I disagree... herbicide damage rarely causes spots on the leaves, and the yellowing tends to be a general overall thing (especially on the growing tips), not mottled. It's always easier to figure out with a picture, but a virus is possible. TMV is, indeed, almost nonexistent outside of labs in the US. Cucumber Mosaic Virus, on the other hand, is out there, and may be more common than you think (many Heavenly Bamboo plants carry it; the resulting red color is considered desirable). There is also Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus, which is rampant in many parts of the country. Both CMV and TSWV are vectored by insects; they are the major viruses we usually run into in tomato plants. They can strike individual plants, leaving neighbors alone. If you're dealing with an herbicide, the effects will show up on neighboring plants which are close to each other and sharing the bed, or different species of plants that share the same soil/exposure, like squash or peppers (but not necessarily every kind of vegetable). The plants might pull out of a light exposure once the source of herbicide is removed; the best sign is when they start to grow again. Badly herbicide-damaged or virus-infected plants will stop growing or slow to a crawl, and will never start again. Am I stuck with never using this soil for tomatoes again? No. Any virus you are likely to encounter in tomatoes doesn't persist in the soil. If your soil is contaminated with herbicide (and I can't imagine how you would manage that with Mel's Mix, unless the compost part was badly contaminated) then you will have to get rid of it, but not if the herbicide drifted over from elsewhere. How badly will my harvest suffer? Virus-infected plants will not bear, or will bear misshapen and often bad-tasting fruit. Since you're not likely to get any good fruit out of these plants once the virus is well established, you'll have fewer plants to harvest from. If herbicide-damaged plants recover, they will be set back by at least a few weeks, but the fruit you get after that should be fine. Is moving the plants to a different part of my back yard sufficient, or do I need to destroy them? If it's a virus, you need to pull them. CMV and TSWV are transmitted by insects which can fly, and infected plants can serve as a reservoir for insects to infect your currently healthy plants. (Besides, they won't fruit well, so why keep them?) If it's herbicide damage... well, if the soil isn't the problem, and there's no new drift from elsewhere, then there's no real point to moving them. Either they'll pull out or they won't. How likely is it that all my tomato plants are infected? I have around a dozen plants and hate to think that I need to destroy them all. I've gotten a few virus-infected plants over the years; once I confirm that it's a virus rather than some quirk of weather or genetics, I pull the (usually single) plant and look for the same symptoms on other plants. Out of three years I've had a virus problem, I've had to pull four plants total, and I grow over 15 plants a year. So keep your eyes peeled, and if you're lucky, it might turn out to be just a couple. They're all growing well. Now this is what confuses me. Is it just the normal-looking plants that are growing well? If so, cross your fingers and leave them be. If the shoestring-leaf ferny plants are also growing "well", as in vigorous and putting out lots of new growth, digdirt may be onto something with his herbicide theory. Here's a few pics to help out: Cucumber Mosaic Virus Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus --Alison

KB2 Here are a couple of pictures of virused leaves. You be the judge as far as yours are concerned.. as you know best what yours look like. Yours do appear to be more like spots than the actual moasic pattern, and it does appear that you do infact have mealy bugs,but never having had mealy bugs (so far) I'm not sure what their sucking would do to the leaves...I do wish you luck.. I will say that the Oskar in the first picture showed the moasic pattern right off the bat..most often the leaves come out clear and healthy looking and then when the weather gets hot or they are stressed for some other reason then the sympoms appear (at least for me, living in the cooler coastal northeast.... Donna of

The following was stated earlier in this thread: "I have a couple of roses that do this and they are doing fine. I would ignore it and not read any remark by Henry." H. Kuska comment: It appears that some things have not changed much since the following comment was made. https://groups.google.com/g/rec.gardens.roses/c/VhgwCRP1rO0/m/Wb9k-OoUpRUJ?pli=1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- While other things have changed: The following was stated earlier in this thread: "Rose Mosaic Virus is NOT fatal to roses. There are many separate viruses that fall under the RMV umbrella and so far I have never seen any proof that any of them will kill the rose. I know I have many infected roses in my garden and even in my cold climate it hasn't been fatal to them." --------------------------------------------------------------- H.Kuska comment: most references that I have seen say something along the line that the virus may weaken the plant to the extent that those in colder climates often lose their virused roses due to cold injury. I guess we are just talking semantics if we try to say the cold killed the rose not the virus. ----------------------------------------------------------- The following was stated by (apparently) the same author 11 years ago" "seil zone 6b MI I don't replace them either. There are so many that can only be found now with RMV that I'd have a hard time doing it anyway. Besides that in my cold zone they usually will just not come back from a winter when they've weakened sufficiently so I just dig them out then." https://www.houzz.com/discussions/1711311/rose-mosaic-virus-what-to-do

Definitely not Mosaic. But it does appear the plant is maybe water stressed (too MUCH water) or it might be a hint of Cercospora infection. Its difficult to say for sure. Its also possible it was just stressed from sitting in a small pot at the nursery. The bottom line is: I expect the plant will grow out of it once weather stabilizes.