Tomato Plant has Shriveled Leaves - Disease?

[Veggie1]

Is this normal or is it a disease? This is a Roma Tomatoe plant. I am a new gardener and do not know how to read my plants yet . I have an identical Roma plant and it's leaves are flat with smooth edges and do not have the shriveled leather look. The plant I am questioning is healthy looking overall but I'm wondering if these leaves are telling me something.

[imafan26]

It would help to know your location, where the plant is in relation to the healthy one, what the environmental conditions have been. freezes, just hardened off, sun, rain. Look under the leaf, if there is anything there you cannot id send a picture of that too. The more information we have the better answer we can give you.

[rainbowgardener]

You are the same one that wrote in about a "sick" tomato plant that just wasn't getting watered enough.

And I looked back at your introduction and found that you are in Savannah GA. It would really help if you would change your profile, so that would show under your screen name, as mine does. There's way too many people come and go around here for us to be able to remember all that.

So I think the other tomato you were writing about was in a container. Is this one? What size container? How is it being watered? What have your temps been like? It looks like you have some 90 degree weather coming up, but I don't know if it has been like that already.

This tomato also does not look particularly sick, but if it is in direct sun and hot weather, it may be toughening up some to conserve moisture. It is said that tomatoes should be grown in full all day sun, but that is for people in my climate, not yours. Your tomato plants may need some protection from hot afternoon sun. And if they are in containers, they will need lots of watering, maybe even twice a day.

I don't know when you planted them, but people in hot climates learn to plant tomatoes in late winter to grow through spring and early summer and then plant again in late summer to grow through fall, and not expect tomato plants to be doing much through heat of summer. It helps if you grow heat resistant varieties.

[Veggie1]

I am the one that wrote about the sick plant that wasn't getting enough water. This is the same plant. Days have been in the mid 80s and nights in the 60s. We just had a couple cooler days 70s/50 but the leaves were leathery looking before the Temps dropped. These plants I am speaking of are in 5 gallon buckets. They are next to my house and get about 6 hours of direct sun a day. I live in the country with alot of shade. The sun hits these plants from 11am to 5pm. I looked at the bottoms of the leaves and there doesn't appear to be anything abnormal looking. I attached two more photos to the thread so you can see the environment and a picture of the "other" Roma plant that has flat leaves.

In the photo of all the plants from left to right... First plant is the plant I am questioning... Second two plants are Bell Peppers... Third plant is a Beefeater Tomato Plant... Last plant on the right is a Roma plant which I have also attached a close up photo of one of its leaves. This Roma plant appears healthy and looks full.

I read about the Mosaic Virus and looked at some photos on line and was curious if that's what this was. Let me know if you guys need some more info... Thanks for your time... I really appreciate it!

[imafan26]

Actually the leaves may just be adjusting as Rainbow said. Your temps are not bad for tomatoes now. I don't know if it is the picture but your leaves are much darker green than mine are. Were they somewhere else a few weeks ago that was shadier?

In warm climates it helps to choose heat resistant varieties. Brandywine, HeatwaveII, Early girl, Better Boy, Rutgers, Celebrity, Mountain Spring, Mountain Fresh, and cherry tomatoes handle heat much better. Most tomatoes will produce in temperatures in the 80's but will stop when it hits the 90's. HeatwaveII will produce even in the high 80's but Florida has produced some tomatoes like solar set, and solar flare which will handle even more heat. Creole, sunsugar cherry, sweet 100 or sweet millions, Sunmaster, Homestead, Husky, and Arkansas Traveler are tomatoes recommended for hot regions.

I was surprised that Early Girl and Brandywine did so well, I did not expect Northern varieties to perform in the heat so some of them can surprise you.

Five gallon buckets are really only good for small tomatoes that are determinate like Husky, Big Beef, New Big Dwarf, and Better bush. For indeterminate tomatoes, you should get 18 gallon containers. Tomatoes need root space and larger containers will not dry out as fast in the heat, so you will have less problems with BER. Most tomatoes will need to be staked and caged.

Tatiana's tomato base is a good place to go to learn about tomato varieties.

https://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Category:B.C_KO_T

I have grown Arkansas Traveler, Brandywine, Rutgers, HeatwaveII, Creole, Sunsugar, Sungold, red cherry, sweet 100, Better boy, new big Dwarf, Big beef, and Early girl. Some of them I liked some I did not, but that could be my preferences for tomatoes and my growing conditions.

I could not grow solar fire, because while it had heat tolerance, it was not resistant to fusarium. Resistance to disease is also a plus.

I can grow tomatoes year round, I don't have to worry about frosts. The humidity is high here most of the year so fungal disease, nematode, virus, and heat resistance is what I need in a tomato.
Brandywine had great tomatoes, but I had to spray it almost constantly in the rainy season to keep the fungal disease at bay and the birds got most of them. Cherry tomatoes, did fine on their own, they got a few leaf miners and thrips, but they still produced more than enough tomatoes. HeatwaveII, produced when it got in the 90's and the others took a break. I'd love to grow creole again, it was a good tomato but I have to find the seeds.

[rainbowgardener]

It does NOT have TMV. If it did, it would be much more severely discolored and disfigured. You are worrying too much. You will make yourself crazy if you start worrying about every little unevenness of color or spots here and there. That is in the way of nature, nothing is perfect.

[Veggie1]

Thanks again for the replies. I do get a little paranoid... Just trying to get knowledgeable about these plants. I have relaxed a bit and accepted I have to just see what happens this season and use it to learn primarily and hope I get some crops.

My leaves are green I think because I feed my plants with a vitamin solution called Super thrive when I feed the plants with Miracle-Gro.

Thanks again for the info and time spent on my post. Very much appreciated!