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reba_grows

weird leaves- a deficiency? too wet? (3 pics)

reba_grows
14 years ago

So far I've escaped the dreaded late blight among other things, but now all my tomatoes have started getting these yellowing leaves with.... well you can see, the spots aren't really spots, more like streaks.

I've looked at a hundred pictures of bacterial spot, mosaics, early/late blight, etc and nothing looks like this. I now believe it might be a nutritional deficiency or too wet from the recent ever present rain and humidity, (which is why I've come to this forum and not the tomato pests & diseases forum.) I have looked up many deficiency photos as well- but still none show the same symptoms.

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The last picture is of the underside of the leaves.

My tomato plants all started slowly getting this in the leaves of the bottom half of each plant. They are all planted in very large pots, each with many holes drilled in the bottom sides and they drain well when watered. The pots are all off the ground on pallets covered with silver tarps, so they get no dirt splashing up.

The tomatoes were planted in Promix BX. I mixed in Osmocote 'for veggies' in the bottom 2/3 of the promix before transplanting my seed grown tomatoes, 13 different varieties, mostly hybrid indeterminates. I have never used the Osmocote before and have never had a problem like this before, makes me wonder.... In the past I mainly fertilized with tomato tone, bonemeal, epsom salts and seaweed.

So far this season, I have sprayed the plants twice in their potted life with Seacom liqued seaweed. Last week (but after this had already started), I fertilized once with Miracle Grow tomato food (higher in potassium).

Into the promix at planting- I mixed in half the normal rate of soilmoist, which I do every year with no problems. I use a moisture meter and only watered when the soil became dryer below the top 3 inches or so. Now, of course here in West Va, it seems to rain almost every day, only enough to get everything wet in the pots, but not enough to soak into our dry as a bone soil up here in the mountains, added to 98 degree heat & humidity.

I have looked for any of the usual beasties in any quantity (aphids, mites, leafhoppers etc) and have found suprisingly few.

The tomato plants are full of healthy looking green tomatoes, no lesions, etc. I've harvested a few ripe cherry and grapes and they were perfect. The stems look healthy and green. I'm having no flower drop, and all in all- my plants are growing, flowering and fruiting well, but now are being threatened by a severe loss of leaves from ????.

Lastly, my garden is in a large clearing (gets about 7 hours of sun a day with nice breezes) in the middle of a forest. My serviceberries are full of rust, the dogwoods- anthracnose, the oak saplings and blueberry understory all have powdery mildew (which just overtook my zucchinis), just to name a few. But I can't find a picture of any of those diseases, (as far as being on tomatoes), that look the same as my tomato leaves- so again I search for another reason...

These pictures were taken in ziplock bags, so any white dots are from the moisture condensation in the bags.

Please do note one more thing, that the very edges of the leaves as they are almost all yellow, have a very thin brown line all around the leaf margin.

That's all I can think of to tell.

Any help (which I've always gotten from you folks before) would be so very welcome.

Rebecca

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