Do I need to rip out this tomato plant?

elliephant 25/3/2011, 7:52 am

See the difference between the new growth and the old? I'm afraid it's a virus. It's the only one of my tomato plants that has this, thankfully. There are other tomato plants in the same box that are fine, so I'm having a hard time thinking it's just some sort of stress/nutritional problem, though I dearly wish it were, especially since...

Do I need to rip out this tomato plant? IMG_0745

Do I need to rip out this tomato plant? IMG_0745

...it's my Matt's Wild Cherry, which already has baby tomatoes on it Sad

.

Anyone ever have a tomato plant look like this?

**camprn** 25/3/2011, 9:41 am

I am not sure, but it looks like a nutritional deficiency to me. Maybe iron...maybe magnesium :?: Poke around on the internet for photos, you may find an answer. I will look later too.
did you give the tomatoes a handful of epsom salts?
https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=434253580241

staf74 25/3/2011, 9:54 am

Looks like a nutritional deficiency for sure and probably one of the micro nutrients. Could be Boron, Manganese, Magnesium, Iron. Looks like a classic iron in tomatoes. See below. Almost identical but these all have similar looking traits.

Do I need to rip out this tomato plant? Vg1110a2f4

Do I need to rip out this tomato plant? Vg1110a2f4

Do not throw away IMO...

HOWEVER, throwing nutrition at the problem might not be the issue. If your pH has changed, the iron might be there but just locked up and not available to the plant. Check that too Smile

FarmerValerie 25/3/2011, 10:04 am

Wasn't there a thread that mentioned egg shell tea for calcuim for tomatoes? Do any of you do that?

**camprn** 25/3/2011, 10:08 am

FarmerValerie wrote:Wasn't there a thread that mentioned egg shell tea for calcuim for tomatoes? Do any of you do that?

Probably, but I don't think this is Ca def.

staf74 25/3/2011, 10:09 am

Not egg shell tea but I do always crush egg shells into a fine powder and spread around the hole and the base of the plant as I transplant / seed. That prevents blossom end rot on the fruit.

Squat_Johnson 25/3/2011, 10:14 am

I wouldn't rip that out either. It doesn't look like viral to me. I had some last year that looked horrible, and was able to bring them back to life.

Tomatoes will tolerate quite a bit of disease and still produce. I am going on a heavy pruning program this year, to allow more airflow and try to reduce some of the blight issues I have had in previous years of bushieness.

I had forgotten about the epson salts. Gonna add that to the list.

acara 25/3/2011, 10:22 am

Magnesium would be brighter yellow & generally not as uniform as what your showing.

I'm going with the iron folks.

Also agree with the non-viral & don't rip it out

**camprn** 25/3/2011, 10:23 am

I like the Mel's Mix a lot, but for a bit of insurance when I transplant tomatoes and eggplants, into the hole goes a handful of powdered milk, epsom salts and a match head (thanks Ander!) Then in goes the tomato/eggplant seedling. Worked like a charm last year.

jazzymaddy 25/3/2011, 12:54 pm

Wow. Maybe some day all of that will make sense. It didn't quite scare me off, but that's pretty complex... Smile

I'm just glad to know you'll all still be here when I get to that point.

Tracy

elliephant 25/3/2011, 3:29 pm

Wow! You guys have totally made my day! I even have iron on hand! Totally going to try that first thing in the morning!

elliephant 25/3/2011, 3:34 pm

http://msucares.com/crops/comhort/tomatodisease/index.html

This is where I saw Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus and thought that's what it might be. Still not sure, but there isn't any more curl to the affected leaves than there is to the older leaves, so I'm going to try the iron.

kiwirose 25/3/2011, 10:31 pm

camprn wrote:I like the Mel's Mix a lot, but for a bit of insurance when I transplant tomatoes and eggplants, into the hole goes a handful of powdered milk, epsom salts and a match head (thanks Ander!) Then in goes the tomato/eggplant seedling. Worked like a charm last year.

- care to elaborate? I know about epsom salts - but powedered milk (how much - skim or whole or buttermilk - and any idea what it does) - and what about the match head? I am gunning for record breaking tomato harvests this year, and growing eggplant for the first time, so am very very interested Smile

**walshevak** 26/3/2011, 2:15 am

Me too!

Squat_Johnson 26/3/2011, 3:00 am

Tomatoes need certain minerals and will show stress signs when they are lacking. Powdered milk or eggshells provide calcium. Match head would add sulphur (a trick which I haven't heard). Epsom salts would provide magnesium. Compost (MM) would give nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sodium.

Somebody please correct this, or add to it... I am still learning, but had lots of almost dead plants last year, do I did some research last summer.

**camprn** 26/3/2011, 9:19 am

Yup, Squat has it right! Do I need to rip out this tomato plant? 593714

acara 26/3/2011, 11:04 am

**camprn** 26/3/2011, 11:14 am

I still think the original problem was lack of iron.

elliephant 11/4/2012, 12:47 pm

updating this old thread as I am facing the same thing again this year. Last year I tried many of the suggestions given and saw plant after plant succumb to the same thing. Pretty darn sure now that it is Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus (TYLCV) which is spread by whiteflies. http://www.plantanswers.com/Articles/TomatoYellowLeafCurlVirus.asp

As this article says,

TYLCV is now the most important tomato virus in southern states where whitefly has become a big problem, especially in Florida and Texas.

so I thought I'd share what I've learned about it in case others face it.

The good news is that I bought a Tycoon tomato plant from a local nursery when I was out and about hunting down MM ingredients earlier this year. I bought it because it said it was resistant to so many kinds of disease. Well, it's one of the few that is tolerant of TYLCV and so far it not only came through the hailstorm with amazingly little damage, but is showing no signs of TYLCV Very Happy

It seems like the more I'm learning about tomatoes, the harder time I'm having in growing them.

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