Here is another picture of the weird fruit

Here is the one i picked early in the week and sat in the window sill.

Now on to the foliage

another plant view

the very top of the plant, it shows how small the leaves are.

Here shows that it is still trying to produce some fruit.

Last, here is a good shot of the leaves to show what 99.9% of the foliage looks like.

I do want to correct myself in my first post, at the bottom of the plant, I have just a couple of leaves that are yellowing, but to me they just look like old leaves.

I can take a picture of that if it would help anyone.

I want to add that I have seen NO stinkbugs at all this year (that was something Dawn mentioned could be an issue).

Any help would be appreciated, if this is a virus, I do not want it spreading to any of my other plants.

Those beefsteaks that I was having problems with, well one of them has abotu 10 GIANT fruit on it right now and is close to six feet tall. The other plant is Huge, however, still having blossom drop and absolutely no fruit. Im hoping to get some really whopper sized fruit from the one that is producing!!

Thanks

Emma

Selfishly bumping this to the top........

hey, at least im honest.....

Also, if someone can tell me why my pictures always show up sideways????

Em, I don't see any spots on the foliage, but it seems abnormally dark to me. When you look at it with the naked eye, is the foliage a very dark green or even kinda a little purplish or is that just the way it is photographing? Sometimes colors don't come through accurately on a computer monitor.

I want to wait for Jay to see this to see what he thinks of the odd patterns on your fruit. He has such in-depth experience with Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus, and my hands-on experience with it is much more limited.

I don't think I see enough of anything to convince me it is spotted wilt, but then if Jay says he thinks it is spotted wilt, I defer to his judgment.

What I think might be going on is that your fruit either have gold fleck or pox or something (all of which I think are harmless) that is causing them to ripen unevenly. In a way, it doesn't make sense because we just had a great cool spell and the fruit shouldn't be coloring up unevenly, but perhaps the spell was too brief and the heat before and after the spell has had more of an influence on the fruit than the cool spell did. When I see uneven and blotchy color on fruits, it more often is related to the heat, to stinkbugs or is a genetic disorder like gold fleck or pox.

When the weather gets intensely hot here in the summertime, it often makes the fruit ripen unevenly and in a patchy manner. Some years I see a lot of that, some years I don't see much of it. This year, I haven't seen much of it, but our hottest weather hasn't been all that hot compared to 2011 and 2012's heat. If you harvest your fruit at the breaker stage and bring them inside to ripen, you often can bypass the splotchy ripening.

Normally when you have fruit with spotted wilt symptoms, it isn't just the spotting. The spotted and mottled areas can become raised up and lumpy and bumpy, kind of like you'd see hives or a rash on human skin. If the tomato's skin color is uneven but there's no lumpiness or bumpiness, it makes me think your plants might not have spotted wilt.

Let's see what Jay says, as well as what other folks think might be happening.

As for the beefsteak that is huge and not producing, it may be a big fall producer for you. Or, it may have an issue going on that we just can't figure out. Usually if a plant has plentiful fertilizer and water and isn't setting fruit, it is heat-related. I assume that it flowers and the blooms then drop? That is where the heat is messing it up. If it isn't even flowering at all, I'd make sure it gets no more fertilizer and I'd let it have only minimal water. Here's why: tomato plants make fruit for one reason only and that is to set seeds to ensure their species is perpetuated. They do this better when the conditions are a little bit challenging and they have to struggle a bit. If they have plentiful moisture and lots of good fertilizer, they can be lazy and just not get around to setting seed. I rarely have a tomato plant that won't flower and set fruit when others around it are doing so, but when I do, I try to mistreat it and ignore it to see if that will force it into blooming and forming fruit. With the heat we have now, you just may have to wait for fall to get fruitset on it.

Do you know what size pots those are that you have the tomato plants in? They seem a bit on the small size to me. When plants are in a pot that is too small for them, you still can get them to grow and produce, but they won't grow and produce as well as those same varieties would do if they were grown in the ground, or in pots about twice the size of what they're in now. The smaller the pot, the more they struggle and the lower the harvest.

I'm going to link a photo that shows one way that gold fleck shows up on fruit. It can look a lot like this, or it can look different from it. I just ignore stuff like gold fleck because it doesn't harm the flavor of the fruit. If you were seeing stink bugs, a lot of damage from them can seriously affect the fruit because wherever they insert their mouthpart into the fruit, the fruit can become not only discolored but sort of sour or off-flavor in that area and sometimes the fruit is discolored even beneath the skin, right in the tissue in that area. Tomato damage from stinkbugs is often called cloudy spot and you could Google with the terms "tomato stink bug cloudy spot" to see images of fruit damaged by stink bugs in that way. If you have a spot or two from a stinkbug it isn't a big deal, but when stink bug levels are very high (and the further south you go in the continental USA, the worse the stink bugs are), they can totally ruin the fruit and render it almost inedible.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Photo of Tomatoes With Gold Fleck

Dawn,

It is possible that its the way they are photographing, however i just went and picked a leaf and then one from my husky which is really dark green and the questionable plant is even darker. It seems only the new leaves on top are that dark of a color, i guess you could call it a purplish, more of a deep eggplant purple, but just barely.

Ive had a few of the gold fleck tomatos but this is totally different. I did the google search you suggested and some of the images that come up sure look a lot like the tomatos that i just pulled from that plant. But i really habent seen any stink bugs, unless they are hard to find, or hiding, because i look every day on all plants for any worms.

I think the pot i have the questionable tomato in is a 24 gallon. I do know i used an entire 2 1/2 cubic foot bag of potting mix to fill it. The other two containers are 22 or 23 gallon, i cant remember. I have several inches of those two light colored ones buried in mulch. So, i net that the questionable plant is in too small pf a container, but i think the other two are doing fine because they are dwarf varieties. I will for sure plant the husky red again next year as it has been a very prolific producer. The flavor is not fantastic, but it is acidic and gives me a few a day so im happy with that. Sure beats store bought..

The giant beefsteak that isnt producing, it is right next to the one that finally is producing fruit. It blooms, then all the blossoms drop, it now has very bad leaf roll just like the first one did, which now has very little!

I tell ya, i never knew growing tomatos was such a science!

Anxiously awaiting to hear from Jay, and im going to pick a few at the breaker stage and see what they do.

Thanks again Dawn for all the god info you gave. I try to retain as much as possible. I dont know how you remember it all.

Emma

Em, You're welcome, but I don't think I've helped much except that I've said "wait for Jay to tell you what it is". lol I feel certain he will be able to tell you if it resembles TSWV in any stage or any degree of seriousness because of his prior experience with it.

The pots sound big enough. I think my perception of them is skewed by their lovely shape because I am so used to looking at big round molasses feed tubs that look a lot bigger, though I don't necessarily think they hold a lot more soil than your pots---it is just their shape I guess.

Stink bugs are sneaky and do not particularly like to be seen. When you have a lot of foliage, they'll run and hide in it when a person is near a plant. They totally freak out and flee if they see a hand reaching into a plant to pick a fruit they're sitting on. The time of day they seem most active in my garden is in the hot afternoon when I normally am not out there. If I go out in the middle of the day to pick tomatoes (that sounds stupid, but if I am in the middle of making salsa and need another 2 or 3 tomatoes or 2 or 3 lbs. of tomatos to finish, I run right out and pick some despite the heat and humidity), I'll find stink bugs everywhere. I'm in the country where I have stink bugs in almost as huge of a population as George has grasshoppers this year, and every year here is a big stink bug year. I hate them.

I grew Husky Red, Husky Gold, Husky Pink, Husky Red Cherry and another cherry, though I don't remember if it was a pink or a gold, about 6 or 8 years ago. They produced very well, but I just didn't care for their tough skin or their flavor. The whole line resists disease and pests really well. Now, if only they could breed them with thinner skins and better flavor. Still, a plant that produces in this weather is better than one that doesn't.

And, I meant to mention that for some reason (I think it is genetic) Super Fantastic has always had some sort of ripening issues in my garden when I've grown it, whether it is graywall or blotchy ripening, stink bugs or gold fleck and pox. It's always something, so that's why I think maybe it is predisposed to have issues. Maybe it lacks the even ripening gene (which is a real gene, not one I'm making up to be funny). The last couple of years that I've grown Fantastic instead of Super Fantastic, it hasn't had such blotches or flecks, but since I wasn't growing the two side by side in the same year, we can't really know if the difference was each year's pests or weather or what.

The performance of tomatoes can vary a lot from year to year, and it can be hard to figure out why, but more often than not, I think a given variety either does well in our weather or it doesn't. Brandywine is a really good example of that. It produces like mad in milder climates than ours. Here in our heat, it doesn't do much about 9 years out of 10. I had a really good year with it in 2002 and 2004, which was very rainy, pleasant and mild compared to most summers here, but not since then. Most beefsteak types and many large slicers only produce well for me in spring. If I can plant them early enough to get them to flower and set fruit before it gets hot, they produce insane loads of fruit. I had that sort of year last year. This year? The same varieties were planted a lot later and set significantly smaller numbers of fruit and the fruit themselves were mostly much smaller than last year's. There isn't anything we can do about the way our weather affects various tomato varieties, except to grow a wide selection of plants so that in any given year, some of them will produce great.

There is a great deal of science involved in growing tomatoes well. Sometimes I think it was easier when I knew nothing and all I did was buy plants and stick them in the ground, water them and harvest the fruit. The less you know, the less there is to worry about! However, back then, when something went wrong I had no idea what it was or what to do about it, and I didn't much care because I worked full-time and had a small child who demanded a lot of attention, so my tomato plants got minimal attention. If they produced, they produced, and if they didn't, my dad grew more than enough tomatoes to share with us....so we didn't go without.

Many years I feel like the tomatoes are the garden teenagers. They listen to us (their parents, lol) and then they just go ahead and do whatever they please no matter what it is we want them to do, and the more we try to make them do what we want, the more they ignore us and do as they please. Ignore them for a while, though, and sometimes you'll find they knock themselves out, behaving better and producing fruit to get your attention.

Dawn

Emma even before I read Dawn's post I had doubts if your issues were TSWV. I will list a few reasons. Last year and again this year I've had some of the same looking fruit that you have picked. I still haven't figured out what causes it. Most of the time fruit picked from a plant with a disease whether TSWV, the Psyllid Yellows or a few others where they ripen with the mottled look don't ripen to red when picked and left to ripen. And most of the times if you cut the fruit open it will have some off color many times a whitish tissue in spots. And when tasted will not taste good. I had 2-3 plants last year that had fruit ripen like yours. Two of the plants produced all season and many of the fruit on the plants never exhibited the coloring issue. I did lose one but felt it was to the disease issue I never got a diagnoses on that many others had also. I did pull one plant and sent it in when I sent those with the other problem to K-State to verify it didn't have TSWV. They said it didn't. They felt all of my issues were environmental. I don't feel the one issue was but beginning to think the mottled coloring might be. Sunday I picked the first mottled one. It was smooth. Then another Tuesday. It was rough and more blotchy which concerned me some but the plant looks fine and shows no signs of any issue. Then I picked a normal one from the same plant yesterday I believe. I will continue to watch it. Last year like I stated the two that survived produced all normal colored fruit later in the season. Much like a person will see with BER. The coloring does seem a bit odd. With the recent cool spell and the one morning around 52 I've had some plants show some purple coloring especially on the new leaves opening but it doesn't concern me. It is nothing more than an issue with the plant not taking up the needed nutrients like you will see in the spring on plants. I looked at a plant yesterday and the only issue were the purple tint even on a few veins. Again I will watch it but not concerned at this point. Now to what I watch of with TSWV and the other insect born diseases. I look for the veins turning purple. Many times the over all color will take on a lighter color many times with a yellowish tint. The plants with usually quit setting fruit and the blooms will turn yellow and die before opening. The fruit if it ripens will become mottled, rough and many times slightly shrivel. And it usually will ripen mottled and like mentioned above if tasted have an unpleasant taste. The plants will become stunted. I pulled one last week. Many of the plants I planted in early June that I started have been on a growth spurt. This plant was as big as it's neighbors one week and a 1/3 smaller the next. That along with the new growth being off colored, the veins on some leaves were purple and the plant color overall diminished convinced me it was diseased and probably TSWV. The other reason I leaned that way was a week earlier I yanked a plant in the same area that for sure was TSWV. The problem with diagnosing plant issues during this weather is most of the time you have multiple issues going on. The temperature along with the winds we've had at times the last few years create extreme stress. A healthy unstressed plant many times will fight off a disease. Then when stressed and it's system is weakened it will sucumb to it. When I yanked the one earlier this week the Black from Tula plant on one side of it was showing stress issues. The leaves were curled bad. But due to the leaf color, the fact it was producing new green leaves and stems and viable blooms I decided that at this time stress was it's only issue. The cooler days helped it. Sure the heat over the next few will slow down the improvement. Stress can have effects in many ways. I planted a grafted Mortgage Lifter plant in early June I bought at a local greenhouse. It was very gangly and one stem was broke off. It had a few blooms when I bought it but no fruit. Within 10-12 days 6 fruit had set on the blooms that were present when I bought plus one truss that opened after I transplanted it. The first three started blushing this week and I picked them to relieve the load on the plant as it has set more fruit. All 3 were in the 2 oz range. Not near what the fruit size should be. Color ect are all correct. The plant has started doing well. I feel the later fruit will have a chance of being much larger. In fact none of the fruit I've picked so far from any variety has been average size for the variety they are. Again I feel that the size will improve greatly later on. I haven't had a lot of fruit set yet but hope too over the next 3-4 weeks. I picked my first Sungold yesterday. It was on a plant planted in mid June. The Sungold I planted in mid May still hasn't produced one. The Sweet Treats is loading up now. It has always been a reliable producer here. Early Girl for once was the first one this year. It has kept kicking out a few. It beat 4th of July planted at the same time.
Back to your plants. Personally I wouldn't yank it. I would taste the fruit. At the worst it will taste bad and you will spit it out. I ate my mottled, rough fruit tonight( although after ripening it was basically smooth and red color throughtout the inside) and it had the best flavor of any I've ate so far this year. So I expect yours too taste ok. If it develops further symptoms then you can. I had the same impression of your container size that Dawn did. The size should be enough. I changed my containers to a new mix this year. The same mix I put in my raised beds. I thought they were wet enough. I set a few contaoners out in the open with full sun and more wind exposure. I figured out that due to the heat of the containers that they needed more frequent watering. I also moved them closer to some shade and put mulch up around the containers and now they are taking off. Gardening is a gamble every year. If the current predicted temps hold then I would of been better off starting more plants earlier. But at planting time I expected the drought to continue along with the heat & wind of the previous two summers. And in June it did especially the first 20 days of June. Since then temps have moderated with only a few 100 plus days. There is the possibility of 1-2 this next week but over all unless they make some extreme changes in forecasts the next 14 days don't show many 100 plus days. And the winds have moderated some also. The next 5-6 weeks will determine my season. Now all I can do is set, wait and watch them and see what happens. Jay

Jay, very informative post. Thank you. I do have to water my containers every except for when we had that cold snap. Now the big dark one i have to water every day regardless because it is just sitting on the dirt and the dark color makes it dry out faster.

I understand what you mean about the look of my container size. They do look much smaller in the pictures.

Thanks for all the great info. Im going to go along with it being stress due to the weird weather and also because of the color of the pot, i sometimes wonder if on bery hot days the roots dont cook a little bit.... I wont be using that pot again for outdoor planting.

As soon as my supper settles a bit more, im going to go slice that tomato that turned all red in the window during the course of the week. I will report back with a picture and let you guys know if i spit it out or ate it.

Glad to know i dont need to pull the plant. I will keep an eye put for the things you mentioned, purple in the veins, etc. Now, im going to go give my last non producing plant an i dont care if you make me a tomato or not speech and see if Dawns theory will work. As it stands now, it looks like im going to habe fall tomatos from some of the plants i planted this spring.

Thanks again

Emma

Jay,

I felt like it wasn't TSWV but it has been so long since I've seen it on a live plant, as opposed to a photo, that I was worried I might be missing something. Thanks for making me feel like maybe I know a little something about tomatoes after all. :)

Know what puzzles me? Emma's tomatoes and their pattern of color or maybe I should say their pattern of discoloration remind me a lot of R. Storch's photos of his or her tomatoes last year that we also were looking at, trying to determine if it too was TSWV. That makes me think we either have a physiological issue going on that presents in a fairly typical way with similar patterns of discoloration or something....because the photos are too similar to not be the same thing. I am wondering it if really is only physiological or if it is just a minor genetic thing that might occur regardless of the growing conditions.

I do remember lots of folks on the Tomato Forum have posted similar photos in at least 2011 and 2012, and in almost every case, it was decided that it was not TSWV.

It sounds like your challenges continue there but that, as always, you'll still manage to harvest lots of yummy tomatoes.

Emma, Most of my molasses feed tub containers hold about the same amount of soil as your containers, but they are black and I think that contributes to the soil drying out really quickly. I often water them twice a day and if the temperatures are over 105, I may water them in the morning, at mid-day, and in the evening. I also usually move them to a location where they get shade after about 1 or 2 p.m. once the heat really cranks up. Otherwise, the roots just roast.

Most of my spring-planted tomato plants are in great shape and likely will produce into fall too, but I've begun yanking out the paste varieties because I've made about all the salsa I am going to make, and I want to use their area for fall beans. The weather this year has been kinder to the plants than the weather the last two years. My hardest month, though, is always mid-July through mid-August, which is when the pest population peaks at the same time the heat is peaking. Often a plant that looks pretty good in early July won't look nearly as good by early August, so I went ahead and planted a few fresh plants for fall.

It rained here this afternoon, but the rain itself was fairly piddly and didn't amount to much. The important thing was that it dropped the temperature 10 or 12 degrees so we cooled off early. What a wonderful surprise! After two brutal summers, this one is such an improvement. We've still had some really hot days, but not as bad as the last two years.

Be sure to come back and let us know if the tomato is a spitter.

Dawn

Well, there was no way i could eat another bite last night, so i just ate that tomato that was blotchy but turned all red in the window.

I hate to sound like a parrot, but like Jay said, that was definitely the best tomato ive eaten all year. How strange. It was a bit sweet, a bit acidic, flavorful, but the weirdest part is, i swear it was a bit salty. Thats the first time ive never salted a tomato. Can a tomato be a bit salty?

Im eagerly awaiting the other 2 to turn red now. I will report back on them.

Next question, i picked 5 or 6 tomatos off the husky red this morning with BER. Is this usually inconsistent watering, because i have been inconsistant with it. I was watering every day but we got rain 2 days in row so i didnt water it. or is it a disease? I also picked 3 good healthy ones today from the same plant. The ones with BER were varying sizes, from baby to almost breaker.

Any thoughts?