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Camille

Jan 15, 2010, 4:14 PM

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Seeking a tomato guru

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I'm trying to grow heirloom tomatoes for the second year and again am experiencing a mysterious disease. The plants seem to be doing fine, setting beautiful big fruit, then the foliage begins to curl, turn brown, and then I'm picking all the green tomatoes and pulling up the plants. I've used soapy water, ProTek, a citrus extract that repels insects, and diatomaceous earth applied while the foliage is wet. Nothing seems to stop the progress of this nightmare.... anyone got any advice?

wendy devlin

Jan 30, 2010, 12:45 PM

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Re: [Camille] Seeking a tomato guru

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Camille,

I grow a lot of tomatoes especially heirloom varieties and am familiar with a number of diseases.

However it's difficult to suggest a diagnosis from your description. Could be viral.

If you go Google images and type in a brief description of what the tomato plant's leaves looked like when the plant began to fail, you might see signs that you recognize.

Alternately look at photos of tomato diseases on a comprehensive tomato web-site.

Chances are you'll recognize plants suffering from the disease that killed your plants.

In my experience, heirloom tomatoes are fantastic eating, a world of subtle tastes but many of them have little resistance to many of the common tomato diseases. Many of the modern tomatoes especially the hybrids have been specifically bred to increase disease resistance to verticillum wilt, fusarium, Grey leaf spot etc.

Warm and humid conditions are often just perfect for activating bacteria and viruses.

skier14

May 3, 2010, 12:35 PM

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Re: [wendy devlin] Seeking a tomato guru

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Pull up the plants and check the roots for nematode; round knobules on the roots. If this is the problem you need to change the plant location or fumigate the soil. If in planters you need to discard the soil, disinfect the planter or canasta and use new soil, probably planting soil sold by the plastic bag at garden supply places. Do not use the cloth bag soil found at the nurseries as they will probably be contaminated.