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Cornucopia - Australia

tomato problems

20 years ago

Hi, This year was really bad for my tomato's. Plants started off really well growing tall and green. Once fruit started to set the lower leaves started to brown, this gradually travelled up the entire tree until all brown and shrivelled. Still produced some tomatos but very dissapointing. Got my seeds from a friend, his tomatos were fantastic, lush plants with noce clean fruit. He said that either I put too much manure or soil ph was off.

Any advise would be appreciated??

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Comments (4)

finbar
20 years ago
Hi marz. Sounds more disease-related than soil-related, but let's look at the soil first. How did you prep the soil? How fresh was any manure you used? What else did you use? Toms are also fairly tolerant pH-wise. You'd have to a decent imbalance to strike problems. The description, though, fits any number of diseases. How quickly did the process happen? Can you recall how the problem first manifested itself on the leaves? Spots? Marks? Were the stems affected?
marz
Original Author
20 years ago
Thanks for your reply. Didn't do much in terms of soil prep. left the bed empty over winter. However, I did use a combination of chicken / sheep / cow manure a few weeks before planting but away from seedlings. The chicken manure was straight out of the coup (but dry). The problem started from ground up and mostly on leaves, but I did notice the stems go a brown colour as well. Some leaves would just dry up around the edges first then continue inwards. Other leaves would go yellow first then brown (no real spots). The whole process took about 6-8 weeks, I am still picking tomatos while the whole plant is brown/dry. I also noticed the fruit have some blotchy yellow marks on them. I've heard complaints similar to mine from friends who live here in Melbourne.
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I am having tomato problems, It happens every year when my tomato's are young plants in my starter room. All of the other plants are fine. The leaves on the young tomato's start to curl up, then they flip over, sag and fall off. the top of the plant keeps growing, and repeats the cycle, when I move them out to the green house all is well. Fresh unused sterile coco coir. I don't think it is a ph problem, light problem, heat or wind problem. I am stumped. I use the same food, ph meter for all the plants in the green house and they thrive out there. I also have some new gnats but that's not the problem. Any help would be great.
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The purple edges could have originated with a deficiency, but since it's on the oldest leaves, which might be senescing anyway, it's hard to say. It's common for young seedlings to have phosphorus deficiency, even when grown under ideal conditions, and they outgrow it as they mature. Those leaves probably have been phosphorus deficient at one time. Not a big deal unless you're seeing symptoms on newer growth. Leaf mold is a fungus. As for keeping things "natural", that's a word that's a moving target, so I don't really know how you define that. If you mean without intervention, your plants will succumb to nutrient problems if you don't fertilize them regularly. So you definitely need to intervene there. You can try to not intervene with regard to diseases by being hypervigilant and pruning off any affected leaves immediately upon noticing the slightest symptoms. Since you live in an area that doesn't have blazing sun, perhaps you can get away with the defoliation, although loss of photosynthesis capacity can also affect production and flavor of fruit. I personally would not try to grow tomatoes in a cool, humid environment like yours without fungicide. Note that the safer, organic fungicides available to home gardeners are almost all primarily preventative in nature. They are not curative. Once your plants have disease, the best they can do is slow down infection of unaffected foliage. And because you're growing in too-small containers, the strategy of giving plants the best conditions and preventing stress to them in order to boost their ability to resist disease is not available to you. The varieties you're growing will be very stressed in those small containers once they get larger. If you want to grow tomatoes without spraying, in future figure out what diseases are common to your garden and select hybrid varieties bred for resistance to those diseases. Even that's not perfect, as resistance does not equal immunity--it just means the plants resist the disease longer and go down from them more slowly--but it could give you enough of a boost to get decent production. And research best growing practices, such as adequate container size.
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Spots on the plant with leaves that have blackened margins usually indicates bacterial speck. Or crispy margins could be drought stress, overwatering stress, too much fertilizer, etc. But whether it's septoria or speck, the response should be the same, and it's what you're doing. Copper is a good option because it helps with both bacterial and fungal issues. Neither disease will be cured once it sets in, but the pruning and spraying can slow down the disease and keep your plants alive and producing for the rest of the season. Also, there may be other reasons for your blossom drop issues. What "tomato food" are you using, and how much are you giving? Your plants do look a little pale, although that could just be a photography issue. And what is your location? How have the weather conditions been for you lately?
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Not sure what all the big black blank spaces are in your post. Are they supposed to be more pics? From what I can see (3 photos), aside from a few tomato fruit worm holes, and one with a little catfacing, is damage (bash damage) from the plant and fruit hitting cage or support or container, leaf branches breaking off, from high winds, etc. Dave
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cosmicgardener
20 years ago
Sounds like a bit of late blight - it seems to have been happening to a lot of people. It's been one of those years I suspect. I've had mild attacks of it, on particular species - chiefly the potato leafed varieties. As the nights start to cool your toms will finish off - there's nothing wrong with those that are growinfg on the brittle stems bu don;t use hem for seed, as the blight can pass on through the seeds and destroy any volunteers. Your soil might have been a bit over-manured - try planting greens there over winter to utilise some of the manure and balance your soil. Chicken manure is best composted for about a year before using it. It's all a learning curve and no two years will be the same.
Raymondo
20 years ago
The yellow blotches on the fruit almost certainly mean disease. The most common are fungal diseases like early blight. If you can, try planting the toms somewhere else for the next few seasons. If that's not possible, turn the soil to bury any fungal spores that may still be hanging around.
And mulch, mulch, mulch.

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