What's wrong with our tomatoes?

I posted this on the tomato forum but have gotten 0 replies. The tops of all of my husbands tomatos are stunted and curled. We are in NW Connecticut. Can anybody identify the problem?

Is it just the tops? Any of them curled in the middle?

Just on the very tops of all of the plants. The rest of the plants are normal with small tomatos developing.

I have tomato plants in another garden further away from these and I don't have that happening to those plants.

My first impression is you have aphids . Have you looked on the underside of the leaves? Look at good leaves and see.

looks like bugs to me too - i would un-ravel the leaves to be sure - then spray them or hand clean them.

Hi Play....we are almost neighbors! I live by the Thomaston Dam, & I have one tomato that looks like yours.....an heirloom called Fireworks. I thought mine had a virus because some leaves were yellow, but I didn't check for aphids....I will tomorrow.

Well? Do we have leaf suckers or ????

No, no aphids, no bugs of any kind. Now the wilting has spread further down on the plants.

ATTENTION: On last nights news I heard that the tomato blight we had last year is starting up again in CT due to people saving their seeds from last year and also by tossing their infected plants onto their compost piles.

I read that the blight is hitting Long Island also :>(

What do we do about it?

I went out this morning and sprayed with an all-purpose fungicide and removed most of the bottom leaves to improve air circulation (I do that with my roses). Half of my tomatos are supported by poles and the other half I tried a row of wire fencing with 5" openings hung on metal poles and tied the tomatos to that. Both are so far doing very well. I had the idea of enclosing the rows on both sides with Remay and one along the top, loosely, to ward off the air borne spores of blight. I didn't put the Remay up yet as it is so humid right now and I don't want to trap that humidity but instead leave some air circulation. I don't know. . . .what does anyone else think of that idea?????

This garden I'm referring to is separate from the one where we are having the leaf curling problem.

I hate to admit it but my 1st thought was Blight, but I was not even going to mention that WORD. I had it last year, I lost 92 plants. It started on roma's. It started on the bottom/middle of the plant and worked its way up. The leaves all looked wavy to start, from bottom to top. Then the grey/black spots started on the leaves. Then it was too late. They were not curled that much as the top picture. BUT - Articles are popping up.

Late Blight Confirmed in New England
Late blight has been confirmed for the first time in New England, on tomato from a backyard garden in Cheshire CT (New Haven County) this morning, 17 June 2010. The tomato plants were grown from

http://www.umassvegetable.org/LateBlightAlertforTomatoandPotato.html

GOOD GRIEF.......... WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

that curbs my trading seed for now i might send some but i dont need that in my garden

I have read more then once it cant live in seeds. Only a living thing.

schickenlady,

I have some Good Friends & Professors at UT Agricultural Department in Knoxville, TN. , and in Vanderbilt Agricultural Department in Nashville, TN. I will have to check with them on the Genetic storage of Blight in a seedpod / seed.


And see if it has the ability to live and germinate into the new plant and emerge in the plant . The article seems to say that it is possible, giving one the impression to stop the “Home Gardner” from having success of being Free of Big Companies and their Control. “Big scare? Or Bull in the Wind?”


Time to do some Digging and bust the Myth of the Big Companies Bull !


So Said The Sarge !

Blight stinks. We get Early Blight on our toms here in TX.

I've been able to save some of mine by removing all of the affected leaves then working horticultural cornmeal into the soil around the plant. Some blights are incurable, though, and the only thing you can do is throw away (NOT compost) the plant.

ortho fungicide will take care of the blight - i also keep the lower leaves off the ground up to a couple feet above - blight will over winter as spores in the ground if you did not clean out the infected plants last year - that means every leaf the fell off - i am very careful about this and burn all the plants at the end of the year.

Bill - do you think a copper fungicide will work?

Homeowners may choose to apply copper products, but control will not be as successful as when Chlorothalonil is used.

Fungicide Chlorothalonil - 29.6% Chlorothalonil needed is in Ortho Garden Disease Control or Bonide's Fung-Onil.

You would want to get the concentrated if possible, not the big/stores already unconcentrated product.

Right Bill Wha?

memory i have not had good results although there have been claims it works - did not work for me here, i have been fighting blight for several years and ortho is the only stuff to work - i have two containers of copper fungicide here i could have given those to you at kathy's.

29.7% actually:) that is the stuff - i also use it for powery mildew on phlox and for rust on hollyhocks - i swear by it and apply it 3 to 4 times a month.

it has been many years like 30 + and farmers Burnt the feild here to rid it of this area seed were not destoryed though the fighting blight for several years was done by spraying. products from the local Co-op to ensure that none surfaced again.

Sarge

Here's what the LI paper has to report, hope this helps
http://www.newsday.com/lifestyle/home-and-garden/garden-detective-1.812029/late-blight-confirmed-on-long-island-1.2041033

calm down now sherrie calm down. NO - if I get blight agian this year I will be - jumping up and down, rolling around on the grass and doing flips. I will be cussing, hacking, smacking every gardening thing I can get my hands on. The GH will be for sale.

It wont stop there - the canning jars and equipment will go in the trash and the pipe cleaners I use to hold the tomato plants to the steaks will get rolled up in my hair, curled and go straight up! Then I will put some makeup on and take a picture and send it to you all. With a tape recording.

schickenlady,


I got an Idea I'll shoot the Video send it to Americas Funniest Home Videos , If We win we’ll split the winnings. In addition, I’ll plant you a new garden to boot. We just need to switch out your good canning stuff for junk stuff.

How bout it ?

Sarge ~ ; { > )

Cheshire is where my son works....they have many nurseries there, & many of the plants I buy locally are grown in Cheshire. There are no greasy spots on my sick looking tomato....looks more like early blight, but it's going in the garbage, & I'm spraying the heck out of the rest, something that's a last resort for me....unbelievable....we were told last year was just a freaky one time thing! I'm angry!

AFV - we would win

i think so too

tough to get rid of the spores marilyn - i was forced into spraying too a few years back

Sigh. I have at least two bottles of the copper stuff. (I guess I thought in past years that just buying it was as good as actually using it.)

LOL, Memory...yes, I've been known to do that!

me too:)

the fellers (Dogs) are on my front porch thread guys .

co-op sells a good blight killer here but it has not been here in so long the bottles have dust on them ;(

Sarge

Marilyn - the sedum you gave me is doing well. I got it a friend, too.

Oh, I'm glad, Memory! It's so cheerful looking.

We moved here from Cheshire over 30 yrs ago. The nurseries must have started since then. There were apples orchards & a big one of those in Wallingford.

This message was edited Jun 23, 2010 12:27 PM

I don't know when the growers started but one is Cassertano, they supply a lot of local sellers....my son probably knows the others, but I can't think of them off hand. Cheshire Nursery has been around a long time....they landscaped my parent's home 55 years ago! And I've picked peaches in Cheshire, but can't remember where!

Question folks:
I am terrified that I have the beginning signs of Late Blight, having had it last year on every freaking plant--curses under breath--but, I did pull up the first plant that I noticed it on (Patient Zero--I hope!) and bagged it along with all of the lower leaves and any branches which had contact with the soil before they got properly tied up! But, I want to try to make certain that I have SOME TOMATOES as everything I grow, in my garden and in a borrow space, go directly to the local food pantry here in Clinton, MA (WHEAT Community Services) MY QUESTION IS THIS: A Botany Professor at Framingham State College recommended that a Systemic, general fungicide will work for Blight and which is called, "Agri-Fos" which she uses for her Chesnut orchard/grove as part of the American Chesnut Society and it kills all phytopthera (hope I got that right...) as well tons of other species of fungi; but does it really work. Here is the label for the information about it: http://www.montereylawngarden.com/pdf/agri_fos_systemic_fungicide_suppl01.pdf
If it works, I have a full pint of the stuff, which is used in 2 Tbsp per gal. so I COULD share some if someone wants to take some of it (and just maybe help me spray my dozen tomatoes in the garden: two short rows?) It isn't terribly expensive, but we are ALL spending down, so I'm willing to share! I do have a new "Roundup Applicator" (the kind of cannister where you give it five to eight pumps and pull the trigger to spray, so it would be easy to do and I desperately need the help--see below!)

There is one called "Serenade" which I had heard works for it--according to an article put out by the home gardening club . When it first starts, it is so hard to distinguish from say, "Bird droppings" or generic dirt, so I don't know whether it is too late to start spraying?

Also, what is "Bemay" and will it perform well as a barrier to the airborne spores, because, since they do ride the wind, it seems like the spores "COULD" go between the two lines of "Bemay.) Don't think I don't commend you for your most valiant efforts because I certainly do, in fact, I am in total awe of your industrious character! I wish I had such energy, but with 17 years of full-blown AIDS, five artificial joints.....you get the general drift! LOL :-)

Thanks everyone, you really are awesome!!

This picture is from my very first year of growing produce for a local food pantry, 3 years ago, when we grew 2300+lbs of mostly heirloom crops in a single season and shows one day's harvest. I had tons of help, but because I am not with that Church anymore and we moved, I don't have it here...YET! :-)

You can Email me in private here: PositiveProduce@comcast.net which also happens to be my paypal Email. LOL Ciao!

Really wonderful that you are growing all that produce for the food pantry...don't know enough about any fungicide to know what works...last year we were told to destroy the tomatoes & not even try to treat them...

Have not really worked the garden this year. See Weeds?