tomatoes have curled leaves and yellow spots

[Liashi]

Hi everyone,

So far the problem hasn't gone to far, but any far can be too far. One of my tomatoes has begun curling its leaves, mostly on one side of the plant, and only older leaves (so far.) It was one we bought at the store. On this plant in particular I have noticed one other oddity, some of the new branch growth is curled and twisted before it straightens. I'm not sure, but it seems like those branches curve down an awful lot

Here's a pic of the affected areas of the plant:

close-up, for those who might like it even closer . . . :) plant (bonnie) and the less affected husky cherry red beside it (note the leaves near the bottom of the pic that look lighter near the tips, they are even starting to curl, but not as bad. It's even on the same side of the plant as the first.) 'm thinking it's possible it may be nematodes, but I'm not sure. Yet another tomato had the spotted thing going on, but it vanished when I put some fertilizer on, something like 9-12-12, I think. The only other plants nearby are wild ones (notably blackberries, some other vine plants, grasses, trees, thistle . . . spotted spurge. ick.)

The plants have had minor deer damage. Don't get me started on some of my other tomatoes, however.

^^ Love to hear your thoughts.

--Liashi

[Penelope Periwinkle]

I couldn't get any of your links to work. Are the leaves curling up or down?

Penelope

[Pat Kiewicz]

The upward rolling of lower leaves is not a disease. It is a genetic trait (wilty gene) that many varieties express when under stress -- where stress may be nothing more than high temperatures or a heavy fruit load.

My new growth is often somewhat curled but the curled leaves straighten out as they expand.

Yellow spots may be a fungal disease. A few spots are no big worry. Tomatoes benefit from foliar sprays of seaweed. (I like Maxicrop brand.) Copper fungicide can be added as a preventative for foliar diseases.

Nematodes would likely cause stunting and wilting (leaf roll is not wilting).

[Liashi]

They are curling up. Let me see about these pictures . . . try again later if they don't work, they were fine for me . . .

[Jim Carlock]

You should put the pictures in a .jpg or .gif format when saving them to the web. .bmp files are almost always 2x to 10x bigger than the corresponding .jpg's or .gif's.

The Microsoft paint.exe or mspaint.exe will be able to save the files in the different formats. Note: .gif results in a loss of color because .gif formats are always a 256 color palette of colors, but .gif formats sometimes result in better pictures than .jpg's and sometimes can be smaller than the corresponding .jpg files. You'll just have to save the files in a case by case fashion and look at the resulting filesizes.

I got a timeout on the second picture link which could be that the file is just so big and your webhosting server only offers a limited bandwidth. The first one downloaded just fine, but the second one is timing out.

Hope that helps in explaining computers and images.

[Liashi]

Okay, thanks all for your input. Now I can somewhat relax. ^^ Was thinking about putting on compost tea. Good? Does it matter?

I posted the .bmp files without thinking. I dislike .jpg immensly. Give me a large .bmp anyday over a small crummy .jpg. The blurriness is so hard to get out!!!

The .bmp should be okay because my web hosting service says it will "automatically resize" if they're too large. I very careful to ensure that they weren't any bigger than the supposed alotted "250k".

You forget these kind of things when you are on highspeed net . . . I still remember the days when AOL took five minutes to load and the connection was 14k. (Haha, not THAT bad some of you real day one people are saying. ^_^ ) Thanks for the reminder. Sorry if the stuff took a while for those of you on dial-up.

[Penelope Periwinkle]

Never had a thrip problem, huh?

Doesn't mean you should steer people wrong. Leaves that curl up lengthwise, like a boat, are usually a sign of thrip damage.

Or Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus.

I am, unfortunately, becoming an expert on the subject.

Penelope

[Pat Kiewicz]

No, I haven't had thrips. But the information I have in hand says the the "[g]rowing tips are usually severely effected." My guess is that most of the people who have tomatoes with lower leaves rolling up (and don't also complain about distorted tops) merely have tomatoes expressing the 'wilty' gene. Thrips

My sympathy on the thrips and spotted wilt. They are a big problem in much warmer climates than mine.

(I have onion thrips myself -- at their worst when the weather has been very dry.)

[YT2095]

the leaf curl is often a sign of rapid temperature change and is ofte

harmless. the yellow spots sound a bit like a magnessium deficiency, add T`spoon of Epsom salts to a litre of water the next time you water it if it isn`t Mag defficiency, it won`t hurt the plant, but if it is you`ll find the new leaves won`t have this problem :)

the only reason I know this is because my greenhouse toms do exactl the same thing, and I was told that the tom feed will "lock up" th magnessium and so it`ll need extra :

- YT209

Say it with Flowers,,,Give her a Triffid :

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