Hello Wise Gardeners,
Any idea what's going on with my Pruden's Purple Tomato plant? It starts with the edges crisping on the younger leaves, and then spots forming on the middle of the leaf.
I'm debating just pulling the whole thing and starting over since even the new leaves are coming in this way :(
Thanks in advance for your help! Much appreciated.
Here's a shot of a younger leaf.
I'm not an expert on tomatoes but many things that look like diseases are actually nutrient deficiencies. Have you fertilized your plant regularly with a good tomato food like Tomatotone?
Hi plantfreak!
Yes I have been fertilizing :) Someone in another forum suggested it may be fertilizer BURN as a result of fertilizing too much. Woops! Going to hold onto the plant for a bit longer and see what happens.
Looks like the initial signs of Gray Mold to me. I fought it last year and it was an evil thing to get rid of. It could be tip burn from too much N. But injuries on leaves and stems are where the mold takes hold. I would remove the leaves and give it a good spraying with the fungicide of your choice. Make sure to spray the areas where you removed the leaves well(or any injured areas).
The longer you wait, the harder it is to get rid of. I learned that last year. I sprayed way too late and could only slow it down. But it was there until I removed 15 plants infected, then bleached the area.
Oh! Weird that it started on your Prudens Purple. Last year that was the first to show signs of Gray Mold. Then it just kept moving on to other PLs.
This message was edited May 15, 2011 3:45 PM
You might post this question over on the tomato forum. There are a number of professional tomato growers over there
Which fertilizer have you been using?
As already stated, there a several things that can cause the leaves to curl / change colour etc, etc, however,it could be lack of water, lack of nutrients or sun burn,
Stick your fingers into the soil and check how damp the soil is way down at the roots, if dry, you need to find a way of getting water to the root area instead of just the top inch of soil, best way I know is to make a hole, add an upturned plastic juice bottle with the bottom cut off, then as you water, you fill up the bottle a couple of times and the water goes way down to where the roots are.
I would be reluctant to spray with anything that is not organic onto anything that is to be eaten, removing the leaves is fine, bit get to the bottom of the problem before you spray, or you may be just adding to the problem.
Over feeding also has the effect you show on leaves, it is the plants way of trying to get rid of all the overload of food, you don't really need to feed tomatoes until the first truss of fruit has formed, then just a small amount well diluted in water at about 4 days apart, so the plants get the one dose of food taken in before you add the next, if there was an obese problem in plants like we humans show with over eating, then our plants would soon topple over as we humans do way over feed our plants too much at one time, we kill more plants with kindness every year / season.
Hope this gives you some tips and clues you can conceder and maybe help to sort out the problem.
Also think about what the other person Ray_Der_Phan said about their problem with mold from last year, there are some types of plants that are more likely to suffer some diseases than others.
Good luck. WeeNel.
The new leaves look, good remove old leaves and monitor.
steve
THANK YOU to everyone for all your feedback!
Ray_Der_Phan - I think it was indeed gray mold, like you suspected. I removed all leaves and monitored, but new leaves were growing in with the edges darkened like the shot I posted on 5/14. I just pulled the whole thing. No Pruden's Purple for me this year! OH WELL.
Thanks again for all the comments,
Grace
It's an evil thing, Gray Mold. Difficult to control once it's set in (Organically or chemically). It gets even worse when flowering. Probably a good thing to get rid of the plant. I still would spray your other plants with a protectant of some kind just in case.
