Disease or deficiency or something else?

Ok, I took this pics a few minutes ago after doing some yard work. I noticed that on several of my plants, (have 12 in 5 gallon buckets and about 15 or so more in 16oz "solo" cups awaiting transplant into buckets), that I have some leaves that the tips are curling/turning brown/dying. This does appear to be toward the lower leaves and on most plants the tops look good, however, there are a few that have very small browning/curling.
I've looked through several of the threads on this site and visited quite a few of the referenced sites listed in those threads. My problem is that so many of these problems have similar symptoms it's difficult for a newbie such as myself to make a correct diagnosis and then select a proper course of action. Anyway, here are the pics. Any input and/or suggestions are appreciated. The plants are new plants and are not even a foot tall yet. I started them indoors from seed and now that the weather has warmed up they have really started growing and up until now I had no problems.
Thanks!

These first 2 pics are from the same plant. It looks to have a different problem than the others.







Tips turning brown.



I have several plants, (of different varieties too, most heirloom, that have this problem), that display this problem.

Here are my thoughts:

This could be perfectly normal. It looks to me like splash damage, perhaps fungus related. Are you showering the plants from above or are you watering at soil level?

My suggested remedy:
Trim off all affected leaves. fill the cups to the top with growing mix, water at soil level, avoid splash onto leaves if you can, but don't worry if it happens a little bit.

Hmmm, very interesting.
Yes, I have been watering from above with the hose. I just set the sprayer to give a wide angle and start to water. The plants are still small at this point and I did pull off the affected leaves, (mostly lower ones).
Do you think a baking soda and water solution would help alleviate it or is there something else I should put on them? (or nothing at all?)
It has been pretty humid this past week or so and I have been watering in the AM and evenings if the soil seems dry to the finger test.

s1rGr1nG0 wrote:Hmmm, very interesting.
Yes, I have been watering from above with the hose. I just set the sprayer to give a wide angle and start to water. The plants are still small at this point and I did pull off the affected leaves, (mostly lower ones).
Do you think a baking soda and water solution would help alleviate it or is there something else I should put on them? (or nothing at all?)
It has been pretty humid this past week or so and I have been watering in the AM and evenings if the soil seems dry to the finger test.

Nope to the baking soda. No need if you stop giving them a shower. Water at the soil level and fill the cups with Mel's mix.

Agree that it looks like fungus. Are the areas dry and dusty? Have you turned over the leaves and searched for any tiny hair-like things (fungus spores) underneath them?

What time of day are you watering?

At first I thought possible splash damage (from encouraging fungus brought up from the soil) too, but then I saw the soil surface looked so woody that I started to wonder if much splashing could be going on.

Unlikely to be a soil deficiency, because the damaged areas are not uniformly spread across the plant.

Earwigs can leave chew patterns like those on the leaf ends. The yellowing and dead fibrous areas also look like the after effects of an earwig feast. All my tomatoes have very fine "hairs" that are like super-small velvet - That's OK. I've used milk applied with a hand sprayer to spray squash that had powdery milder- worked great, but you have to spray it in daylight, and at 10 day intervals to be effective.

Do a search on this site for spider mites.  There are photos for comparison there and solutions.

I am not terribly concerned about what the images show, I think it is a watering problem.

Take a look at this site for a look at serious tomato problems you may want to get to know.
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/garden/02949.html

Maybe a Potassium deficiency?

Symptoms include:  yellowing of leaves, spots on leaves, leaf edges become dry and scorched

Try adding wood ashes, granite dust, but my all time go to is dried GOAT manure from the goat pen.  Any time I see a problem I just add a shovel of aged manure around the plant base.  I also use it as part of my seed starting mix.

http://cricketsongfarm.blogspot.com

Goat manure...  Hmmm...  There are goats nearby.  Wonder if I can set something up with the owners...

 

K deficiency will exhibit with chlorosis.

http://5e.plantphys.net/images/ch05/wt0501m_s.jpg

camprn wrote:K deficiency will exhibit with chlorosis.

http://5e.plantphys.net/images/ch05/wt0501m_s.jpg

Wow camprn, that was a great website.  I went back in the link to the section describing all types of nutrient deficiencies and found a wealth of information.  Here is the link to all types of nutrient deficiencies of tomatoes.  Don't know if I would be able to tell the difference by looking at the plant, but this might help somewhat.  The pictures are at the bottom of the article.
http://5e.plantphys.net/article.php?ch=5&id=289&search=images