Mosaic Virus or Ph issue

16 years ago

Hey all, im new here, my first post and im hoping someone can help. My girlfriend has some Better Boy Tomatoes in a small flood and drain hydroponic system that have done really well untill a couple weeks ago. The new tomatoes have a brown marble like coloration to them and eventually turn very dark and fall off when they are just smaller than a ping pong ball, the stem that supports them breaks at the nuckle.All the flowers are just there and not blooming at all.The older leaves have all cannoed and the younger growth sprouts have grown very little. The newer growth has dark lesions/splotches on the stalks that are dark brown at first and seem to dry out to a lighter brown after a few days.Overall the plants look green but has some light green spots spread at random, not like a mag defficency or anything i have ever seen.I cant help but think its tobacco mosaic virus but her brother, "mister hydro" is yelling ph.Could improper Ph cause those type of symptoms? Brown marbilization on the new tomatoes? I will try to get some pics made in the next couple days. Thanks yall.

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Comments (3)

torquill
16 years ago
If you haven't asked in the hydroponic growing forums, I'd suggest you try there... the trouble with hydroponics is that it's quite easy to get a nutrient imbalance that you wouldn't get in soil.

Another possibility, as you said, is a virus. Single-streak is a combination of two viruses, Potato virus X and Tobacco mosaic virus. It fits your description of mottled leaves, stem lesions, and dark diseased fruit.

Both viruses are mechanically transmissible (TMV just by brushing against the leaves)... a good test for virus infection would be to take a healthy soil-grown tomato plant, such as one bought at a nursery, grind up a little of one of the leaves from an infected plant in a couple of tablespoons of water with a pinch of baking soda and fine sand, and rub that solution onto a couple of leaves of the healthy plant. It's not as good as doing it in the proper buffers and such, but both PVX and TMV are so sturdy you have a good chance of getting transmission. If it's viral, you'll get some symptoms within seven to ten days.

Pictures would still be helpful, especially if the single-streak pictures don't match what you're seeing.

Good luck!

--Alison
torquill
16 years ago
Oops, minor correction: "double virus streak" is the condition I thought fit your symptoms best, caused by two viruses. It's still possible you have single virus streak, which is just a TMV strain -- the inoculation method I described will still work for that. Either way, though, the solution to a viral infection is to pull the plant.
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majortom9
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks for the feedback, we pulled the plants a few days back,pretty sure after doing some fingertip bruising on google that it was tobacco mosaic or double virus streak. Was a shame, those plants were the pic of health and were growing like mad, 2 times faster than the soil ones,they were about 2 feet tall and loaded with blooms until it hit em. Also found out that Better Boys arent really that resistant to many tomato ailments. We are trying again with Parks Whoopers and Big Boys, both seem to have pretty good resistance to disease.Thanks for the input, if all turns out well with this late crop, i will try my hand at posting some pics.Later :)