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Growing Tomatoes

whats happening to my Tomato plants

16 years ago

within the past two weeks my tomato's have started to curl at the leaves and the stems. very badly. the stems are actually turning back into the plant. now, the past two days the tops have become yellow. its almost to the point where the plants have stopped growing. they are producing fruit.

just so you know, i water the based of the plants every day and rarely skip a day. i give them all a good 10 to 20 seconds of water, let a nice puddle form, them let the water soak in. the water is well water. i fertilized with Miracle Grow three weeks ago. the entire garden is covered in mulch. and i have grown in this spot before and had great success and everything was growing great until two weeks ago. am i watering too much? too little? should i move the mulch away from the plants? could i be rotting the roots with water?

I have included some pictures.

Here is a link that might be useful:

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Comment (1)

hortist
16 years ago
there are several things it could be

it looks viral in nature and a few viruses produce symptoms like that in the picture such as tomato yellow top. Not much you can do about that plant but controlling aphids will help prevent it spreading.

It also might be a pH problem effecting nutrition. Sometimes when plants are put close to concrete walls (such as the cinder block) they could be growing in a place with lime slag from the building. If this lime starts leaching it can change the pH which can alter nutritent uptake. Watch the symptoms. If the yellow area starts to turn white it could be an iron problem (mangense looks similar). If this is the case there isnt much you can do to change the pH this year but rather test the pH (in root zone area) and see if it is high. If it is apply sulfur and compost this fall to help lower the pH to around 6-6.5
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It is called 'tomato leaf roll' and you can find lots of info about it over on the Growing Tomatoes forum here or by Googling that term. Basically it is a physiological response of the plant to stress but poses to real threat to the plant over all. Once the source of the stress goes away so does the condition. The causes of stress can be as simple as the fact that it is young and growing or as complicated as poor soil drainage problems, excess nitrogen fertilizer, too much or too little water, etc. It is fairly common in early spring with young plants exposed to spring weather extremes. Your plant appears to be rather leggy which makes me question if it is getting enough sun and it could also use some mulch to help stabilize the soil moisture levels. Dave
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Doesn't look like Blight to me, Usually yellow leaves with brown edges means water stress. Also Later in the season I think some leaf branches will just die off naturally, especially near the bottom of the plant. I see no mulch and weed competition, so I would say water stress + the age of the plant. Clip off the yellow and dying leaves, Add some mulch and see if that helps. For a home fungal spray, Add the following to a gallon of water. 2 Tbl Spoons Baking Soda, 2 Table Spoons Veg Oil, Few drops of Dishsoap. Spray on the tops and bottoms of the leaves and the stems of the plants. CH
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