I can maybe see that being an issue, but even the 15gal that aren't exposed to direct sunlight are having issues. They don't feel like they are that hot, I'll check tomorrow during the hottest part of the day. Also it is on some of my raised bed plants. The underside of the leaf has a lil brown to it and also some white, not sure exactly what that is. The plants are still setting fruit for the most part too.

Raised beds seem to get hotter than in ground.

I agree with your not being satisfied with that to a point, too. The problem with this sort of thing in JMO is that several issues easily get combined.

I don't mean to eliminate fungus or mold being the driver as it usually gets complex in a chicken and egg way. Stress of production, age, wear and tear, shielding from light by higher canopy, splash, and relentless heat weaken the lower leaves after weakness opens them to infection, humidity makes it easy for Leaf mold or Gray mold and the bottom leaves get picked off.

Seems almost the natural progression of things. The one thing in this pic seems to be leaf roll on the whole plant which indicates a higher stress. I don't know the temps in P'cola right now nor the rains but if it is like here the weather in the past two weeks has upped the stress on my plants in this way considerably too. Correctly or not, I view it as the life cycle and efforts to control lose economy heading with coastal humidity high and temps soaring well into the 90's. With the concrete floor under this particular pot I have actually cooked plants in pots here on my driveway like that, looks all too familiar. ...and June is here in a week, though it really arrived over two weeks ago.

The important thing is to keep an eye out for Late Blight which hit tomato in May a few years back in New Orleans.

Cheers

PC

This season has been challenging. Late warming up, racing to high temps. I agree could just be stress. Good luck in figuring it out.

My BIG BEEFS are not holding as much. The plants could not put on the growth like last year before the heat hit. In 2009, the plants could hold up to 30. This year only 14.

I have one of the largest healthiest Mortgage Lifters ever, but not a single tomato on it.

Stink bugs are early, my husband found me this (no association with produxt): https://youtu.be/FTVn6OhATaI

Might do more damage if not careful. I also have a bugzooka.

This season has been super tough so far. My other grow site that was doing great has quickly taken a turn for the worse. I was gone for 2 days and when I came back today, more plants have fallen to a wilt. I'm not positive that its bacterial wilt, but that would be my guess since it is common around here. I had 47 plants to begin with and I think I'm down to the last dozen or so. What do folks do when the encounter bacterial wilt?

Here's my grow site, that I'm suspecting has bacterial wilt. The video cuts off at the end, but it was just showing the plants in the pictures below.

I am truly sorry. I have lost 2 plants to overwhelming disease. Next to the sickest one, a Prudens Purple, is the healthiest Mortgage Lifter I have ever seen, but is a mule. Maybe Prudens Purples are just not for our area.

Aside from normal lower leaf spot issues, most plants are holding their own. I can see bird beak damage on a couple tomatoes, and there is a small mammal stealing a few. This is very normal based on the past. There is a little drama and unknown, but I usually do OK.

How is your Big Beef doing?

I do things A little different . I plant them, feed them, and let them do their thing. No sprays, no pruning. I want to avoid adding any stress that will steal their growing energy at that critical time they must be growing. The fruiting logs show how short the fruiting window is. The size of the plant plays an important part in how much fruit it can make before the window closes. This year has been very tough - short growing window and short fruiting window. I am not convinced to try to maintain the plant past June. It seems a lot of the pruning and spraying are for a long season growing strategy.

Thanks Janice. Even though my season isn't going as planned, I'll take what I learned and use it next time. This was my first attempt at growing in the ground, it is extremely difficult in my area. Whatever is killing my plants is not limited to that site, another neighbor who specializes in super hots had about 50 tomato plants succumb to the same illness. I will try to get some soil samples tested and see about testing some plant material to truly know the cause. My pest pressure was also pretty bad with caterpillars, stink bugs, thrips, and leaf foots, I'm almost thinking that was the cause for rampant spread of disease. I'm planning on doing a fall crop, so ill decide what varieties did the best and maybe try out some new ones. I also didn't have great luck with PP this time, although I planted it because it did extremely well last fall so ill give it one more chance. My Big Beef was by far one of my best plants. It had the most fruit set, the biggest tomatoes, and the size was huge. I will definitely look into more grafted plants based on how Big Beef did. I'll continue to monitor my container plants for any more spread of disease. I'll also try to take a short video to show the state of my home garden.

You're right about a short fruiting window, when it came to my beefsteaks, they had a lot of problems, It gets super hot and humid here really quick. I'm not sure if my best strategy is to let the plant do its thing, like you say, or if I should prune heavy and grow more. my last hope for good beefseaks are my containers which I planted a lil late, so they probably wont yield to heavy, but my best producer so far are my BrandyBoys.

Here's the video I was going to post when I was about to make a new post on my other grow after My Spring Grow 2017 started doing bad. This video shows how fast it progressed as it was taken May 4th

Kevin, has the weather in your area been hot and dry? Any rain?

On " I'm not sure if my best strategy is to let the plant do its thing, like you say, or if I should prune heavy and grow more. "

Maybe run some trials next year.

I find certain plants like Big Beef seem to be better suited to our environment. Suitability seems to be key.

A poor performer takes up less space when you prune. Pruning will not turn a poor performer into a good performer. A good performer may take a hit from pruning by reducing the available blooms.

I have not seen plants collapse here that fast like yours did. Any plant death is usually a slow demise. The exceptions were the two diseased plants this year. But the disease did not spread. I use the ML (and all the other neighbor plants )as somewhat proof that it was the one plant with a defect, either weakened or just not suitable. Certain plants seemed weakened from the start and more vulnerable. Our environments seem to be very stressful, it culls the weak and unsuitable quickly.

The Brandy Boys did not get a fair chance in my garden this year. I will definitely be trying them again. The normal reliables are proving themselsves like Big Beef and Cherokee Purple. Black Krim is doing well. Dr Wyches is doing outstanding but I don't know how it will taste.

Gorbelly - Yes, The weather here so far has been hot, humid, and no rain Usually we have lots of rain, but not so much this spring.

Janice - I've never seen plants collapse so fast either, last spring I had one plant that collapses like these, but it was more like a week or so before death. This time I'll notice one limp branch, and by the next day the whole plant is limp and by the 3rd day it's dead. It's crazy how fast they die. I'm gonna try new varieties next time, and hopefully find some winners. I'll grow big beef again and see how it does, I don't think I got a true performance from it due to the issues I've had. Thus is only my third time growing tomatoes, so I'll hopefully get better with my experience.

PecolaGrower....Please do a general search for "tomatoes resistant to nematodes". This should answer your questions and provide guidance. Root-knot nematodes are a serious infestation in Florida. Always purchase seeds labeled NPK on the packet which means they are resistant to these types of nematodes. Your healthy remaining plants such as Big Beef are resistant. One of the best varieties for the deep south is Moreton hybrid sold only by Harris Seeds.

As an old-timer, over and over I try to tell those home gardening in root-knot nematode areas that there is a simple method to stop their damage. When transplanting tomatoes/peppers dig the planting hole, add/stir in two hefty handfuls of granulated sugar (or dry molasses) and finish planting. Gently work in several more handfuls of sugar on soil surface around each plant. Repeat sugar application around each plant every 3 weeks. For those who save coffee grounds, add these to the mix.

"What do folks do when the encounter bacterial wilt?"

IF that is what it is they grow the few resistant varieties or use grafted tomatoes on Maxifort root stock. That is what the grafted plants were developed for.

The leaves in your original photo in this post look like the typical herbicide exposure, specifically glyphosate (Roundup) which as you probably know from all the posts here about it, if not sprayed, can also be found in contaminated mulch.

Dave

I would take some leaves that are afflicted badly with lesions but not entirely crispy yet and put them in a plastic baggie with a wet paper towel. If fuzzy mold appears, note the color.

Not to alarm you, but if it's white, it could be atypical late blight. When weather is hot and dry, late blight can creep slowly like regular fungal diseases and not display the typical symptoms. The Brandy Boy in your video, especially, made me think of pictures I'd seen of late blight manifestation under non-ideal dry and hot conditions for the disease. Just to be clear: I don't think it's very likely to be late blight, but it's probably worth ruling out, as you *are* in FL, and, if you hit a cool, wet patch of weather, it'll basically explode and kill everything practically overnight if it is.

If it's gray and fuzzy, it's more likely to be gray mold. It's possible the dry heat may be suppressing and/or altering the symptoms, making it really confusing.

And while I don't recall anything that looked like Roundup damage in your other threads on your problems this year, it's also possible that the unusually hot, dry weather is making that damage look different than usual. IIRC, you did have an issue first with plants treated with manure? Both manure and mulch can carry herbicides.

I'm sorry to see your troubles--not being able to diagnose a problem/problems is so incredibly frustrating. Even if a diagnosis leaves me no options and the end result is still loss of the plants, it always makes me feel much better to know what the heck is going on.

Kevin, maybe for future, this bleach spray protocol is something to keep in your arsenal? http://tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=28509

Note that I'm not suggesting you should expect the spray to cure your plants--Bill is very clear in his posts on it that a heavily diseased plant is not the place to use it. But now might be a good opportunity to experiment with different dilution levels to see how it affects diseased leaves, new growth, etc. on plants that you've written off already.

I've successfully used it on young plants that get "crud" early in the season, and they've gone on to be vigorous and healthy plants after only minor foliar damage. I also used it in more dilute form all season long on my squash, and it seemed to help more with powdery mildew than the usual remedies alone.

PColaGrower, My guess is that your yellow leaves are just tired and / or stressed. I don't really see disease there.

PC, so sorry to hear of your losses. I know how you feel, as I lost almost all of my 65 tomato plants two years ago to Fusarium Wilt. It's depressing to put so much work into it and then not see it come to fruition. Have you looked up symptoms for Fusarium and Verticillium Wilt?

I gardened in the same soil last year where I lost my 65 plants the year prior. Everyone told me I had to fumigate or steam the soil or just not grow there for five years. Only one source told me to try Actinovate. I drencehed the seedlings twice with it, and then drenched my entire garden with it. Last year I did not lose a single plant to Fusarium. i also tilled in a bunch of horse compost, remembering my professors saying that "The solution to pollution is dilution". I just hope it stays away this year, too.

Anyhow, that;s what worked for me.

And I think Dave is correct that those few plants in the video got a dose of Roundup.

Thanks for the responses.

Dave - I'm am pretty sure the neighbor across the street killed off his grass with some kind of herbicide, I haven't had a chance to ask him what he used. That's where I think it came from, the plants in the front row suffered the most damage. I thought maybe they would recover, but from now on I will probably pull plants with that much damage since they really never recover fully. It wasn't worth it to try to salvage them.

As far as grafted plants go, I will be looking into them. Anything I can do improve my chances of success can't hurt. I know a lot of my plants didn't have that great of disease resistance, I now understand why some varieties just aren't suitable for my area. I had one Big Beef that was grafted, it was probably the healthiest and had the most tomatoes for beefsteaks. I just recently got a couple more, but they are in 15gal containers, I'll let you know how they turn out. Thanks

Nandina - I know some varieties are more resistant to nematodes, I will probably find a couple to try out for my fall plantings. I also might see about a nematode soil assay to see if they are present. This was the first time this plot had been planted, so I had no way of truly knowing if they were present. One plant I pulled had some minor root damage, but compared to some pics I've seen it wasn't that bad.

I've never really looked into the sugar thing, not sure I've even heard about it. I will possible try that out too. Thanks for the advice.

Gorbelly - I went ahead and bagged some plant material to see if what happens, I'll let you know how it goes. I am familiar with Bill's bleach methods, I came across them last year while trying to figure out other issues that I've posted about. I might try that out as well and see what happens. I agree with you about being frustrating not knowing what is going on, I feel much better and okay with things as long as I know what happened. I'll probably write off the spring as a learning experience. I can't complain too much since I did get tomatoes, just not as many as I wanted. lol.

Ncrealestateguy - I've looked at those diseases, and can see some of the symptoms possibly, but can't confirm. I know crop failures can happen and sometimes there is nothing you can do about it. It sucks when you put some work in and try your best to give them the best chance and BAM not this time, they just don't survive. I'll keep on trying and improving. I did have a small sample bad of actinovate, I used it at the downtown grow of mine. Not sure if it helped or not as the pack was expired by a couple months. I will keep that as an option though. Thanks

Janice - I will try to experiment some more this fall. I'm trying to see what my top performers are, I don't keep a detailed log, more of just mental notes and chicken scratch. I'm hoping to change that too in the future. I have been watching the varieties you and everyone else have growing and will pick some from your winners. Thanks

So after reading about bacterial wilt and how to perform a field test for it. I have confirmation of bacterial wilt. What a shame, guess I'll have to stick to containers.

I am sorry to hear that. Since you have ventured into so much gardening unknown, I will not be surprised if I hear you are grafting. I don't know what is involved, but you sound like an ideal candidate.

I lost a couple plants to bacterial wilt last year. I'm experimenting with grafting this year, as I don't have room to rotate much in my small garden.

Gorbelly: I seem to recall you have a professional background or experience that would help you. For regular gardeners, how difficult is it? What skills are key? Is it time/resource intensive?

I see what a Big Beef can do in my garden. Being able to have that kind of reliable production in other plants would be great. However, a climate like mine/Kevin's has limits. When pollen gets tacky due to heat/humidity, the fruiting cycle is done, even if your plant is beautiful and healthy due to grafting.

janice8charlestonsc: Gorbelly: I seem to recall you have a professional background or experience that would help you.

Me? No, I have no professional experience that would help me except for a steady hand and experience working with fine detail in art and design. I've almost got a few plants ready to harden off and plant out now. I'll eventually do a writeup on it on tomatoville and will link it here on Houzz if I have any success. Note that I'm looking at this year as a "playing around with the process" year and had the goal of only doing a handful grafted plants anyway, so I'm not following best practices strictly or anything.

Great Gorbelly. Look forward to seeing your write up.

I have been very impressed with Dr. Wyches Yellow. I will try growing more next year, both from seed I save and purchased seed. It is the only heirloom I have ever seen out grow and out set a Big Beef. I admit I don't fully understand grafting, but if a robust root/stem donor is key, then having a low cost approximation to a Big Beef might save some money.

Janice,

If you want to read about people's experiences grafting who are doing it 1) in enough quantity to draw conclusions and 2) properly using best practices instead of just futzing around with it our of curiosity like I am, there's some good threads at tomatoville. This one is people's experiences this year: http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=43633

If you're not a member, you can't see some of the photos, but you can read the entire thread.