"Each little hair on the stem turns into a root. " Although I am well aware that tomatoes will produce roots along the stem if it is buried under soil I am intrigued by the statement that EVERY trichome on the stem will turn into a root. This just doesn't seem possible given the evidence of one's own eyes. I looked this up after reading it and find it repeated all over the place but I cannot find any scientific research (which I can understand) which tells me this is actually so, rather than the adventitious roots being produced by some other mechanism. Can anyone point to a scientific source for this information? I'm intrigued. I can't spare any tomato plants but would someone like to try rubbing off all the trichomes and then burying a stem to see if it will still root? I'd love to know what happens. p.s. nobody has yet warned Contadino against those peat/cow/pulp pots which might have a lot to do with the stunting.

Thanks for all the tips, sorry it's been some time since I checked this thread. I've unfortunately been battling spider mites :O... definitely learned my lesson about ordering plants... don't do it! Glad you noticed the black tips on the roots. I actually found out what was going on there.... I have an acrylic divider between my 2 plants that sometimes gets knocked a bit, and I used to rotate the plants around and fiddle with em too much. So I think some slime or whatever was getting on the roots from the acrylic divider and too much touching the plants. It was only the roots right by that divider that got those tips. But its funny you mention H2O2 since I actually tried that before I realized what was going on... and the roots looked like ASS. I used arond 2ml/gal. I waited 3 full days after the peroxide, and there was ZERO root growth, and a LOT more dark coloring on the roots. Then I switched back to Bennies, cut off tons of roots... and the roots started growing again. Very interesting you suggest a ph near 7. That's alot higher than everything I've read. Most sources say 5.8-6.0, but I've also seen a few that say 6-6.5. You're the first person to suggest 7.0 so I'm very curious how you came to that conclusion. I think you raise a VERY good point about knowing when to trash plants. I will be moving into a new house next month, and starting a much larger grow, so I will most likely be trashing these plants unless I can be confident the mites are dead. Currently I have taped up my cabinet with a no-pest-strip inside. I tried neem spray; I think I overdid it since it totally fried one of the plants. I now know that it would have been a good idea to spray just pure water afterwards to get rid of excess residue. I'll post some pics next.

"A plant drinks 6-7 litters of water a day now" No, there is no way that plant needs more than 3 liters per day. If you've measured properly (and it is not draining out, I interpret my comment about overheating the soil as being the *principal* problem. Fix that! When the leaves get to that stage I pinch them off. I don't know whether the curl is from heat and dying alone, or if there is something else there, but it look not bad so far. The only reason to keep a leaf like that is if it is shading a fruit and keeping the sun off. Otherwise keeping it on the plant will only increase the chances a weakened plant will get an out of control disease, IMO, because they are are good media for breeding of pathogens. The plant has already withdrawn nutrients from it which as seysonn mentioned may not be optimally delivered. The damage doesn't look too bad (diseased) to me, could be prompted from insects and the plant naturally removing nutrients from it to give to nerw growth. Nothing wrong with pinching off leaves from the bottom as the plant gets taller and puts out more in the zones where the new fruits are developing. While the above ground plant can tolerate those high temperatures,the roots are in overdrive and very uncomfortable. This will just weaken your plant.

Seedlings' biggest need is usually nitrogen, and sometimes they get deficient in Mg. Overwatering leaches out those nutrients and causes sickly, yellowing plants that don't thrive. A purple tinge from Phos deficiency is common for seedlings, even without deficiency in the growing medium, as roots have chronic difficulty managing P when underdeveloped and/or in small containers, and it corrects itself as the plant develops a good root system once planted out in a big container or in the ground. The product you're using doesn't seem to provide much N and mentions nothing about Mg. I wouldn't go futzing around with it now since you're close to plant out. Many a beginning gardener tries to correct a problem immediately that plant-out will solve only to overshoot and end up damaging seedlings further or killing them. Just make sure plants have nutrients after plant-out. I usually mix in some general-purpose organic granular into the soil around the planting hole (something like Espoma Garden-Tone or even Plant-Tone) or give one good dose of fish emulsion a few days after plant out, depending on what I have on hand. Once plants start flowering, I start feeding a tomato-specific fertilizer routinely. Tomato formulas will have comparatively lower N and more P and K than general-purpose fertilizers. Too much N later in the season results in huge, lush plants that just want to grow leaves and not flowers or fruit, but early in the season, plants benefit from some more N to give them a good start, especially if they're showing signs of deficiency at plant-out. A soil test to determine exactly what your soil needs is the most conscientious approach, of course, but if your plants don't show signs of nutrient problems once in the ground, it's probably fine to go with a balanced formula specifically for tomatoes once your plants start setting fruit. It sounds like you might be attracted to a more organic approach, so something like Espoma Tomato-Tone or Jobe's Organic Tomato fertilizer has served me very well in the past, and these are readily available at many common retailers.