Oh my, a second thread describing the same symptoms as ncalsurfer posted about. Are we seeing a replay of last year's disaster. :(

ncalsurfer's has yellowing leaves and I don't really see yellowing leaves on my plants. The disease seems less aggressive. (fingers grossed)
-Irene

I have the exact same problem this year and I also live in Berkeley. Your pictures look just like my plants. I have never had any leaf spotting in 9 years of growing tomatoes before. I am guessing it is the result of the excessive rainy and foggy weather we have had in April and May (I planted my tomatoes out on April 1).

My tomatoes are good size, about 4 feet tall, but some are showing the brown spots and brown stems now. I have flowers but no fruit set either, which I feel is due to the cool and foggy weather at night.

I haven't sprayed anything because I'm afraid to create other problems. I continue to cut off all spotted leaves as I see them, and I also cut off two really brown stems. Plus I have trimmed away interior leaves so there is good airflow.

My Brandywine and Big Beef were the first to show damage about 3 weeks ago and continue to be the most affected. The poor Brandywine looks naked except for the top 1 foot! My two Cherokee Purples have only a little bit of this problem. My two cherries--Sweet 100 and Sun Gold-- are not affected at all by spots but they haven't set fruit yet either.

Hi Elise,

I have been seeing those spots on 60% of the seedlings on sale in local nurseries and farmers' markets. What is really disturbing is that I show these clearly diseased plants to the salesperson at hand and they say it is nothing and that it is due to a cold spring, but environmental damage doesn't crawl up the plant the way this has.

After scouring the web for pics, I think this is Septoria. It moves slowly during nice weather (like we have had over the last week+ and from older leaves up. Also, I noticed that the center of the spots is a little raised and grey, which apparently is a trademark of Septoria (the fruiting body of the fungus?). If my diagnosis is right, it should be controllable, as long as it is aggressively attacked right away.

I thought I picked seedlings without spots, but they appeared about 3.5 weeks ago. I only planted out in early May so I am behind you in terms of growth... getting close to 2 feet now. Putting out flowers, no fruit set yet. I started out trying to keep things under control with Serenade, but when the stems started browning I posted here. Shortly thereafter I decided to aggressively pick leaves and reached for the Daconil (Ortho Disease Control) bought at East Bay Nursery. There just doesn't seem to me to be any other solution other than wishful thinking and watching the plants slowly die, since Serenade was clearly not doing it. I use Daconil only in emergencies, but it has worked for me before.

The plant that has been most affected for me is Stupice. Then I would say Brandywine and Cherokee Purple. My other heirlooms have mild symptoms. Sun Gold isn't affected at all so she's not getting sprayed.

Of course, it could be bacterial and then I should be spraying copper. A lot of the bacterial spot pics I have been seeing, though, have yellowing around the spots which I am not seeing. Who knows...

Hopefully, with a little luck and without much rain this will not affect harvest.
Cheers,
Irene

My Early Girl plants have this; none of the other varieties show it (yet...). My plants are in coastal RI and I bought the flat in Cambridge MA. I'll try a copper treatment, although I hate to use anything at all.

Carol

I have this exact problem. I live in Apple Valley, Minnesota. The problem started on my Beefmasters that I got at Gurneys, and spread to about 20 others. My Cherry tomatoes seem to be most resistant, the large red, and super sweet 100's. While the lemon boys caught it from the 6 beefmasters first. The patio cherry tomato seems to be not effected. If anyone knows for sure what it is please post it. For now i'm trying a copper spray. Wish me luck.

Hi Irene,

According to the TAMU website, bacterial spot causes the tissue in the brown spots on leaves to drop out, and I don't see any holes in your leaves, but your photos may have been taken before it got that far if it is indeed bacterial spot.

I don't see the yellow halos that bacterial speck is supposed to show. I hate to say this, but to me those stems look like it could be late blight.

Betsy

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

Same story here in southern california - bought a 6 pack of early girls hoping they would give me the first tomatoes of the season. So far I've pulled 5 of them but the last one, with extensive pruning, seems to have outgrown it.

All the other tomatoes I grew from seed (heirlooms) have no problems yet. Funny how the disease resistant hybrids are the most disease ridden.

Hi Guys-

I live in North Berkeley and all the plants in one of my raised beds look exactly like Irene's. What stinks is that I had first planted two plants from Spiral Gardens Nursery, who grow their own starts, and those did great, even in all the rain we got. Then I planted three plants that I got from Forni-Brown Nursery in Calistoga, which I am almost certain they grow their own starts (they sell mostly to the local restaurants in Napa Valley), and those did great. Then two weeks after that I went to Berkeley Hort and bought more plants, including some sourced from Sweetwater Nursery. While at Berkeley Hort I came across a Mortgage Lifter from Sweetwater, noticed that it was spotted, and brought it to the attention of a sales guy at Berkeley Hort and asked him if there were problems. He very patiently explained the "cold damage" and I believed him. Normally I'm totally paranoid, but I have shopped at Berkeley Hort for five years and never had any problems with plants there, and I consider their staff to be top notch. I also have bought lots of stuff from Sweetwater without a problem in the past. So I thought I should get over my paranoia and went ahead and got some plants there, including that spotty Mortgage Lifter. Planted those, rains came, and a week later, EVERYTHING in that bed had spots on them. Obviously this is all just my observations, but the bottom line is, I should have gone with my instinct and just left that Mortgage Lifter alone.

Now it's a waiting game. I finally got to the point of not stripping any more leaves, even if spotted. It's now an experiment. The new growth has been pretty normal, no spots. I've drenched with Serenade twice, but it's expensive, so I've been using a baking soda/oil/castile soap "natural fungicide)" concoction. I can't tell if it's helping or if it's the dry weather that has slowed the leaf spots.

I imagine that if I get more fruit set, the plants will only stress and get worse, and who knows if anything will properly ripen. I'm just hoping to get even a small harvest. We'll see.

Good luck to you guys and hoping for the best for everyone!