Same boat here..planning a plant sale and got my toms wiped out buy damp off.. I repotted any survivors in new potting mix,took cuttings of them and am praying for it to take and pleading for donations. (My sale is for Charity)

The work it took to re pot was worth it it seemed to have saved quite a few.

The white fungal growth is due to a few things, usually lack of air circulation and lack of sunlight. Remove the white fungus with a spoon or whatever & do what you are doing, place in direct sunlight and give them good air circulation.

Here's what I'd do now. I'd plant those babies in the garden on Saturday. Planting out in good garden soil and good air movement cures a lot of ills. I am in Northern Delaware and a frost alert is posted for tonight but starting tomorrow it's clear sailing. Until Saturday what Tn Veggie Gardener says above is good advice.

Here's what I'd do if you still were a week away or longer from transplanting outdoors:

There are chems you can apply but I'm organic so I won't recommend any but you can research. What I would do is repot in soiless mix, Pro-Mix BX is a good choice. Stay away from mixes that contain ferts like MG because ferts magnify the problem and sometimes even cause the problem when used too much in a tiny container. Sprinkle some ground cinammon on the surface of your containers. Cinnamon is a natural fungicide. Then give good air circulation.

I just went out and bought a lot of new container mix, but of course it is not soil-less, and it does contain some fertilizer ( I read this advice from bigdaddy just after I returned!). I am planning to repot what I can tonight and into tomorrow (should be a hot sunny day all day) in this new mix and sprinkle cinnamon in the pots. Not going to add more water when I do this because I am trying to counteract the too-wet condition in the affected containers. Sheesh. I was going to get my horse manure tomorrow and add to the tomato beds, am tempted to do as you suggest, bigdaddy, and plant them out but we still have frost danger here until 5/15. Maybe, though, I will place some in the garden on Saturday with covers ready for the overnights, and compare the two approaches. Nothing to lose I guess. Appreciate any more comments because I am learning a lot from your observations, everyone. For instance, I did not know about the cinnamon thing.

Question for ontheteam : did you replant the whole seedling or just whack it above the soil line and stick it into the new soil mix?

Just updating here. I lost close to 200 plants so far and have planted 109 remaining tiny transplants out in the tomato beds. I will give it 2 weeks to see what will survive, then I will thin out and set things where I want them. Lost all of my Marianna's Peace and Bloody Butcher, which is a shame because Butcher was new for me this year. Have only one teensy Cuostralee, also a new selection. If it makes it I will be amazed. So far it has been several hours and nothing has keeled over in the garden soil yet. It was 86 degrees in my yard today, and the next 10 days look great, so at least the weather is cooperating with me. Hoping to avert total disaster here. Please bump this post up if anyone wants to talk about the kiss of death that fungus can bring to seedlings. I will let you all know how this turns out. Never happened to me before, I have always had such good luck! Glad I over-planted, at least I have SOME plants to possibly survive.

RMB

Just keep in mind that of those that survive, you can take cuttings and get new plants easily, which I'm sure you know. Just don't forget it if the tomato plant cupboard looks a little bare!

If you lived closer I'd give you a couple of my extra Cuostralees, though I know that doesn't help since you aren't.

200 plants is an awful lot to lose, but it does seem as if the weather's on your side right now.

Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Damping Off Disease

Sorry to hear but I think now that you have about 100 outside in the garden that most of them will make it with your favorable weather report. Good Luck!

Anney, I am getting in my car and driving to Georgia right this minute. OK, no I'm not. I have too much gardening stuff to do. But so kind of you to offer me a plant. Everything looked alive this morning so I was pleased. The weather is outrageously fabulous and I am going to check out local growers for heirloom possibilities in case I need to buy plants. Worms are depositing a lot of castings near the surface of the tomato beds each night, and I am hopeful that will have healing qualities.

Any comments from Carolyn regarding this sort of problem would be most welcome, if she is around here ....

raisemybeds

Email me and I'll send whatever you'd like of my 10 extra plants to you! Not kidding -- I have to give them away anyhow. They are about only 4 inches tall but if I sent them transplanted deeply into 2 liter soda bottles with tops and bottoms taped on, they should certainly ship safely if packed properly.

Otherwise, good luck on finding some good varieties!

Another update - some of the transplanted seedlings are now looking visibly better, which means they have grown a bit and are greening up nicely. I do not believe all of them will make it, but some certainly will. I am keeping a close eye on them and scouting for cutworms, which would be my next hurdle. Also praying that the rainy weather we are currently seeing won't send them backwards into fungusville. We will see. Meanwhile, b'gillions of volunteers have sprung up in the beds trying to confuse matters! Need some more sunshine before I know it is smooth sailing here ....

Rain is starting to get on my nerves...day 5 straight of it here in TN. I transplanted all of my tomato plants to their final homes this weekend too. They are doing excellent. I fed them a tiny bit of diluted fertilizer. I fear after about another week or so of rain, they might start to droop a bit though...ugh! =)

Holding out for sunshine-y Sunday!

RMB

We also finally have sunshine predicted for Sunday too, after nine straight days of rain, showers, and thunderstorms. My garden tomatoes seem to be holding up okay, though they aren't doing much growing, look a little saggy, and have flea beetle holes in the lower leaves. GOTTA get some Neem oil -- that won't do for plants that aren't really robust yet.

Best-looking candidates thus far seem to be Omar's Lebanese, Cherokee Green, and Cherokee Purple, with Black Cherry perking up behind them. My only White Beauty keeled over (boo hiss). Juliet is looking very promising. Too bad I HATE it (I was going to sell this variety to the unsuspecting public, not actually eat it myself). Waiting for 5/15 to do the final cull. Still refusing to attend grief therapy. Thanks for reading.

Okay, I lied, but not intentionally, about the White Beauty. Two days later it magically stood upright again and, although tiny, looks good right now. Sheesh.

Also have found locally a Pruden's Purple and a Black Prince to round me out some. Gotta pin another guy down on a Bloody Butcher if I can next week. Looks like I will have a combo of stuff I grew and stuff others grew, with my own plants being the smallest starts. I am still transplanting the final selections, a few each day, so the tomato beds are being set into gear for the season finally. It is so tempting to just scrap it and buy EVERYTHING, but I am not a quitter.

Just gonna finish up this thread by saying that I ended up procuring a bunch of plants from other local growers, and also using the best-looking specimens of what I had left of my own stock. I bought Black Prince, Sunsugar, Pruden's Purple, Jet Star, Caspian Pink, Bloody Butcher, Black Krim, Mortgage Lifter, Pink Brandywine, Big Boy, and Cherokee Purple, and someone sent me a beautiful Cuostralee. Of my own starts I have Thessaloniki, Yellow Brandywine, Omar's Lebanese, Cherokee Green, Nebraska Wedding, Juliet, Lemon Boy, Striped German, White Beauty, Black Cherry, Green Zebra, Roma, Jaune Flammee, and Yellow Pear (yucky but the neighbor kids like it). So 12 from other sources and 14 of my own. The purchased plants have far outstipped my plants in growth, and the three that are fruiting right now are purchased. When I did the culling and pulled up some of the non-growing seedlings I examined the stems and could see that although the plant was not dead, the stem was prematurely woody in appearance, and very few roots were coming off of it. Of the plants of my own that are growing out there, they are so much smaller than what they would normally be by this time that I fear they have lost a good month of development due to the ravages of that May fungal infection. Even now my two Striped Germans look vibrant and green, but are very small and I suspect they may be too hampered to fully develop. We shall see.