Should I be worried about my Toms?

[Bigmallly]

After looking @ Ollies' Wikigardener it resembles blossom end rot. Please confirm & advise what to do.......Thanks

Edit: Sorry, please feel free to move to the disease section.

[Tomatoking]

Hi BM
Yes It is Blossem end rot.

This link might help.

Blossom-end Rot-Ontario CropIPM

[northepaul]

I keep getting this on my roma toms but not any of the others....?!

[Wiggly Digger]

Hi there,
I have just joined the forum but have been lurking on here for quite a while, checking out your advice to some of the problems iv had.

I had blossom end rot on my Gardener's Delight last year, looked it up online and found that you could give them milk to combat the calcium deficiency- makes sense i guess, but tried it and it worked really well, they soon recovered!

[Tomatoking]

It does mainly show in container grown plants, or peat bags. Which is why you must get the watering right. Even if the soil looks moist on top, the whole container might not be.
We have had a lot of hot weather, and you will be surprised how much water plants really need at these times.
When I worked growing thousands of plants in peat bags with drip irrigation, the plants that usually got it, were the ones that the drip feed was slow or blocked.

Find solutions to sort out the plants, but sometimes it is just getting the basics right.

It is a real pain when you have waited so long to get fruit ripe.

[OllieMartin]

After looking @ Ollies' Wikigardener it resembles blossom end rot. Please confirm & advise what to do.......Thanks

That made me so happy, thank you

[SarzWix]

As TK says, the main cause of blossom end rot is inconsistent watering. It is due to a lack of calcium which is needed for cell building in the fruits, but as it is drawn into the plants in the water, then a lack of water is the first thing to consider.

It may be that the container the plants are growing in can't physically hold enough moisture for the plant to draw on for the length of time between waterings, so then you have to consider some kind of drip or slow release system. A plastic bottle with the bottom cut off and a hole in the lid, inserted into the compost next to the plant is a fairly low-tech solution if the plants are too big to be repotted. I tend to plant my toms into fairly big patio type containers (15-20 litres) these days, very rarely need to water more than once a day and haven't had blossom-end rot for over 2 years.

[Bigmallly]

Thank you for the replies, I was wondering if it was due to overwatering as I have a drip system set up plus the flower buckets are sat in trays of water. The only downside is that I did put polystyrene in the bottom of the pots so therefore maybe the plants were not able to absorb from the bottom. I will increase the drip feed. Thanks again.