Help! Tomatoes have rot or something

[baltjoe]

Hello there,

Every tomato thatI have grown this summer has had rot or something on the bottom. They look fine from the top and when i pick them I flip it over and in the center of the bottom there is a huge black spot that goes through the entire tomato.

Is this a bug?

Is it Blossom End Rot that I read about in Jerry Baker's book?

Joe Z.

[Newt]

Hi Joe,
Sure sounds like blossom end rot. Take a look here to see if you can determine for sure.

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/toma ... index.html
http://pubs.caes.uga.edu/caespubs/horti ... m-rot.html

Hope this helps,
Newt

[The Helpful Gardener]

I'm with Newt on this one...

[eddysmit]

hi there I'm not sure how this works, anyway here it goes I have a problem with growing my tomatoe I have kind of seeds which i brought with me from Italy to here in the philippines. The plants grow very well, but when they flower it still ok but after the blossom they all fall off untill now i have one tomatoe on each plant and thats all the tomatoe seeds i have are the following the Roman tomatoe, the cherry tomatoe and cuore di buia that translated its the heart of the bull, this tomatoe really only grows in the Sorrento area or Capri, could it be because of the tropical heat here which is also very humid? and never below 25centigrade? yours gratefully Eddy smit.





Every tomato thatI have grown this summer has had rot or something on the bottom. They look fine from the top and when i pick them I flip it over and in the center of the bottom there is a huge black spot that goes through the entire tomato.

Is this a bug?

Is it Blossom End Rot that I read about in Jerry Baker's book?

Joe Z.[/quote]

[Newt]

Hi Eddysmith,

I don't have your answer, though I suspect it has something to do with temperatures and water. Maybe Scott will know.

Scott,
Eddy has also posted this here with more descriptive info. You may want to take a look. I'm leaving for a trip shortly and won't return until Saturday. Hope you can help.

http://helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewt ... light=#889

Newt

[Bob]

Blossom end rot can usually be cured by making sure that your soil Ph level is up to snuff. If your getting blossom end rot, try mixing some lime into your soil preferably in the fall of the year to allow it time to raise your soil’s Ph level, around 6 or 7 is best for most vegetables, but testing your soil for Ph isn’t always necessary. If you have blossom end rot, the odds are very good that your Ph is low.

Also, you can buy a Ph tester fairly cheaply from most any garden supply, if you would like to know exactly what your soil’s Ph is.

[grandpasrose]

Thanks for the info Bob! Adding lime to the soil also increases the amount of calcium in the soil, which is also responsible for blossom end rot. So it's doing double duty!

Val

[opabinia51]

You can get a Cacium spray from local nurseries and spray your tomatoes before the rot appears. This will prevent the rot.


I made a mistake when posting this yesterday. I had put a MAGNESIUM spray but, it's not magnesium it is Calcium.

Sorry for any confusion (come to think of it, someone has probably already corrected me below)

[The Helpful Gardener]

It does sound like blossom end rot and the info here is all good; I kept the rot off mine (in a very wet spring) with milk, believe it or not. A cup in a gallon of water or so, spray it right on. Works on a lot of low level fungii; pro vintners are using it on grapes now too...

Newt, I'm typing this from the Lord Baltimore as we speak! And you are traveling! Figures...

Scott

[Bob]

I would have to think that the milk adds calcium to the plant directly rather than lime through the root system. I suppose either would work to prevent blossom end rot. At any rate, Ph level seems to be key to preventing such rot.

[grandpasrose]

It's all tied in together Bob, PH and nutrients that's why it can be hard to figure out sometimes. You have to have them all right for it to work right!

Val

[The Helpful Gardener]

Actually Bob, the agent at work here is a very common bacteria, the one that sours milk (founds in huge quantities in our mouths, incidentally ). It's called antagonistic bacterial counter-culture, and it pits one germ against another, one quite harmless and one we can do without. I suspect the calcium addition might help some, but that kind of nutrition is usually at root level...

Nature looks after it's own, especially if we find ways to look after it. You could go after it with a fungicide, but then the soil funghii get damaged so they don't help the roots, so it gets weaker and a bug comes, so you spray , which hurts the plant...and so on and so on. The milk simply encourages a natural process that for once, works for you> Remember that the next time somebody holds out the carton and says "Smell this..."

Scott

[Bob]

I’ve been told that a mixture of cyan or other hot pepper powder and water makes a good insecticide spray for all vegetable plants, has anybody tried that?

I’ve given it some thought about trying it, but never have.

I notice that there’s few insects that mess with my cherry bomb hot pepper plants every year, seems logical to me.

[Bob]

By the way,

I have a very good farmer friend that has cherry orchards. He has many tricks for keeping birds out of his cherry trees, but he told me that the best thing he’s found was a “garlic spray.â€

[Grey]

I've heard from various sources that garlic spray helps keep the bugs at bay. Somewhere around here I even have a semi-organic "pesticide" recipe that calls for garlic (along with Borax).