flathead007
Newly Registered
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2009 2:11 am
Location: Qld

Tomato bushes dying and tomatoes not ripening.

We have a couple of different varieties of tomato and we seem to get a couple of ripe tomatoes then the bush seems to die rappidly and the rest of the tomatoes do not ripen. The bush dies from the bottom branches up.

We are sure the soil is lacking something but we have no idea what it is. We have used "miracle grow" and "seasol" but we have seen no significant change.

Any hints or suggestions on what to use please let us know!!

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hendi_alex
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Posts: 3604
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2008 7:58 am
Location: Central Sand Hills South Carolina

Sounds to me like one of the several wilt diseases that can infect tomatoes. Here is a link to a site that describes most of these problems. Perhaps will help you to identify yours, though could be some agent specific to your location.

[url]https://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-0797/[/url]

I don't think that your problem is likely related to anything missing in the soil. That kind of issue would be more gradual and would likely manifest itself as a stunted, underperforming plant. On the other hand, many of these soil born problems appear to walk up the plant, reaching the lower stems first, and them moving on upward until the plant dies. Many of these infections also hit a plant very quickly. The plant will appear totally healthy one day, and then will totally collapse over the next one to three days.

You may want to consider some kind of container planting, in sterilized commercial soil. That would eliminate soil born problems. Also, experts recommend rotating tomato planting sites AT LEAST every three years. So perhaps if you open new patch of ground, the problem will be eliminated for a few seasons.

Good luck in solving your problem,

Alex



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