Tomato virus?
I'm new to gardening and my first year I lost most of my tomatoes to blight. This year we have replaced all of the dirt down 12" and added mushroom compost on top of that. My tomato plants are now showing signs of an issue but I'm not sure what the problem is. The leaves are curling. Some of them are curling on the lower branches and others are curling from the top down. Suggestions?
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Soil borne pathogens abound in most gardens. To keep them at bay there are cultural practices you can employ, the most important is a mulching program. Mulch serves several functions like keeping the soil cooler, as a weed barrier and as blocking the route most pathogens take to infect plants. As water, either from rainfall or from a hose or sprinkler hits the ground the soil and water will splash up onto the leaves. This is the main route for those pathogens to infect your tomatoes. There are loads of mulching programs to create this barrier. For my garden I put down several layers of newspaper and top it off with 6-8 inches of weed free straw. Bare soil under tomato plants is an invitation to disease. Your leaf curl can be reduced with mulch since the soil temp is lower and puts less stress on the plant.
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rainbowgardener
- Super Green Thumb
- Posts: 25279
- Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:04 pm
- Location: TN/GA 7b
You didn't say where you are or what your weather has been like.
There's a thing called "physiological leaf roll," that occurs in hot dry weather. The leaves get drier, more leathery and curl in. It helps the plant conserve moisture and not lose so much by transpiration from the leaves. Deep, even watering on a regular basis should take care of this, since it is not a disease, but a response to environmental conditions.
The top left and bottom right pictures particularly look like that. The top right picture also looks like it, but that plant may also have something else going on. It is kind of spindly, with not enough leaves and a lot of bare stem between leaf nodes. Is it more shaded? The bottom left picture definitely looks like something else going on. The leaves are so dark and look puckered. Could some kind of herbicide (weed killer) have drifted on to those leaves? Otherwise it might possibly be getting diseased.
There's a thing called "physiological leaf roll," that occurs in hot dry weather. The leaves get drier, more leathery and curl in. It helps the plant conserve moisture and not lose so much by transpiration from the leaves. Deep, even watering on a regular basis should take care of this, since it is not a disease, but a response to environmental conditions.
The top left and bottom right pictures particularly look like that. The top right picture also looks like it, but that plant may also have something else going on. It is kind of spindly, with not enough leaves and a lot of bare stem between leaf nodes. Is it more shaded? The bottom left picture definitely looks like something else going on. The leaves are so dark and look puckered. Could some kind of herbicide (weed killer) have drifted on to those leaves? Otherwise it might possibly be getting diseased.