rotting tomatoes

[darshan]

I've been gardening for a few years now. This year I decided to go for a large harvest of tomatoes. I planted around 36 plants, all of them being Roma (VF) tomatoes. The plants developed quite nicely, and each plant holds at least 25 to 30 good sized toatoes. However, as the tomatoes ripen, the upper portion of the tomatoe starts to develop brown markings, with the skin wrinkling up, and the tomato softening underneath the skin. In many cases, large brown or black spots appear in these "rotting" areas.
What have I done wrong? Can anything be done to prevent this on unripened tomatoes? And how do I prevent this in the future?
Please help...

[The Helpful Gardener]

This is blossom end rot, a common fungus on tomatoes. I have found regular spays of 1 part milk to 6 parts water will do a good job of helping prevent this, but it is not a curative. Most of the fungicides available to treat this are not very ecological, but neem oil would work here (it has a strong scent and I am somewhat concerned it may affect flavor).

Here's some info on how to prevent this from happening next year; try the milk on remaining healthy fruit and I hope you manage some sort of harvest. This wet weather has caused a lot of fungal problems this year...

[url]https://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-28-d.html[/url]

Scott

[Newt]

Hi Scott and Darshan,
Not to but in here, but Darshan said "...the upper portion of the tomatoe starts to develop brown markings...".

Darshan, if you are talking about the stem end having this problem, it sounds to me like early blight. Take a look here.

https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/tomatoproblemsolver/ripefruit/12d.html\

If that's not it, take a look here to see if you can id it.

https://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/tomatoproblemsolver/index.html

Here are some home made fungicides.

https://www.dirtdoctor.com/view_question.php?id=204

Newt

[The Helpful Gardener]

Good catch Newt. I did overlook the "upper end" part of the equation; you see so many questions on the same topic you start to get a bit knee-jerk with the replies... My apologies to Darshan for not paying closer attention

Scott

[Newt]

Scott, that blushing face looks so familiar. I've had to use it before too!

Newt