Tomatoes not setting fruit

[webmaster]

test

[webmaster]

I would definitely pull and destroy the sick ones to be sure they don't infect the healthy ones.

test 2

[TheWaterbug]

@ Waterbug your plants are not looking normal...

He's dead [the pink BW], Jim . . . .

The [yellow] BW is also sick, but not as sick, and it does have a few tomatoes on it, so I left that one in

Well, now the yellow BW is near death:



I did pull three decent-sized tomatoes off it this weekend, though they were more orange than yellow. I'll try eating them as soon as they soften up a bit and see how they taste. Then I think I'm going to pull it.

My Black Krim is also looking very grim:



I've gotten a handful of golfball- and marble-sized fruits off it, but they're red, not purple/black.They're tasty, so it's a shame that this plant, too, is a goner.

My Green Zebra, Cherokee Purple, and Mister Stripey all look pretty decent right now (that's the GZ behind/left of the Krim). Here's a Stripey:



But they're all so close to the sick plants that I'm terrified they're going to get it, too, whatever "it" is.

Next year I'm going to put my tomatoes all the way on the other side of the garden

[TheWaterbug]

My Green Zebra, Cherokee Purple, and Mister Stripey all look pretty decent right now (that's the GZ behind/left of the Krim). But they're all so close to the sick plants that I'm terrified they're going to get it, too, whatever "it" is.

Next year I'm going to put my tomatoes all the way on the other side of the garden

Arrggghhh!!!! I'm finally getting some good Stripeys to eat, and now look at this:



It looks just like the start of what happened to my 3 dead plants.

[rainbowgardener]

You aren't really showing close ups of the affected leaves, but it looks like septoria. Do the leaves look like this when it starts:



You can slow it down by pulling off the affected leaves as soon as they show up. Keep your soil well mulched to prevent transmission from soil to leaves.

It is a fungal disease, so can be treated with fungicides like baking soda, potassium bicarbonate, hydrogen peroxide, Serenade...

[TheWaterbug]

You aren't really showing close ups of the affected leaves, but it looks like septoria. Do the leaves look like this when it starts?

They don't get spotted like that. They just gradually turn wilty, then yellow, then brown. It's pretty gradual and uniform across each leaf, and it seems to spread across a branch.

I'll keep pulling branches as they show symptoms, and I'll try some fungicides, too, just in case it's still fungal.

[rainbowgardener]

Not so good, that could be one of the wilt diseases like fusarium, verticillium...

http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/3000/3122.html

They tend to be more virulent, kill plants faster than septoria, which tomato plants can live with pretty long. But they are fungal and the same treatments would apply...

It's one reason I grow hybrids, they have disease resistance bred in.

You want to be sure to grow your tomatoes in a different spot next year. If it is a fungal disease it can stay in your soil and affect next year's plants.

[TheWaterbug]

I'll keep pulling branches as they show symptoms, and I'll try some fungicides, too, just in case it's still fungal.

I never got around to trying the fungicides, but whatever it is, it killed my Stripey, and now my Green Zebra has it, too

My Cherokee Purple is a few feet away, and I pruned the branches of the Zebra so that it's not touching the CP, but I'm still worried.

Here's the bizarre thing about this disease--it doesn't hit the plants until they're fully mature and fruiting. The plants grow like gangbusters with lots of foliage, then start making fruit, and _then_ they get sick.

I'd think that a fungus would start attacking the plant sooner.

The only correlation I can imagine might be that the leaf growth just provides more ways for the sick plant to distribute the fungus and the healthy plant to contract the fungus.

Because otherwise it doesn't make any sense that they'd only get sick when they're at their peak.

[gixxerific]

It a fungal disease and septoria is a bad one. It doens't matter if the plant is healthy or sick. All Sep needs is moisture and the right temp and it taks a stronghold. You can stay ahead of it somehwat like RBG said with constant pruning and fungacides.

Here are mine with septoria a few years ago. They never fully died but it was a hell of a battle to keep them even looking as crappy as they do.