Do bird droppings harm tomato plants?

[harryhh]

Hello Folks,

This year, I put 3 tomato plants on my apartment porch, one on my neighbors porch 20 feet from me, and one on a farther porch 100 feet away. All in 5 gallon buckets with the same soil mix. They all get close to the same amount of sun. All 5 plants are different varieties.

Near my 3 plants and the one near neighbor, we have bird feeders. The birds sit on the tomato cages and there are a fair amount of droppings on these plants. The leaves on these 4 plants are curled and appear sparse. The far neighbor does not have a bird feeder and her tomato plant looks gorgeous.

Do bird droppings that are more often than usual harm the tomato plants? Could they transfer some tomato disease?

[imafan26]

No, but you could get some disease if the tomatoes are contaminated by bird droppings. Birds carry a lot of parasites.

[applestar]

Bird droppings can “burn” the foliage (and fruits and blossoms)... not so much that they could transfer tomato disease (unless they are kinds of birds that might have been eating tomatoes and pooping out diseased tomato remains).

I would rinse the plant to at least dilute.

[applestar]

Oh also, an idea would be to put some kind of awning that you could easily keep clean to block birds from sitting on the tomato support.

I’m thinking sheer open-weave fabric. In my experience, tulle will last for one season. I bought a bolt on amazon to use for insect screening/netting.

[harryhh]

Thank you folks for your responses. Sorry for my delay in a response. It seems I don't get an email when someone answers my post.

Anyway, I moved the bird feeder to a different part of the property. I moved the tomato plants a little closer to the building where they will get shade a few hours earlier than they did. And I talked to the lady whose plant looks good and found that she puts more water on her plant than I put on mine.

The soil in all 5 buckets is a mix of Miracle Grow garden soil, Schultz garden soil, a little perlite, 8 year old 9-12-12 tomato fertilizer, and new Jobes Biozome 2-5-3 tomato fertilizer. I sprinkled more of both fertilizers on the soil a week ago and watered it in. I am now, once or twice a week, going to use a weak solution of soluble general purpose fertilize with some old kelp stuff mixed in.

As for watering, my little moisture meter said I put enough on the plants but, I'm going to put more now, as the lady with the nice plant does. The 5 gallon buckets have holes near the bottom, and I don't think this soil mix could hold excessive water so, I don't think I can over water the plants.

I don't really think the plants get too much sun but, I'll give it a try. The plants do get some reflected light from the concrete porch and some from the brick building but, the building is 6 to 8 feet from the plants.

I hope my changes work. We'll see.

Thank you,
Harry