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Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Leaf Issue

Don't toss them! I never toss a tomato plant until I am 100% certain it is sick with a contagious disease for which there is no cure. There is no reason to discard a plant just because it has a problem. We, um, don't 'toss' people when they become ill, do we?

If your tomatoes resemble the ones in the linked thread, all that is wrong with them is environmental stress. Environmental stress has oodles of causes, and here in OK it is most common when we are swinging from hot temps to cold temps and back again, especially with high winds or when we are having lots of cool, cloudy, windy rainy days followed by hot, dry sunny days.

If your plants are just kind of lazing around, enjoying beautiful cloudy, rainy weather, chilling and having a nice time, and then the skies clear and all of a sudden they are a lot warmer and in very intense sunlight, they get stressed. It is sort of similar to the way we humans might have a beautiful morning working outside in cloudy, cool, misty, foggy weather and then the skies clear and all of a sudden we're roasting hot and make a beeline inside to cool off. Well, the plants cannot come in and cool off or get out of the intense sunlight, so you see the stress in the foliage.

Often this sort of stress shows up when we are hardening off plants in high winds and dry weather. Or, it can show up when your soil is very waterlogged, though that is less common. Usually, with heavy waterlogging after heavy rainfall periods, you see something more like yellowing or purpling foliage because the roots are so clogged with water that they cannot absorb nutrients.

I suspect in the case of your specific plants, there's been a lot of cloudy overcast days there in central OK and perhaps a lot of wind, and on the windy or sunny days, the plants can't cope because the cloudy, rainy days have kind of spoiled them.

Just treat them the same way you always treat them and they will recover and begin putting out new foliage. After they get significant new foliage, you can remove the old damaged foliage, but don't remove it until then. Even though it is damaged, it still can function and conduct photosynthesis which will help the plant put out new growth and heal.

Environmental stress is common here. Some years I don't see it at all, and other years I see it a lot. I just ignore it since I cannot control the plants' environment.

Hope this helps,

Dawn

Susan, I have some problems with mine also, but all dont have the same amount of damage. Mine look more like early blight. I cut the damage off and will spray with fungicide if the weather ever stabilizes. I hope to keep them going long enough to get a harvest.

Larry.

Larry,

With all the rain you've had, at this point I'd be surprised if you were seeing Early Blight.

Yesterday I had a blackened area on a potato plant and had a 15-second freak-out moment of 'Uh oh, is that Late Blight', But, then I looked at it more closely and could tell it was only black mold. What a relief!

Dawn

Dawn, I am not sure what I have, but I was seeing too much yellow even before I put my plants in the ground. The stayed potted up way too long and were too crowded. The plants that started later (3-25) are much nicer plants.

Larry

It could be early blight, Larry, and if it is you have not only yellow leaves but concentric brown to brownish-black spots on them. If you have some yellowing and small brown to black spots or dots, it could be bacterial speck or bacterial spot. One difference between those two is the size of the specks or spots.

If you merely have leaves that are yellowing, there are lots of reasons why that could happen. Yellow leaves are merely a sign of stress. There are many causes of stress.

The plants could be rootbound. They could be hungry. It could be salt damage (though in this instance I doubt it.) They could be drying too out too much in between watering because they are rootbound.

If it isn't Early Blight, it could be Powdery Mildew, which on tomatoes is not powdery in the early stages---merely yellow. It is pretty common during May or June when they are wet, and often the plants stay yellow a long time before they start looking powdery. There are other diseases for which yellowing is an early symptom. Since your plants aren't in the ground yet, I'd lean towards it being something physiological and getting them planted might solve it.

I'll link the TAMU Tomato Problem Solver. Maybe by looking at it you can decide what your yellowing foliage represents.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: TAMU Tomato Problem Solver