New leaves yellow

20 years ago

A disease of some sort has struck my tomato garden. The first symptom is a yellowing of the newest leaves, moving from the stem to the tip until the leaf is a lemon yellow color, veins and all. There is no curling, spotting, or drying. Lower leaves look fine.

The second symptom is a complete collapse (wilting) of the plant. From the first notice of a lightening of new leaf color to the plant's death is 24-48 hours (I'm not exacatly sure when I first noticed a lighter green on the newest leaves, but within that period).

All three of the plants affected were Early Cascade. The other plants--eleven other varieties--look okay so far. All plants receive the same fertilizer and are on the same watering schedule. However, two nearby pepper plants (Carmen) were wilted even though they had adequate water. They were not yellowed. All sick plants were removed. The roots looked okay outside of damage from being pulled up.

None of the disease pictures I've found match what I saw on the plants. It looks more like a nutrient deficiency, but that makes no sense, and the time frame is wrong for that(for most disease, as well).

Any ideas?

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Comments (3)

woop
Original Author
20 years ago
Forgot to mention that the plants in question were about 12-14" high, no opened blossoms.
carolyn137
20 years ago
Where do you garden?

Unless the geographic location is mentioned it's impossible to make some comments b'c diseases can be so regionalized.

Right now I don't know if the wilting is meaningful in terms of a systemic disease, or just due to normal transpiration during the day.

Early Cascade is the variety that's used as the gold standard for susceptibility to Early Blight (A.solani), but you haven't indicated any foliage symptoms of that disease.''So what I'm hearing is yellow leaves at this point.

And there are many reasons for yellow leaves with no spots or curling ranging from waterlogged soils to too much fertilizer/amendments to herbicide drift.

Only new foliage? OK, have you used any weed killers in the area, or has anyone nearby, as in herbicide drift.

And you say the plants are totally DEAD in 48 hours? Has to be something sprayed to get death that quickly bc no disease can do that, except one, and the leaves stay green with that one.

But even with herbicide drift, which seems reasonable here, plant death doesn't occur that quickly. One day to death????

So please offer as much other info as you can so folks here can try to figure this out, but death that quickly is not a disease and sounds more like herbicide drift to me.

Carolyn
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woop
Original Author
20 years ago
I have since found out that Round-up was sprayed in the nearby area a couple of days earlier, when there was wind. It would have to have been just a vapor to have traveled any appreciable distance, and why it selected the Early Cascade plants and the peppers, leaving the neighboring plants unscathed, is a mystery. Clearly tomatoes are very sensitive to the stuff. So that sounds like the most likely explanation.

I had never seen the effects on tomatoes, so it didn't ring a bell with me. Before wilting, the plants looked healthy except for the yellow leaves. Anyway, my mind is relieved...until something else happens.