A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2004 help with tomato plant

Hello,

I'm a new member to the forum and to gardening. My son and I planted a small garden with tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, and squash. We have two tomato plants. One is doing fine, while the other produces tomatoes with strange black spots on them. They are hard to describe, so I've attached a link to a picture below:

http://akins.freeservers.com/Pics/tomato.JPG

Note: you have to copy and paste the link into your browswer to see the picture (launching from the post won't work)

Any ideas on what could be causing this? I haven't noticed any pests on this particular plant.

Thanks in advance,
Don

Akinsdra,
Hello and Welcome to The Garden Helper's Forum!
We are very glad you found us!!!

I'd like to ask you a few questions....
While we're waiting for some of the gardene's to come thru...

What has your weather been in your area?
Rainy?? Hot?? Etc.???
What are your watering practices if it's not been raining..
What is under your tomato plants and on top of the soil???
And what kind of fertilizer, if any, do you use??

I'd have to say it's a soil and water problem...
But I'm sure other's will be thru to also help you!

Weezie

Hi Weezie,

Thanks for the quick reply. I have to admit, my watering has not been consistent. I have tried to water at least a couple of times a week, but sometimes it has been as long as 4 days between watering. How much should you water when the weather does not cooperate?

I am in the Southeast, and the weather has been hot and humid the past few weeks. Not much run, until recently.

I've got store bought planting soil worked into the normal soil which is alabama clay.

I have fertilized once with "Expert Gardener" slow release granules.

Hope this helps,

Greetings Don,

Ummm this one got me. It almost looks like you have a malformation but with a secondary disease. (This is possible.) What is throwing me off is you have one plant that is doing great. That kind of lets out the weather, how you water it, types of fertilizers etc. The other item is the black at the top and how it comes up the sides and misses areas.

Here are a couple of links that might help out. This first link has many pictures with discripions. See if one of them fits your problem.

Link 1

Read Part B of this one. Link 2

Question; are all of the fruits on this plant doing this? If so, and if in a day or two you don't have an answer I would suggest pulling the plant. Better to have one good plant than to lose it too.

I hope someone here maybe able to help you more...it's I never seen tomatoes like that before. Sorry...
Pineapple_Raye

I had a similar problem... see this picture


Does it look like yours? This was happening only to my "Celebrity" regular size tomatoes - my "Sweet 100" cherry tomatoes were just fine. The cause of this problem seemed to be that the soil was compacted because the containers the plants were in were too small. This problem stopped occurring after I repotted them to bigger pots.

Maybe having clay soil is the problem - it sounds like clay could compact the roots in a similar way that small containers can. Is your plant a small enough size that it could possibly be potted in a container with potting soil?

Forgot to mention... You might try cutting one in half. When mine were cut in half, they looked perfectly normal inside except for the 1 or 2 mm near the surface, where it was bruised and brown.

All,

Thank you for the replies. It seems that from researching the links that Raye provided, as well as the consensus from some of the gardeners that I showed the produce to at work is that this is a fungal problem (late blight was what most thought when we looked at the attached links).

To answer Raye's question: the odd thing is after pulling all of the smaller tomatoes that had these strange black marks, the plant actually is producing normal looking small tomatoes. Is this normal?

The leaves are still kind of brown and wilted. The same symptoms are beginning to show on the other plant as well. I will keep an eye on them and pull them both if necessary.

Someone at my office suggested treating with Chlorothalonil. I wanted to get this forum's opinion on that before I actually did it.

Thanks,

If that is the case I doubt it is late blight... Late blight is one of the worse. There is no way you can have it and have normal looking tomatoes. Just not possible.

Sometimes I wonder where people come up with this crap....

Here is a product that has that item in it.
Ortho Multi Purpose Fungicide Daconil 2787 plant Disease Control. This is what the MSDS sheet says about this Chlorothalonil as it is part of this product.

Carcinogenicity: MSDS: GENERAL COMMENTS: This product contains chlorothalonil. The carcinogenic potential of technical-grade chlorothalonil (97%) has been tested in two rat studies and one mouse study. It was reported to cause an increased incidence of malignant and/or combined malignant and benign kidney tumors in both sexes in both rat studies and in male mice. In addition, increased incidences of malignant forestomach tumors were observed in both sexes of mice and in female rats in one study. Based on the results of these studies, chlorothalonil has been classified as a B2 carcinogen by the US EPA.

FYI there is no known cure for late blight. Take you tomatoe, some of the leaves and find your county extention office. They will be able to tell you what your problem is.

Sorry I cannot help more. However, I'm real proud you asked about that item before you ate it, or worse fed it to your boy.
Pineapple_Raye

Was there a heavy water time?
With some cold weather maybe??????

With a long period of dry and then an excessive water and a cold snap might have put too much water to them and the cold snap maybe damaged the first set of them>>>???
And the fertilizer was all given in a burst when it finally watered with the above factors????
Stress on a plant....????

Just guessin' here???

Weezie

Please keep us posted on how they still come out okay?????

, Raye, I like you more everytime I read your Posts