Help! First Tomatoes ever Weird spots!

11 years ago

Hi! First off, I've read a lot on the forums and appreciate all the help I've received already.

This is my first year planting tomatoes. I have some hybrid bush goliath that have done okay and I've gotten some decent clementine sized maters off of it, but my pride and joy is my second (and only other) tomato plant. It is a cherry tomato plant and has looked WONDERFUL until a few days ago.

It is planted in a large pot and gets plenty of sun. It has been a very nice deep green and is very bushy and very tall! It has TONS of cherry tomatoes on it and they're just starting to ripen!

I noticed a couple of days ago what looked like 'Clearing' in a few leaves. It was almost as if all of the chlorophyll was gone and it was just translucent. Those spots then turned brown and I've noticed that more leaves (quite a few) have turned w/ spots as well.

I've attached pictures. I'm afraid I've got a fungus? I didn't know to trim the bottom few stems and those had turned yellow some time ago and I feel that they may have gotten a fungus and it has spread.

What do you think this is? Is there anything I can do about it that is budget friendly (I trimmed all of the blatantly infected leaves off as well as the bottom stems to slow it down. I hope i didn't thin the plant out too much.

Sorry for the long post. I appreciate any advice/help you have to offer. Thanks so much in advance!

Comments (8)

bggarric
Original Author
11 years ago
another picture
bggarric
Original Author
11 years ago
And another after the translucent parts have browned/fallen out
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I will let the experts pop in and give you an opinion but if it were my plant, I wouldn't be all that concerned by that small amount of whatever it is. Truthfully having plants just go through normal everyday living stress they get little blemishes...I'd say it could have been as simple as a sun scald maybe there was water ...or I've created that sort of thing from sprinkling fertilizer on my plants.
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Sweetcicely (and all), I know it's mites becasue I have recently had to research them myself :( Just like Judy. The 1st, biggest giveaway is the roundish sunken dead areas. Typical mite damage. Those yellowish areas appear to be being attacked from behind, which is where mites love to hang out. (OP- any pics of the under side of the leaves?) Since you can't easily see mites, only their damage, a tried and true test (although I can't say that I see it) is to take a tissue, swab, cotton ball, etc, dampen it (H2O, or I use alcohol) and wipe the underside of the leaf. If you come up with a reddish tinge, you've got mites. But, since I don't really see anything when I do it, I just know what the damage looks like. If you google spider mites or mite damage, you should find pics. Also, orchid viruses are supposedly more or less uncommon. Most hobby growers have insect or fungal/bacterial damage if there's a problem, rather than viral, unless you happen to get an infected plant (again, more uncommon). But, after you've looked at enough pictures of both mites vs virus, you get an eye for what mite damage looks like. here's a discussion of this topic from this forum http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/orchids/msg0710185229356.html Here's some other picts http://www.ionopsis.com/Pests_and_Diseases.html http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/orchids/msg011644515336.html http://www.users.on.net/~gmcorbin/BOS/virus.html I'm no expert, but this just screams mite damage to me. Carolyn
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The small black areas are old damage. Leave them alone; the plant has already sealed off those areas, and digging around is only going to make new wounds. The discolouration between the ribs looks like a sort of corking, and while it's not dangerous in itself it's a sign that the plant isn't as healthy as it could be. Some of it has been there a while, as you can see from the cracks. You don't have to cut spines off to explore the large discoloured area -- use a blunt pencil or toothpick or something to feel the area indirectly. Outside is good (it hasn't been getting enough light lately -- see how the top of the plant is reaching up and has fewer spines?), but miracle grow anything is unlikely to drain well enough unless you have the bottom of the soil in contact with the dirt outside. Careful with that new growth though, it's especially unused to outdoors sunlight and will scorch quite easily. Consider getting a scrap of shade cloth and hooking it loosely over the top growth. Eventually that tender growth will no longer be at the growing point, and scorched shoulders are less bad for a cactus than a scorched head. Overall the whole plant is a bit scabby, but once you get it into the right conditions you'll be surprised at how quickly that few inches of bad skin disappears into the base. The O. trolli below is hardly a show specimen, but I'm showing it to show what the top of the plant should be shaped like, and how much increased light levels will change the spination.
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Sorry but you will have to post a picture of the tomato for any real help. There are many, many things that can cause "dark, small spots". We also need to know if there are any pests on or around the plant, what the weather has been like, any hail or hard rains, how the leaves of the plant look, etc. Dave
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lexiegurl09
11 years ago
I am by no means an expert on this, so hopefully some of the more experienced people will give their opinion, but I don't know where in SC you are but I am in eastern NC and I've noticed similar spots on my tomato plants (about 40 of them). The first two pics looked like the damage I had to mine and I immediately panicked as well. Well, I got to feeling the spots on my tomato plants that looked like that (brown, translucent) and I noticed I was squishing something in them. Apparently I have a tomato pinworm (not 100% sure but some kind of pinworm) and like I said the only reason I know for sure is I pulled a couple of the worms out and squished others that were still in the leaves. The last pic though I'm not so sure, maybe another insect?
turquoisegardenia
11 years ago
Sounds like leaf miners. That's what the first pic looks like especially. I get these so much on my chard and beets I'm about to give up on them. Get yourself a little bottle of BHT at the garden centre, it works really well on them. It's approved for organic use too, a big plus. Make sure to get the undiluted stuff and mix it with water in your own bottle, rather than buying the pre-mixed solution, which is much pricier.

Here is a link that might be useful: leaf miner damage
tdscpa
11 years ago
Does not look like any leaf miner damage I've ever seen. Does not even look unusual or severe to me.

It is the wont of bugs, insects, and varments to chew on your garden plants.

Your garden must not be large enough if you have enough time to send a photo of every insect bite-mark on one of your plants to garden-web.
emcd124
11 years ago
@bggarric: I'm inexperienced myself, so I can't help diagnose. But I also have only a small home garden, so every plant is precious to me. And I have the exact same thing happening to one of my potato leaf plants. The advice I got was to remove all the damaged areas (I usually cut the whole infected branch off back to the main stem because in the past it seems like if one leaf gets it, so will the rest).

I have this and some other issue going on, maybe Septoria, but my extension agent suggested Chlorothalonil fungicide, and anOrganic copper soap product.
oliveoyl3
11 years ago
bggarric-
Welcome to tomato growing! Your orange one will be ripening soon!

You said you trimmed plant - some fruit can get sunscald if removed leaves reveal them to too much sunlight. You could create some light shade for it until it grows new leaves to cover fruit. Perhaps, a lightweight curtain (fabric shower curtains work great), rope, clothespins, etc. Don't touch the plant itself though. Might look a bit funky, but in your climate should grow quickly.

You asked what to do budget friendly - just keep watering, lightly fertilizing, and watch for insects that might be crawling & chewing. I prefer to tie stems even in cages like yours to keep plant supported and spread a bit to fill the cage. Also helps as it grows taller than cage and flops over to keep growing. If tied doesn't crack stems. Use what you have to make strips of soft material (old tshirts, nylon pantyhose).

~~Enjoy your 1st season of tomato growing~~
samsthumb
11 years ago
Agree, not leaf miners....they leave trails that twist and turn like a wild tiny river in your leaves (their tunnels). Remove leaves only if diseased as they provide needed shade as your toms start to ripen. A few bug holes or hail holes in leaves just add to the charm of a plant in July.

Help! First Tomatoes ever Weird spots!

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bggarric
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bggarric
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Help! First Tomatoes ever Weird spots!

Comments (8)

bggarricOriginal Author

bggarricOriginal Author

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turquoisegardenia

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bggarric
Original Author

bggarric
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