hardland
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Location: Sth Florida

Can a plant still produce fruit if it is not looking healthy

I have about eight tomato plants going, some are healthy others are not. Not sure if it's fungus, blight or something else. A few of the bad plants have some good size fruit on them, but not ripe yet. I'm wondering if the fruit can still ripen and stay healthy, or should I pick it and hope it ripens in the house. I read about putting green toms in a brown bag with a ripe apple?

gumbo2176
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Some of my tomato plants took a hit when we had some below freezing weather a few weeks ago. I left the plants alone and a lot of the tomatoes did ripen on the vines but as the vines continued to die, I picked all the green tomatoes and made a huge batch of salsa verde with them.

About a week ago, we had another night of below freezing temperatures and that finally did the rest of my tomato plants in. That time, it froze the tomatoes along with the vines and I had to just pull the plants and toss the whole bunch away.

If they are still alive and you are having above freezing temps., I'd just leave them alone and let them ripen. If the fruit falls off the vines easily, then pick them and let them ripen indoors. I've had 100 or more tomatoes ripen on my counter top this fall.

hardland
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Location: Sth Florida

Iv'e been fighting extreme temps down here in Sth FL as well, as high as 89' in the sun and as cold as 35' at night, in the span of 5 days. :shock: :o
Some of my tom plants look very bad, but the fruit seems ok, does fungus or blight no spread to the fruit?
We have not had an official freeze down here yet, yet.. I'm close to the coast so that helps, 5-8 deg lower 10 miles inland.

gumbo2176
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I've been kind of fortunate with tomato plants. It seems the problems I mostly have is with occasional splitting from too much rain in the summer and stink bugs puncturing the fruit and leaving the tomatoes looking splotchy. I have had issues with leaf miners, but I catch that fairly early and simply pull the foliage that is affected off the plant and discard it in the trash.

I'm thinking the fungal issue would likely remain isolated to the foliage and not present much of a problem to the fruit. I've read some real horror stories in this forum about folks losing many or all of their tomato plants to fungus and other diseases. If fungal problems are an issue, one thing to do is to plant the tomatoes farther apart so they can get better air circulation and it won't make it so easy for the fungus to go from plant to plant. Hopefully, someone with more knowledge on this subject will come along and offer some of their expertise.

There are sites that give tons of information on tomato diseases, pests and how to treat them. If you do a google search, I'm sure you'll find tons quite a few sites to choose from.

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tomakers
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Location: Cranberry Country, SE MA - zone 6?

Last year I was totally wiped out by early blight. Out of over 70 plants I got 1 tomato, a Carbon, and it was delicious.
Blight WILL affect the fruit, but if there is no evidence of blight on the fruit itself, I have been told it is ok to eat. I cannot say from PE, it is what I have read. If there WAS blight on it I would not eat it. They just look too bad, even if they are ok.
JMO,
Tom

The Helpful Gardener
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Tomakers, remember plant pathogens aren't human pathogens. Close your eyes and you won't see what they look like; still perfectly good to eat. :wink:

Cooler temps could be perfect for fungal development; pics could help a lot. I staved off the blight in my crop by removing most of the foliage; tomatoes only really need a good growing set of leaves at the apexes and less leaves is less places for fungus to land and infect (better air circulation and UV sterilization as well).

Leave them be, and let them develop, unless freeze is iminent... think about trimming some leaves off.

HG

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tomakers
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Location: Cranberry Country, SE MA - zone 6?

The Helpful Gardener wrote:Tomakers, remember plant pathogens aren't human pathogens. Close your eyes and you won't see what they look like; still perfectly good to eat. :wink:

Cooler temps could be perfect for fungal development; pics could help a lot. I staved off the blight in my crop by removing most of the foliage; tomatoes only really need a good growing set of leaves at the apexes and less leaves is less places for fungus to land and infect (better air circulation and UV sterilization as well).

Leave them be, and let them develop, unless freeze is iminent... think about trimming some leaves off.

HG
I AM NOT AFRAID OF PLANT PATHOGENS. There was no option of closing eyes. I only had 1 fruit ripen without being overcome with blight. NO OTHERS RIPENED. And you would have to do more than close your eyes. ANYTHING that got even close to ripe was COVERED with blight fungus. Believe me, you would not want to eat them. I have dealt with blight before, but not to the extent of 2009. EVERY plant of 70+ was grossly infected. I tried pulling leaves, etc. at first, but the blight was just too much to handle. NO problem for 2010. Which leads me to another point. If you are in an area of freezing temperatures and DON'T grow potatoes, the blight will NOT survive. I did virtually NO clean up of infected plants and had no problem in 2010. There was also plenty of air circulation. I grow in cages centered 6 x 6 feet apart.
JMO,
Tom

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My experience with the blight was nowhere near as disfiguring ,but I was prevent spraying with milk/water, cropping leaves to keep down points of contact, and exosing fruit to sun and circulation, so I lost only a few fruits to the big ugly (too disgusting to contemplate eating).

You raise a good point about the winter kill; the word is that it doesn't survive the cold well at all. That's why this has been a southern disease (and why veggie plants grown in Alabama and shipped all over the US is a bad idea).

Unfortunately, growing your own was no defense agaiinst this particular scourge. My heart goes out to everyone that lost a mater (or 70).

HG

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tomakers
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Joined: Wed Jun 28, 2006 12:13 am
Location: Cranberry Country, SE MA - zone 6?

The Helpful Gardener wrote:My experience with the blight was nowhere near as disfiguring ,but I was prevent spraying with milk/water, cropping leaves to keep down points of contact, and exosing fruit to sun and circulation, so I lost only a few fruits to the big ugly (too disgusting to contemplate eating).

You raise a good point about the winter kill; the word is that it doesn't survive the cold well at all. That's why this has been a southern disease (and why veggie plants grown in Alabama and shipped all over the US is a bad idea).

Unfortunately, growing your own was no defense agaiinst this particular scourge. My heart goes out to everyone that lost a mater (or 70).

HG
I grow all my own plants and I was spraying with milk, aspirin, and anything else I felt was not going to harm anything. I guess maybe I should have given in and used Bravo or one of that type, but I REALLY hate to. The blight just came on too fast, about 10 days from first spotting it on a Sungold plant(1 tiny spot which I at 1st thought was bird droppings) to all plants infected. 2010 was a much better year, although I got off to a slow start everything went well.
JMO,
Tom



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