What's going on with my tomatoes?

[theberzh]

My tomato leaves started to appear as if they are burned.
All the leaves died on all my plants except for one.
How do you explain that?
Fungus?
Disease?
Bad genetics?
It even happened in the single potted plant.
I've never had anything like this ever happen in all my years of gardening.
Then I started another group of seeds and it's starting again on this one plant.
All are Green Zebra except for the last three photos, which are a yellow plum.
Please take a look at the photos. Can someone please help me out?

[applestar]

To me, it looks like herbicide damage.

- Is there any chance they were accidentally sprayed with something? Are there located where someone else could have sprayed or dumped toxic material?

- Could it be in the potting mix/compost?

- if using coir, could it be too much salt — did you check for salt/rinse it out/buy with assurance of no excess salt

— When you asked about disease, are you confident you are practicing basic sanitation — washing if not sterilizing containers, using fresh potting mix not reused

— did you acclimate them to sun, wind, etc. if they were previously in protected area

[imafan26]

What is the temperature? If it is too hot, it will look like that because it is getting burned. Stressed plants that don't get good air circulation can become targets of thrips or mites. There are light patches on some of the leaves that look like thrip damage.

How deep is the container? If you are using coir, salt can be a problem if you don't wash the coir well. If the container is too big for the seedlings and the media is staying very wet between watering, it can cause the seedling to shrivel up. Especially if the media is very wet and you have it in a plastic greenhouse and you are not opening it up during the day when it is warm enough to let the steam out.

For me it is a strange way to start seedlings. I usually put seeds in a 4 inch compot (8-10 seeds). By the time the seedlings are the size of yours, I have up potted each tomato to a single 4 inch pot and by the time the second set of true leaves are out they are outside in their permanent pot 18 gallon container but under planted with a short crop to take up the excess water and save space by double cropping.

I don't use coir. It does not stay evenly wet. When it is wet, it is too wet and when it is dry, it is really dry. Tall plants in coir fall over. It can work for plants that like to dry out between watering, but the falling over is annoying.

I don't have to deal with cold temperatures so I can start my seedlings in direct sun on an open bench. It avoids the problem of over heating, poor air circulation and I don't have to harden them off. But it does not solve the problem of starting more than I can handle and not potting them up soon enough.

[theberzh]

There's no herbicide in sight as far as I know. I did use perlite and vermiculite both from "hand me down" bags that someone else wasn't using on the bottom photos . The top photos were from my garden soil and then I covered them with saw dust. I didn't even think about contamination from anything toxic.
I did start them under lights that I might have missed a few times not cycling them by turning them off a night. Could that have burned the leaves?

To me, it looks like herbicide damage.

- Is there any chance they were accidentally sprayed with something? Are there located where someone else could have sprayed or dumped toxic material?

- Could it be in the potting mix/compost?

- if using coir, could it be too much salt — did you check for salt/rinse it out/buy with assurance of no excess salt

— When you asked about disease, are you confident you are practicing basic sanitation — washing if not sterilizing containers, using fresh potting mix not reused

— did you acclimate them to sun, wind, etc. if they were previously in protected area

[theberzh]

I started them at about 68 degrees in the basement under lights. I used those florescent bulbs as light and I may have left them on too long. Could that have burned them if I left them on over night?
that's not coir. It's just saw dust on top of my soil.
They seemed to go really quickly when I put them out in the greenhouse. I'm in CT and it's been 70 all week which means it's about 90-100 in the greenhouse. I thought the plastic would protect them from the light but it accelerated the burn.
It's it strange how that one plant was not effected?

What is the temperature? If it is too hot, it will look like that because it is getting burned. Stressed plants that don't get good air circulation can become targets of thrips or mites. There are light patches on some of the leaves that look like thrip damage.

How deep is the container? If you are using coir, salt can be a problem if you don't wash the coir well. If the container is too big for the seedlings and the media is staying very wet between watering, it can cause the seedling to shrivel up. Especially if the media is very wet and you have it in a plastic greenhouse and you are not opening it up during the day when it is warm enough to let the steam out.

For me it is a strange way to start seedlings. I usually put seeds in a 4 inch compot (8-10 seeds). By the time the seedlings are the size of yours, I have up potted each tomato to a single 4 inch pot and by the time the second set of true leaves are out they are outside in their permanent pot 18 gallon container but under planted with a short crop to take up the excess water and save space by double cropping.

I don't use coir. It does not stay evenly wet. When it is wet, it is too wet and when it is dry, it is really dry. Tall plants in coir fall over. It can work for plants that like to dry out between watering, but the falling over is annoying.

I don't have to deal with cold temperatures so I can start my seedlings in direct sun on an open bench. It avoids the problem of over heating, poor air circulation and I don't have to harden them off. But it does not solve the problem of starting more than I can handle and not potting them up soon enough.

[imafan26]

Plastic also raises the humidity, and if it is not opened in the day can promote fungal disease because of lack of air circulation and the trapped steamy air.

I don't know about the florescent, but it depends on how close you place the light and how hot is is under the lights. Flourescent generate less heat than incandescent or halogen lights. The LED grow lights give off even less heat. If the lights are left on and the greenhouse is 90-100 degress, it could be even warmer under the lights.

[applestar]

I think the key here is they were started in the basement under lights and you put them out in the greenhouse.

Even in greenhouse, the sunlight is way more bright than they are used to. They needed to be acclimated by keeping under a light fabric shade or by gradually pulling them under solid shade after a short period in full light.

Also, the jump from the mild temp to the intense heat of the day may have been too much and if they were left overnight, the night time temp may have dropped way below tolerance — did you have the freezing temps on 4/9 and 4/10 we had here?

Mine is just a hoophouse — not well-regulated and no heating — and temp started reaching over 100 until I adjusted the venting … but was also affected by the freezing temps. I was waiting for those freezes to be over and am just now thinking of moving my seedlings out there

…t8 and t5 fluorescents are too hot if the seedlings touch. Solanacea like tomatoes have tendency to point true leaves up during the night so that when the lights are turned on in the morning, they can get scorched if you are not micro-managing the height of the light.