Help with Yellow Tomato Leaves Pics

[cherylmo]

Hi,
I'm new to the forum, I live in Illinois and had beautiful, healthy, fruit laden tomatoes. Now one is turning yellow - quickly. Bright yellow. Has some brown spots. We've had a ton of rain; then a dry spell; then a ton of rain again. The plants grew bigger than ever ... now yellow. Any solutions? Thanks!





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[rainbowgardener]

Couple different things possibly going on..

The bottom three pictures, look like your tomatoes might have some kind of fungal disease, e.g. septoria or early blight. Try spraying them with a milk solution for this (type milk solution in the Search the Forum feature to find detailed instructions, I don't have time right now). Cut off and dispose of (NOT compost) all the affected leaves before you spray.

All the rain and humidity fosters fungal conditions, especially in plants that are close together.

The top picture particularly looks like you might have some kind of nutrient deficiency. "Tons of rain" can flush nutrients out of the soil. Might try feeding them with compost, fish emulsion, or whatever you use on your tomatoes.

[IzzyM]

I'm trying to remember exactly - but doesn't potassium deficiency show as yellow but other wise healthy leaves? One of the cooking powders - is it baking powder?? - contains potassium. Check the labels in your kitchen. Else banana peels are full of potassium - simply chop up some peel and place it on the soil round the plant's base and water in.

[dirtfarmer]

I've had similar problems. My plants are otherwise very healthy and producing. I was unaware that I shouldn't throw these unhealthy clipping in my compost, I've been doing it! It's to late to remove them.

What problems could it cause for composting?

I went and found the milk solution post:

PostPosted: Thu Jul 15, 2010 7:44 pm
A lot of us are spraying curcurbits with milk diluted with water >> Milk Solution. There are links to original studies floating around, but essentially, it's been shown to be effective in preventing and controlling fungal problems like powdery mildew. As dilute as 10% Milk as preventive but I generally go with about 1:8 or 1/4 C milk to 2 C water, for active infection, some people say 50/50 but I guess I stop short at 1:3. Adding a small amount of yogurt or yogurt whey seems to help as well. (I've also added things like water from rinsing sour cream container)

I spray tomatoes, roses, Monarda, oh Apple trees --- just about anything that might get fungal problems during these humid months.

[rainbowgardener]

The problem with putting the diseased leaves in the compost is that (especially if your compost doesn't run real hot) the spores may survive in the compost to infect next year's plants.

What to do about it? You could always sterilize your compost, but that is a pain and kills off all the beneficial biology too.

You can work on turning and juicing up your compost to get it to run hotter.

You can start a new compost pile and be sure you only use the contaminated one on say flowers, trees, things that aren't susceptible to tomato diseases.

If you are really paranoid, you could trash all the contaminated compost and start fresh... but if it were me, I would never be able to bring myself to do that.

[gixxerific]

Looks like septoria possible to me as well. I just spent several hours pulling most of the dead stems today they were trashed. I just got done putting more compost down after I pulled the dead stuff out I watered well with the fresh compost. I will be spraying with milk tomorrow. Than fertilizing again, I'm hoping that this goes away for me. Hopefully it will go away for you as well. Maybe when the weather breaks (HOT HOT HOT) things will go back to normal.

So what I did is what others are suggesting to you so maybe give it a try.

By the way the compost I put down was from outside my garden. I'm a little worried about disease still in my own compost as it hasn't been running hot enough lately. That is another reason tomato debris is one thing I do NOT compost.

[dirtfarmer]

Yeah, my compost isn't running hot here lately. I may have to dig those out if I can. I did however spray my tomatoes, zucchini and pumpkins with the milk solution. I look outside this morning and they look happy! I see a bunch of orange flowers on the zucchini!

I guess I'm just in the habit of throwing everything in the compost lately and really didn't know about the tomato thing.