with an accurate diagnosis.

Are the two tomato plants the same variety or are they different varieties? Which variety or varieties are they?

Did the problem suddenly appear in a matter of a day or so where they looked fine yesterday but then looked horrible today, or did it develop over a longer period of time? If it did, how long from when you saw the first symptoms util today?

If the disease has been progressing, can you tell if it has spread from the bottom up or from the top down?

Is new growth continuing to occur or has the plantss' growth stalled? If new growth is occurring, does it look normal or does it look sick as soon as it appears?

When you water your plants, do you water at the ground level so the water doesn't get on the foliage? (I hope so.) Have you sprayed anything on the plants at all? If so, what was it?

When we had that little rainy spell a few days ago, did you get much rain? Did it stay cool, cloudy and humid for several days after that?

If you want to, you can look at the website linked below and see if you see anything that resembles what you are seeing on your plants. I will caution you that often very many diseases resemble one another greatly so it is easy to misdiagnose. Also, many diseases to which tomato plants are highly susceptible develop in the same or very similar conditions, so sometimes several diseases appear at once which makes it much harder to get a diagnosis.

Finally, the easiest way to diagnose a disease is to watch it and see how it develops and advances from day to day. Conversely, the hardest way to diagnose it is to look at a photo that captures only one moment in time. I feel like I am better at dignosing something I've seen developing over a period of time in my garden than I am at looking at a photo and diagnosing strictly from it.

Even if your plant has a disease, many diseases can be stopped in their tracks and do not necessarily spread to other plants or even continue to spread on the affected plants.

Do not remove diseased foliage until you have a diagnosis. Your foliage conducts photosynthesis, so if you remove the foliage, that can interfere with the plants' ability to heal itself or to outgrow the disease.

To tell you the truth, the diseases I generally see on my tomato plants can be counted on the fingers of one hand and none of them generally gets me very riled up. In fact, I'm prone to shrug it off and say "oh well" and go about my usual business without giving it too much thought. I'm just super laid back about diseases because probably 90% of what I see in my garden ultimately isn't a problem that affects production and the whole point of the plants is production.

Sometimes we can diganose diseases fairly easy because certain ones appear at certain temperatures but not at other temperatures. Unfortunately, this year we've have temperatures all over the place from temps in the 90s or even the 100s in March and all the way back down to low temps in the 30s in May. That might make it a bit harder to get a diagnosis that is correct.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: TAMU Tomato Problem Solver

I had something similar happen to one of my plants. Here is another question: is this a plant you grew from seed or one you got from the swap? My plant, which developed a yellow foliation/dried leaf look was a swap plant. I think my plant might have a little bit of powdery mildew. It was such a beautiful tall plant when I got it from the swap. And I planted it the day I got home, but the next day was very rainy and clammy and cold, so I don't think the plant was all that happy. But I removed the infected leaves (maybe 6 or 7 all together) and sprayed my organic cure-all on it and now it looks a lot better.

My organic cure-all recipe is: 6 drops Neem seed oil, 3 drops Tea tree oil, 3 drops Eucalyptus oil, 2 drops oregano oil, and 2 drops lavender oil. Combine that in a spray bottle with a tiny squeeze of dish soap and water and you're set. Neem oil kills bugs and all the other oils kill a variety of bacterias, fungi, and viruses.

You can buy all the oils at the health food store. I also fertilize with a high nitrogen fertilizer in the first two months of plant life and then switch to a balanced fertilizer the rest of the season. The high nitrogen mix really boosts the plants and, I find anyway, makes them very healthy for the rest of the season.

Kelly

Chandra, in the left of the second picture I can see a thread of a web between the bottom two leaves. very tiny. I like Neem oil too. What I got at Atwoods had other things in it too, not sure what.

Thank you for your quick response. Sorry I would have been written more information for the accurate diagnosis.

Are the two tomato plants the same variety or are they different varieties? Which variety or varieties are they?

They are different varieties: Beefmaster, Betterboy and Aunt ruby's green (but not as severe as beefmaster). Neighboring plants are Jetstar, Porter, Beefmaster and Sungold. Please note that one Beefmaster is affected and other one is doing geat. All these 40 tomatoes produced in house from the seeds from seedswap.

Did the problem suddenly appear in a matter of a day or so where they looked fine yesterday but then looked horrible today, or did it develop over a longer period of time? If it did, how long from when you saw the first symptoms until today?
Looks like symptoms might have appeared in last 2-3 days, as they were just fine when I looked couple of days ago, may be I not observed carefully that time?

If the disease has been progressing, can you tell if it has spread from the bottom up or from the top down?
It appears to me "top down", as bottom leaves are looking ok. I have taken few more this evening for comparison (see below link).

Is new growth continuing to occur or has the plants' growth stalled? If new growth is occurring, does it look normal or does it look sick as soon as it appears?
Plant growth seems to be stalled. Nearby plants are taller than affected plants. (see pics)

When you water your plants, do you water at the ground level so the water doesn't get on the foliage? (I hope so.) Have you sprayed anything on the plants at all? If so, what was it?
I always watered them at the ground except couple of times when my daughter water them... I not sprayed anything so far. But applied Tomato tone @1-2 tsp per plant (ring) a week ago.

When we had that little rainy spell a few days ago, did you get much rain? Did it stay cool, cloudy and humid for several days after that?
We recived 2.12" rain for in two days. But it was not humid, indeed beds become dry in 3 days.

I have uploaded few more pics. Please let me know how I should treat these affected plants.

Thank you -Chandra

Here is a link that might be useful: More pictures

Chandra,

I will leave any advice to the experts here, but I know that panic you feel when one of your "plant babies" gets sick. I have freaked out here more than once about various issues. I hope everything is okay!

Jo

Among your first pics it looks like the discoloration spreads out from the veins ? Doesn't this indicate that the problem is inside and that topical efforts may have little effect?

Anyway it seems in reading the TAMU lit that there are some preventive measures but sometimes bad things happen to good tomatos. I don't know if once conditions are better that the infection will just run it's course?

Chandra,

I have not forgotten this thread and your tomato problem, but I simply don't have an answer I'm confortable with yet.

I have sat and looked and looked and looked at your photos and don't feel like I have a definitive answer for you.

Sometimes when I have a "new" tomato problem on one of my plants that I've never seen before, it takes me days to come with an answer, and I usually arrive at the answer through the process of elimination, slowly eliminating one possibility after another until I finally arrive at the point that I think I know what is wrong. Many tomato diseases look very similar and that is part of the problem. Another issue is that if 2 or 3 things show up at once, which often occurs after a rainy spell, the multitude of symptoms make it hard to get a definitive diagnosis just from looking at the plant. Many tomato diseases ultimately do not harm a plant severely even if the plants look bad for a while, and sometimes a plant recovers and moves on and does fine and you never really know what they had to begin with.

I was hoping by now that our Tomato King (Jay) and our professionals (Gary and Busy1) might see this thread and have an idea what it might be. It doesn't look exactly like any one thing I've seen before, but it might look exactly like one thing someone else here has seen.

Let's run through some of the possibilities:

BACTERIAL SPECK OR SPOT: In the little dark splotches, after a day or two, in the center of the splotch or spot, do you see tissue necrosis occurring? If so, I'd lean towards a bacterial issue like bacterial speck or spot. However, when I see them on my plants, they are definite small specks or spots that only reach a specific size and they are not nearly as widespread as what I'm seeing on your plants. Your discolored areas on your leaves are larger than what I see in years when I see bacterial speck or spot.

With bacterial speck, I see little very dark brown or black lesions surrounded by a yellow halo. The specks stay pretty small. With bacterial spot, I see dark, water-soaked lesions up to about 2 or 3 mm that are not necessarily round but are more angular and irregular in shape. Although they are dark, they get lighter and lighter in the center. The very center of the lesions can get transluscent enough that you can almost see through it.
During periods of heavy rainfall, bacterial spot can spread very quickly and give entire leaves a blighted appearance. I think it is more likely your plants might have bacterial speck than bacterial spot, but I'm not very confident of that answer.

There's another bacterial infection called Syringae Leaf Spot that somewhat resembles what the photos show on your plants. I've only seen it in photos and not on my own plants, so I don't have a high degree of confidence in that answer either.

If what you have on your plants is bacterial in nature, a copper spray on the plants would be the recommended treatment.

FUNGAL? When I first saw it, I wondered to myself if you were seeing Early Blight or Gray Leaf Spot. However, while I see a little Early Blight, I don't think that's what the entire problem is. As far as Gray Leaf Spot, it usually looks more tan to gray and your spots look more like dark brown to black.

If you look at the dark lesions on your leaves and see small black fruiting bodies, then your plants might have a fungal infection called Phoma Rot.

I think Septoria Leaf Spot could be a possibility, but your plants don't look exactly the same way I remember Septoria looking on my plants when they had it in 2009. Usually Septoria Leaf Spot shows up on older foliage first, and yours is showing up on newer foliage first. When my plants had, the spotting was more tan to brown and yours is darker.

If what you have is fungal in nature, a fungicide should stop it from spreading. For that you could use chlorathalonil (Daconil). However, it is not organic.

Now, if it were my plants, I'd likely spray the affected plants with copper and/or Daconil or both, and it is not easy for me to say that because I hate to spray anything on my plants and almost never do spray them. I might even spray the plants located closest to them, but I wouldn't spray the whole 40 plants because I like to pick and eat tomatoes in the garden and you can't do that if you're spraying the plants with stuff.

Even if we can't say definitively what it is, we should be able to stop it in its tracks with a bacteriacide or a fungicide or both, unless it is viral. However, my gut feeling is that it is a bacterial or fungal infection or infections.

VIRAL? If it is viral in nature, those sprays won't stop it. I'm sitting here with the laptop computer on my lap and my Petoseed Tomato Disease handbook lying on the sofa beside me, open to the viral section. I am hoping to see something that matches your photos. There are not many diseases in the viral section of this book that look anything at all like your photos, and I suppose that is a good thing.

The one that most closely resembles your photos is Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus. I have seen that on exactly one plant one time so surely do not think I'd automatically know it if I saw it again or that I could diagnose it in a photo. The "spots" on your foliage do remind me of the TSWV spots, but when I had TSWV, the tops of my plants wilted pretty quickly and yellowed. So, your description of the problem on your plants moving from the top down does resemble what I saw with TSWV, especially with the photos that have the very small dark spots or splotches all over the leaves. Does that mean I think it is TSWV? No. It means I think it looks like it could be. I'm not a path pathologist or a tomato expert, just a woman who likes to grow tomatoes. The good thing is that if it were to be TSWV, that disease doesn't spread as easily from plant to plant as a lot of the bacterial and fungal diseases do. If you knew for sure it were TSWV, you'd want to remove the plants because you won't get good fruit from them as the disease affects fruit as well.

I even walked around my garden last night looking at my plants trying to find something on my plants that might resemble what you're seeing on your plants, but didn't find anything.

If you truly want a definite diagnosis, you need to contact OSU and see if they'll diagnose it for you. They may have to run a lab test on it and tell you what it is, but it also is probable that one of their actual tomato experts can look at it and instantly tell you what it is. That's the only way you'll ever know "for sure".

If you just want to know how to stop it from spreading, spray the affected plants with copper and with Daconil (read your Daconil directions to see if they both can be applied at the same time or if you need to apply one, wait a few days, and then apply the other). If it is fungal or bacteria, that should stop the spread. If it doesn't, you then would have to keep searching for an answer about what viral illness it is, or just remove the plants and move on.

If you look at photos and descriptions of Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus and feel confident they match your plants, you need to remove the plants.

You can wait another day or so and see if anyone else who reads this thread can identify what you have. All it takes is one person looking at your photos, recognizing it as something they've seen before, and telling you what it is. Maybe, though, no one here has ever seen it before.

I don't feel like I've been very helpful, but I have tried. You're supposed to ask me about the easy things like cloudy spot or BER or concentric or radial cracking, not the really hard ones like massive splotchiness on foliage. : )

I haven't even mentioned the leaf curl or leaf roll visable on some leaves because often they are a stress reaction and usually go away on their own, so I am less likely to worry about them, especially if they appear on plants that are very wet or very dry or vey hot.

Because your plant issue developed right after rainfall, my gut feeling it is a bacterial or fungal issue.

Hope this helps,

Dawn

I can honestly say i dont know.

But the more i read and the more i research possible causes, I have to agree with Dawn. It really does show lots of symptoms of the tomato spotted wilt.

If i was going to lump all the symptoms and try to diagnos it as one problem, i'd probably lean towards the tomato spotted wilt virus.

Here are some photos i yahoo'd

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/IPM/images/tomatoes/diseases/tomato_D26b-TSWV-bronzing-029-OMAFHRT_zoom.jpg

http://www.tomatopalooza.org/2006/pix/TSWV2.JPG

http://eppftpserver.ag.utk.edu/profiles/disease/vegetable/TSWV/TSWV1.jpg

Dawn,
Thank you so much. I searcdhed little bit on diseases of tomatoes, I am kind of convinced with your and Busy1 guess on Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus (TSWV). Symptoms of effected leaves somewhat matched with pictures of TSWV. I will wait for some more reply from other experts before I pull out those plants.

Busy1, thank you for those pics and info, symptoms quite resembles, it could be TSWV.

regards -Chandra

Chandra,

You're welcome.

With a lot of the bacterial and viral diseases, the symptoms can overlap and you can look at a diseased plant and think it "might be" 6 or 8 different diseases.

With Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus I've never seen anything that resembles it so strongly that they would be confused for one another, but for me, the key is when it moves from the top down. Also, while Target Spot disease, which is fungal, often has the tiny dark flecks, they have more distinct yellow halos around them. I tried to convince myself your plants had Target Spot, but as you no doubt noticed by viewing the photos Busy1 listed for you, your plants resemble TSWV more than they resemble anything else. Back when my plant had it, it was fairly new in the USA and I had a hard time even finding photos to compare it to. Since then, sadly, it has become much more widespead.

If it is Tomato Spotted Wilt, that is a disease spread by thrips, and I think only by the thrip larvae. The only time I've ever seen it here was on a purchased plant, and I don't think I usually see thrips here very often, for whatever reason. Jay, on the other hand, often has thrips in his area, so he might have seen it before.

There are some areas of the country where Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus is a huge problem, but I don't think it has become a widespread problem in Oklahoma yet.

There are a few varieties of tomatoes that have been bred with some tolerance of TSWV.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: OSU Fact Sheet Tomato Diseases

Chandra

We had something that looked a lot like that, last year. It started suddenly just after a rain. The only reason I've hesitated about saying it's the same thing is that our tomato plants were in three fairly widely separated areas in the yard and everyone of them got it at about the same time. We took it to the Stephens county agent and he didn't recognize it, so he sent it to OSU. We called back when he said and he said they still didn't know, but he'd had a lot more people call with the same problem. By the time we were supposed to call back again, the tomatoes had put out new foliage that was unaffected and the problem never appeared again, so we never called to find out the answer. We never noticed that there was any long term damage to the plants. The problem just went away.
If it is the same thing, your plants should be OK, but like I said, I just can't say for sure.
Good luck with it,

Loretta

Loretta,

I have seen "undiagnosed spotty foliage" self correct too. It can be maddening when no one can say for sure what it is.

I have had tomato plans wilt and "die" overnight as if with bacterial wilt (which I see about every 2nd or third year and know well), and then regenerate, regrow from the ground a couple of months later (I never pulled them out or replaced them....) and produce fruit. The mysteries of the tomato world never cease to astonish me.

I think it is interesting that they never came up with an answer for y'all because if OSU and the extension service can't diagnose it, then who can? : )
I do know that some Gulf Coast residents reported tomato plant issues apparently related to the BP oil well rupture last year and I remember there were very distinct symptoms, but I don't remember what they were. Some people in areas with high pollution levels also see pollution damage we don't see here.

I also would bet the growers in California see at least 100 different kinds of pests and diseases that we (thankfully) don't see here. Maybe we should be looking at a California-based extension website of tomato problems to see if that's what is going on here.

Hope you're getting rain today. It is cloudy and cool here, but no rain yet.

Dawn

Here is some information from cornell on TSWV

http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/factsheets/Virus_SpottedWilt.htm

Dawn,

I don't know if OSU found an answer or not. Probably they did. The agent said to call back in a week or so, after that first call when they said they didn't know yet, and we didn't since it seemed to be going away. It just was a little scary, the way it hit all of a sudden. After a while, I stopped worrying. Guess we should have called anyway, just for a name.

No rain here, yet. But we've gotten 2.8 inches over the last 2 1/2 weeks. That's more than 4 times the rain we had gotten in the previous 6 months. I'm hopeing it's a change, finally, but I'm afraid to say so and jinx it. I hope the people in the western part of the state get a good rain out of this.

Loretta

Thank you Dawn, Busy1 and Loretta for all those information. I lam learning lot from your posts. I have decided to remove/isolate those plants with backup plants. I am just afraid diseases may spread to other plants. All tomatoes plants are growing very vigorous, all size of fruits, flowers buds, blossoms, and tons tons of suckers.

regards -Chandra

It looks bad enough to me that I would have removed the plants, but that was even before a matching picture. I have never seen that on a tomato plant before. Guess I'm just a chicken!

Loretta,

Woo-hoo! Y'all have had some good rain. Of course, a lot more needs to fall before the evil summer heat arrives.

We had big rain in latest April/earliest May---2.7", which brought us up to over 5" for the year. This afternoon we had 1.3" more, so it seems "wet" right now and I love it, but we're way below our average year-to-date totals.

I hope western OK got a lot today too, but the storms early in the day seemed to look great on radar but weren't dropping as much rain as you'd expect. I haven't been back and looked at the Mesonet rainfall map since the afternoon rounds of showers began.

Carol, I just won't hardly yank a plant, but that's because the problems I see normally don't spread much from plant to plant. If I had the thrips that spread disease quite readily, I'd likely yank at the first sign of trouble.

Long ago, I thought my tomato plants had to look perfect and I spent a lot of time removing unsightly foliage or yanking ugly, apparently sick, plants. Nowadays, I look at the sick plants, shrug and ignore them. Usually they self-correct on their own. Even if they don't self-correct, they tend to keep producing. I can live with the plants looking bad as long as they're giving me good yields.

In times of drought, it is a bit different. If plants look like crap and aren't producing, I am more likely to yank them so the money I'm spending watering will go to plants worth of receiving that water. There's no reason to spend money keeping a plant alive in drought if it is producing poorly.

Dan

My tomato plants never seem to have that beautiful green lush foliage that some people have, but they produce tomatoes. With the amount of spring rainfall that we normally get, mine seem to get something early that will affect their appearance, so I just enjoy them while they are producting and when they start looking bad I don't mind yanking them out. I hear some of you say that your tomatoes produce until frost, but I know that mine will wear out before that time.

Chandra I was asked to look at this thread and give my opinion. First I have a question. Do you see any bronzing on the plant? That is one sign that confirms TSWV. You won't see it on every plant. And maybe sometimes I just pull them at first sign of infection and don't give the color time to show. I've had a lot of problems with it over the last few years. I've found if I'm careful where I plant my onions and also potatoes it helps with insect borne tomato diseases. At least those I have the most problems with. As both attract certain insects that carry diseases. I will past a quote from the Texas A&M site where it states that flower and onion thrips carry the disease. "The virus is carried by flower and onion thrips that have carried the virus from infected weeds and ornamentals." I would lean toward that being your problem. But without seeing the plants first hand it is hard to say 100%. The problem with controlling it is unless you use some type of repellent most other controls require the thrip to take a drink. If they are infected that one drink will infect your plant. If you remove the plants promptly then your other plants should be fine unless more thrips stop by. With TSWV you will see one plant infected and those around it are ok. The only time I have seen several plants in a row infected was one year when I planted my caged plants 4 foot from my onions and nothing in between. I lost 85% of that row. The row 4 ft south of the bad row I only lost 2 plants out of 18. Thrips ride the SW winds here usually. So they will travel through moving NE basically. Hope the rest of your plants are fine and you have a great harvest. Jay

Thanks, Jay. I appreciate it that you found time during your planting busy season to come here and look at this specific thread.

Y'all, I'm the one who emailed Jay an urgent "SOS" for help because I wanted to see if he could find something on this plant that the rest of us were missing. I felt like if we were wrong about TSWV, Jay would be the one to correct us and set us on the right path.....or (grinning) send us on a wild goose chase seeking another answer.

I'd like to emphasize again to everyone that diagnosis of tomato disease is very tricky because many diseases share common symptoms. One of the main symptons they share is foliar leaf spots in shade of black, blackish-purple, brownish-purple, brown, tan and yellow. Often, it is the shape or size of the spots that help us narrow down the problem from many possibilities to a couple of possibilities or even to one definitive answer. Often, too, the timing of the disease helps with a diagnosis because there are some bacterial issues that are much more common in spring's cooler temperatures and others that are much more common in June or July's heat.

When you see something like Chandra is seeing on his plants, sometimes you have to be patient and let the more experienced growers consult their memories, their disease books, various disease diagnostic websites, one another and maybe even their own notes from previous years to remind themselves of what they "usually" see at this time of year. Even then, none of us can guarantee we are right when we attempt to diagnose from a photo---all we're doing is offering opinions on what we think we're seeing in the photo.

Just a reminder to all: tomato diseases often are spread from plant to plant or from the soil or mulch to the plant by water spashing disease microorganisms up onto plant foliage. Keeping water off your plants as much as possible greatly reduces diseases linked to fungi and bacteria that spread in this manner. Mulching heavily puts a barrier between soil-borne microorganisms and your plants. Watering only with soaker hoses or drip irrigation help keep moisture off your foliage. Both will help combat foliar disease. However, you generally cannot avoid having something show up on your plants because that is the nature of tomato plants---their foliage gets every disease that comes along.

Remember too that it often is our own hands that spread disease from plant to plant. If you have disease symptoms on any plant, wash your hands after you touch that plant and before you touch another plant in the same family. In the case of tomato plants, related plants are potatoes, peppers and eggplant, all of which 'share' some of the same diseases at times. You don't want for your hands or tools to spead disease around your garden.

When you have a viral disease, often insects help spread them so once you have a diagnosis you have to focus on pest control to keep the pests from spreading the disease. The method you use would depend on the pest you're fighting. Both Jay and I have used a garlic-based insect repellent with some success in some instances. The one I have is, I think, the same one Jay has used in the past and it is called "Garlic Barrier". I find it at my local feed store/farm supply store (Tractor Supply Company). While using a garlic barrier spray will not prevent all insects, it often will deter them from hanging around. Many of them don't like it and will move on some place 'garlic-free' if you are using it regularly.

I've linked Garlic Barrier below so you can see what the bottle looks like. It is one of the few organic products I can find in local stores here and do not have to order online, so I think it likely you can find it in at least some areas stores as well.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garlic Barrier Bottle Looks Like This

I just want to add a little. One thing that makes diagnosing so difficult is many times there can be 2 or more diseases or problems involved. Which makes it very hard and almost impossible at times without sending a diseased plant to a lab. There was a person who was doing some graduate work a few years ago and had some interesting pictures of how plants looked with various combinations of 2 or more diseases. I thought I had either saved the pictures or a link to them. But can't find them. So will include a couple of links that will show one combination of 2 diseases and you will see that it doesn't look like either disease by themselves. You can go to the Cornell site. It shows and lists the TSWV a few times. If you go down to where it says yellowing and bronzing or calico with stunting you will see TSWV listed. Then if you go down to where it says Dark brown streaks on foliage, stems and fruit you will see the combination of diseases Tomato Mosiac and Potato Virus X. You can go to the following link to see a picture of Potato Virus X. http://www.dpiw.tas.gov.au/inter.nsf/WebPages/TTAR-5CL57C?open As you will see the combination looks different than either disease separately. I still wonder if a combination of problems maybe what Chandra is seeing. And if so it would be difficult for any of us to properly diagnose it. Jay

Here is a link that might be useful: Cornell Disease Guide

Dear Jay and Dawn,

Sorry for my delayed response. I was unable to browse GW site in the weekend due to many unexpected errands.

He are my response, I hope its not too late. I see some bronzing on the edges of few leaves. Some small spots on few leaves and some blackening of younger leaves. I was looking the the stems carefully, mistakenly bend little bit, they broke like chalk piece or crayon sticks. Stem are very very brittle, for curiosity I bend few more affected stems, they were so brittle. I also noticed some brown marking/lesions on the stems.

I not noticed any insects, trips, bugs on the any tomato plants expect some lady bird beetles here and there. Good think is that disease is not spread to other plants. As you said only affected plants are suffered but surrounding plants are doing fine. I see some plants showing curling leafs. I Dawn said that could be due to stress.

Thank for all those info and links.

regards -Chandra

Chandra - if I were you, I'd yank those puppies right now. I'd also keep note of which ones they are and where they were planted. It could be insects spreading the disease, it could be that the seed itself was carrying it...but you've got LOTS more growing and I wouldn't let those few interfere with your joy of growing what you have. And do not put them in the compost pile - trash them. Wash your hands afterward and be done with them! You've got LOTS more to look forward to!!!

I know you've got guests and are busy with last minute preps for the New Babies, but it's time for a Priya-Update! Don't make me drop in on you! LOL! (I know I can. I also know every one that was at the Fling is looking forward to the new babies too!)

Paula

Chandra,
A quick response as I don't have much time. If you see bronzing I would highly suspect TSWV. Many times you may not see the thrips. They travel on the wind and may only be in your garden a few hours. But remember if you have infected plants and they take a nip and then fly to another it will be infected. I also know how hard it is too give up and pull a plant. Every year I pull a few too soon and then wait a little long on others. I hope your problems end soon. Jay

Paula, thank you. I agree with you, I shouldn't be worry about those four plants. I have another 60+ enjoy! Priya is doing fine, so far things are moving OK, another 3 weeks to go! Thanks a ton for all your kind concerns and wishes. Paula stop at our place this weekend if you are free(I know there is no FREE for gardeners).

Jay, Thank you. I removed all affected leaves, packed them in bags and trashed. But I retained some stems ho they will spout with new healthy branch. I will watch for further progress. Taken lot of notes. Thank you very much for sparing your valuable time despite of such a busy schedules you all have.

regards -Chandra

Chandra,

Three weeks! Wow, the time is flying by.

Please tell Priya we all are thinking of her and hoping all is well with her and the babies. I am glad y'all have lots of family and friends coming to help.

The arrival of a child is always a blessed event and the arrival of two is surely twice as exciting for eveyone. Thank you both for letting us "tag along" and enjoy your doubly special event.

Dawn