I've had some black fly and aphids. But there's hardly any now. I just go through the plants and pick them off.
I've seen no caterpillars, slugs or snails. So I can't work out what's doing it.
Any ideas?
- TomatoGirl
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- Location: Ontario, Canada
- rainbowgardener
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- TomatoGirl
- Senior Member
- Posts: 114
- Joined: Wed Jun 15, 2016 4:34 pm
- Location: Ontario, Canada
I'm not sure about that.rainbowgardener wrote: ...... Could be bird pecks, except birds would have no reason to peck tomato leaves...
My garden once had major damage from deer. There was plenty of tracks to identity them.
What did they want? Tomato foliage. The ripe fruit had just been picked. Some green fruit was pulled off the plants. It looked like the deer just crushed the green tomatoes and dropped the, all of them.
At another time, deer ate potato foliage. I know that these leaves of nightshade have toxins but they were eaten while other plants were not. The deer didn't get the message. The leaf damage shown in the pictures also looks to me to be what birds cause, especially with TomatoGirl's report over several days of not being able to find other pests. Unless it's extensive damage somewhere else on the plants, I don't think it has done much harm to them.
Steve
I get this damage as well.
Turn over the leaves in the morning and look for small light green pearly balls. At night moths put these on tomotoe leaves and they hatch into tiny horn worms that munch holes in the leaves as soon as they are born. By getting rid of these eggs you will save trouble later. If they hatch the tiny worm leaves holes as shown in your picture. Pick them off by hand or they grow into massive horned worms. The hatchlings are about 1/2 inch long. Left to grow they can get as big as two or three inches and can descimate a tomatoe plant very quickly. The mortality rate is high but a few of these worms that get to adulthood do some serious damage. Good luck.
Turn over the leaves in the morning and look for small light green pearly balls. At night moths put these on tomotoe leaves and they hatch into tiny horn worms that munch holes in the leaves as soon as they are born. By getting rid of these eggs you will save trouble later. If they hatch the tiny worm leaves holes as shown in your picture. Pick them off by hand or they grow into massive horned worms. The hatchlings are about 1/2 inch long. Left to grow they can get as big as two or three inches and can descimate a tomatoe plant very quickly. The mortality rate is high but a few of these worms that get to adulthood do some serious damage. Good luck.