Tomato Problems

[JD]

Location - South Central Kentucky

This is a recurring problem every year. I'm not sure, but neighbors claim it is some sort of blight. When the humidity of summer finally sets in, my tomato plants start turning yellow from the bottom up. No matter how well I keep them watered and mulched. I've sprayed fungicides, insecticides, and tried most everything. Neihbors and I are at our wits end. Leaves are beginning to curl up like when aphids are on them and the leaves on the very bottom of the plant have turned yellow. If nothing is done, in a few weeks my tomatos will have stopped being tomato plants and would have become compost.

Any help would be appreciated. I hate spending all this time on vines that were beautiful all spring and then fall to pieces in the summer months.

JD.

[Mindful]

Northern AL here and have the exact same disease problem with tomatoes. We've tried every brand the local stores sell and every product out there to prevent disease. This year we did not bother to buy all those products. We do rotate the vegetable garden and crops. That doesn't help. Our pepper plants also suffer some kind of disease where the leaves stay a healthy green but become narrow and crinkled. It's not TMV. They live but make no edible peppers. It can be discouraging.

[George Shirley]

I live in SW Louisiana, temps today at 11:15 am are 93F with humidity at

96%. We mulch our tomatoes (and everything else) with layers of newspaper and then put dried grass clipping or ground leaves on top of that. No yellowing at the bottom and no die off. Used to have the same problem you had until we started mulching about fifteen years ago.

George

[farmerdill]

[JD]

I might be wrong, but I don't think this is the problem I'm having. The symptoms sound pretty familiar but the photo's look nothing like my plants. They are wilting from top to bottom, leaves are curled (as if covered in aphids), and leaves are dying from bottom up, but I've cut into the limbs of the bottom leaves and found no discoloration in the vascular tissue. Perhaps this is correct diagnosis and I'm just not able to see what is being shown in the photo. I'll have to wait until next season to find out I guess, when I purchan VFN resistant tomato strains.

Thanks for the help. JD.

[galt_57]

I had a problem this year with some plants that I was very late transplanting. Since they were very tall I decided to bury them extra deep. For whatever reason they are doing very poorly with many turning yellow.

Dave in STL

[JoeSpareBedroom]

My news server is losing messages left & right, so you may have mentioned these things already, but here goes anyway:

1) Are you feeding the tomatoes? Using what, and how often?

2) Have you checked the soil's pH? If it was off, did you correct it? How?

3) Are any garden chemicals being used in the garden, or anywhere else on the property? If yes, by whom? Just you, or another person?

4) Is the plant in the ground, or in a pot?

5) How is it watered? How much? How often? What's the water source? Municipal? Well water? Is there a water softener involved?

[farmerdill]

[Mel-Donnie Kelly]

I have had the problem also but now I buy my plants from a local Greenhouse not a big box store. I plant First Lady II, Champion, Delicious and Celebrity which are all resistant. I mulch with landscape material and use 5 ft cages. When the plants start setting fruit I remove the bottom limbs, about 4 or 5. I spray about every 10 days with a commercial fungicide and aspirin water. I spray of a evening after the sun is off of the plants, 3/4 of a aspirin to 1 gal. of water and mix right with the fungicide. Never water the plant just the root system.

Mel & Donnie down in Bluebird Valley In the middle of beautiful down town Yountsville. Managers of the water works.