Please Help - What's Going on with my Tomatoes?

[gwatson]

Hi everyone, I'm looking for some advice on what's going on with my tomatoes.

First off, here are some pictures:







So this is the second year that I've been growing in this garden, and the second year that this has happened to my tomatoes. When I dug it out last year I had several tons of filtered topsoil added to fill it in since it's somewhat terraced. I also planted potatoes for the first time ever last year. I'm thinking that I've managed to pick up a fungus or bacteria from either the potatoes or the soil.

The potatoes were also affected last year, coming up shriveled and black - which is why I was thinking this might be some kind of blight.

This year I didn't plant any potatoes, and I tried to be extra careful about getting all of the stalks, etc from last year out of the garden and hauled away.

I had a garden in another area of my yard for 6 years prior to moving it, and never had this kind of problem - my tomatoes always turned out fine and lasted until later in the year before drying out.

At this point, I'm thinking it's either blight or bacterial spot, but I'm not really sure.

Can anyone help me identify what's going on here and what I need to do to remedy it? I have a feeling that this years crop is done for, unfortunately.

Thanks for your help.[/img]

[rainbowgardener]

what are the leaves looking like?

[DoubleDogFarm]

Differences.

Did you use the same type of topsoil in the 6 year plot?
Sun / shade differences?

I see what looks like water spots. Do you use overhead sprinklers?

Are you growing tomatoes where you grew potatoes last year?

Eric

[gwatson]

I added no topsoil to the original plot, I removed the sod and tilled the soil that was there. The soil for the new plot came from a local supply place. I added about 6 ton.

The tomatoes are growing very close to where the potatoes were last year, but not in the same spot.

The water spots you see are from some Sevin that I sprayed on the plants this year. I didn't really want to do it, but I was having lots of stinkbugs that I couldn't control. Originally I thought the stinkbugs might have been causing the problem but now I'm not so sure.

Here is a picture of some of the leaves:

[TZ -OH6]

The last picture looks like late blight lesions on the stem, but could also be some of the bacterial or fungal things. With late blight the plant is usually hit hard compared to the fruit. Late blight is also somewhat stinky.

The weather is usually more to blame than the soil for late blight becasue it can only overwinter in living tissue. Pulling up any potato volunteers early in the year (if you had blight the previous year) will keep tomatoes from getting infected. If you had it the year before chances are good that the whole area was infected and spores will blow in from down the road.


You might want to go through the list here, and then look up (Google) the prime suspects to get better pictures.

https://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/DiagnosticKeys/TomFrt/TomFrtKey.html



What area are you in? I know someone in the Pacific Northwest who has already lost all of her plants to Late blight.

[gwatson]

I'm in Morgantown, WV which is in the north-central part of state just south of the PA border.

I've also reached out to WVU since they have a big agricultural college, and they will run some tests if I bring in samples, so I think I'm going to do that just so I can find out what this is to know what I can do for next year.

[TZ -OH6]

Good luck with it.