Tomato fruit rot

It sounds like blossom end rot to me. Blossom end rot is caused by the tomato's not receiving enough calcium when it is growing. This is affected by irregular rainfall but can happen even with regular rains, and has nothing to do with being on the ground.

Andrew Ostrander quoth:

I agree. Sounds like BER to me, too. I've lost a few lovely beefsteaks to it. We've had a few periods of heavy rain here in Boston which have done a number on them. We're in the midst of another. :-( Cracks the cherry tomatoes and BERs some of the big ones.

Priscilla

I'm in West Tennessee, and it has been terrible here. I lost so many of my tomatoes and so has one of my neighbors. Only too late did I find out what it was. What BER didn't get, the turtles chewed the bottoms off of LOL

Kate

Can blossom end rot appear in different forms? My tomatoes that I know have blossom end rot look very different from what Im talking about. The rotton part is black and firm and irregular shaped and not too big but with these tomatoes there are one or more soft round spots that stay green and then go lightish gray with little brown dots in them and the tomatoes go all bad and start to drop off before they ripen.

Toby

Toby quoth:

I don't know. Mine appear to start as a regular old rotten spot, but on the blossom end, and the spot ends up black and maybe moldy. My rule of thumb is: if it's rot, and it's on the blossom end, it's blossom end rot. ;-)

Priscilla

Sounds like you have blossom end rot AND something else going on.

Bloosom End Rot occurs on the blossom end of the fruit. What you have described could be anthracnose.

Look at the UCDavis website:

click on "agriculture and floriculture"

There will be a list of crops, so select 'tomatoes' and there will be a list of diseases. Select anthracnose. (the photo shows roots) so read the symptoms to see if they fit your problem. You might also check Bacterial Spot.

Emilie NorCal

Here are some pictures of affected tomatoes:

Thank you for the links to tomato diseases. I couldnt find one with similar symptoms. I dont believe that anthracnose is the cause because only green tomatoes are affected. The rotten spots are not depressed. They begin on the blossom end of the fruit and then expand till the whole fruit is rotten. No tomatoes on the first couple of trusses have been affected.

Toby