Strange tomato thing.

[brownfingers]

One of my outdoor toms (tigrella) has suddenly taken a turn for the worse. It looked like blight, but some things didn't ring true. The fruit was badly marked with brownish erruptions, but not really going manky. More fruit were affected each day. I removed each one as they became affected. However, the foliage remained totally unaffected. To be on the safe side, I've disposed of the entire plant with extreme predudice. So what could it be? The plant was the first in a row running down between the greenhouse and a panelled fence. At times it can create a bit of a wind tunnel down there. Could it have been wind burn as this plant would have copped for the worst of it?

[WendyC]

Given the weather and time of year, I'd put my money on blight.


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[Thelma Sanders]

so would I!

[solanaceae]

Today I too found some of my tomatoes that looked like they had gone off somehow, and it didn't resemble blight to me at all.

On some plants I have found that the trusses have turned a light brown/woody colour, but the fruit always seems to be unaffected. Like this.






Then today I found one plant had some the same symptoms except the toms were affected too this time.



Is this what you found with yours, Brownfingers? I know you said your foilage was unaffected, does that include your truss stem too? If you think yours look the same as mine then I think you can be quite confident it isn't blight. I know all too well what blight looks like and this isn't it. Looks like the plant material that has died through lack of nutrients being sent there, but why should the toms begin to die too?

[teakdesk]

I have the same stem damage on one of my truss stems today.

However, I think it is blight. It is not classic late blight and I almost think it is akin to early blight.

Your fruit look like blight to me.


I think blight has been hitting mine in very small patches this year - at the allotment mine had localised leaves affected for a week before stems started and it took a further week before the fruit were affected. In previous years blight has been a total devastation within two days of infection.


But I could be wrong about yours!

[Charon]

It could be nutrient deficiency, probably potassium or calcium (google image it)

[solanaceae]

Now you come to mention it, you could be onto something there.

I remember seeing a graph on another site some time ago, which showed all the different strains of blight in the UK and which ones were most dominant/least dominant for each year. Each strain seemed to go through a period of dominance then another would take over after a few years. After the really weird weather we've had the past year (lots of rain/storms and lack of cold nights) I wonder if that could have dramatically influenced the blight strains and which one is the dominant one this year.

I too have experienced blight like you have this year. In patches, localised (Mind you I have been keeping it to a minimum and removing infected material asap to prevent spread, which I didn't do before), and it turned up in dry weather (no smith periods). Very unlike previous years. Perhaps this is a previously uncommon strain of blight then.


update: looked around on the net and it appears that what my toms have (pictured) is botrytis, as well as blight on some others in the garden.

[Martin H]

The blight that hit my outdoor tomatoes earlier this month was the same as this. Localised patches of it on stems leaves and fruits, with many parts of the plant unaffected.

I chopped them all down.

The fruit have mostly stayed unaffected where they are set out to ripen on my windowsill, so obviously the blight hadn't spread to them invisibly.

I'm guessing that it's probably a normal strain, it just hasn't found the conditions right to spread the way it usually does.

[brownfingers]

The other plants in close proximity show no signs at all as of yet. I've never had blight before, but I understand it usually spreads like wildfire.

[Thelma Sanders]

Different strains at different rates, and only if the conditions are right, warm and damp.