Diseased Tomatoes Dear Stan; We've been listening to and enjoying your show for years. For the second year in a row, our tomatoes are rotting from the stem down. This also happened to several of our neighbors last year, but we've not yet spoken to them about this this year. I've taken a picture, and will attach it. We'd really like you to take a look and tell us what this disease is and what to do. I'm afraid to take the tomatoes anywhere to show a grower, as I don't want to spread the disease...Karen (Gibbons) Hi Stan - I heard you respond to my email this morning. You said that it is a rather severe case of blossom end rot. We've had blossom end rot in past years. It almost always starts at the bottom of the tomato. What we have this year and last starts at the top, stem end of the tomato and is a smooth patch. This is rough and veiny sort of looking. This is the second year in a row that we and our neighbors next door (about 500 feet from us) have lost nearly our entire crop (I usually can about 40 quarts of tomatoes, so you have some idea just how much we've lost). I just would like to make sure that you had a careful look and are sure that we don't have some sort of blight. Please and thank you for your attention to this. Karen Karen - Thanks for your return query and commend you for your perseverance. I am on my fifth hand/arm cast and suspect it to be constricting blood to my brain. You do in fact not have the blossom thingy, but a classic dose of sunscald. We are not used to this condition on field grown tomatoes, as the leaves are enough to cast shade, but some of the newer hybrid tomatoes although produce well, may not have the early canopy of fruit protection. Without seeing the leaf structure of the plants to show disease, your tomatoes show the signs of typical sunscald and the progression to worse complications. In field and greenhouse conditions, sunscald may occur whenever green or ripening tomatoes are excessively exposed to the hot sun. This injury is common on plants that have premature loss of foliage caused by disease such as leaf spot, early blight or verticillium wilt. At first signs, a yellowish to white patch appears on the side of the fruit facing the sun. As the tomato develops, a blister area appears. Later it forms a large, slightly depressed grayish-green area that becomes puffy. You might want to try the white garden cloth next season, and cover your plants right on into heavy fruit set and complete harvest. Hope this is more helpful than my first attempt. Best Regards, Stan. Hi Stan. Thanks for replying. Hmmm...Still doesn't quite jive. There is no loss of foliage except what we've cut off because they just get too big. These are not new hybrids, but rather a few old varieties that we've managed to save seeds from over the years. Our garden is quite sheltered so sunscald seems to be an oxymoron. Some of the plants did have dark sort of blotches on the stems that were on the ground. But they didn't rot or do any of the things that our Rodale's guide says they should do. And last year was the first time we've ever had anything like this and our next door neighbors do too, exactly the same. In both gardens, nothing really changed as far as exposure to light, wind etc. But last summer we had that extended cold wet weather. Another neighbor about 1 mile south had the same thing last year, but we haven't talked to him about it this year. If you're not afraid of me spreading a disease, I could bring a plant and some tomatoes for you to look at. I could also take some better pictures, more close up, of both plants and tomatoes. If there is no chance of me spreading a disease I could take them to one of the greenhouses like Kuhlman's to see what they think. Karen Karen - As you may know, assessment of a pathogen or environmental condition to do with plants is sometimes very difficult when only a portion of the plant is evident. A pathologist needs all the parts to evaluate the signs of cause and effect. At this point I would encourage you to visit a professional tomatoe grower like Kuhlman's Greenhouse, for yet another determination. Take both plant and tomatoe samples with you in a zip-lock...or leave the samples in your car if you are concerned with disease. Hi again Stan. I took a plant and a few of the tomatoes to Kuhlman's this morning. They agreed with your diagnosis of sunscald. Absolutely no doubt! She asked if we had the tomatoes in a blisteringly hot place and I said, no, they're in the garden. She said this can happen if the tomatoes are cool cool and then suddenly very hot. That makes sense. The trees around our garden are out of control. The garden doesn't get sun until about 10 in the morning except on June 21 when it's maybe 9 in the morning, and the garden is back in the shade by mid afternoon. so they're cool and sheltered and only see the sun on the hottest part of the day. The trees have been getting bigger and bigger, but the rainfall the last two years made them spurt like a teenage boy. So it all makes sense. She said the plants are showing normal aging and the spots are from that. You may just have helped me convince my husband to cut down the damn saskatoons and chokecherries that are shading the garden. Karen

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