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What's wrong with my tomato plant?

15 years ago

The leaves on the top shriveled and the ones on the side branches curled a little bit.

{{gwi:1313281}}

It's about 1.5 ft tall in a 5-gallon bucket.

Thanks!

Comments (7)

  • 15 years ago

    My first impression is herbicide damage. If so, it will probably grow out of it.

    It might be a viral issue. if so it likely wont grow out of it.

  • 15 years ago

    Definitely a stressed plant! All that leaf roll on the plant is a dead give away to some severe stress.

    All sorts of possible causes from the herbicide exposure already mentioned to pests, excess fertilizer, to poorly draining soil/container.

    Could you give us more details on the possibility of herbicide exposure including neighbor drift, what the soil mix in the container is, what and how often you have fed it, exposed to lots of rain or overwatering lately, and what zone the plant is in (outside I assume)?

    Dave

  • 15 years ago

    I'm with mulio...some kind of damage by herbicide or some other chemical.

  • 15 years ago

    Hi plate,
    Are you providing Calcium in your fertilizer?
    It looks like the problem is with leaves that are recently trying to come along.
    Distortion seen indicates cell wall physiology is poor; where the membranes are not adequately permeable & margins can't unfurl with full turgidity.
    Growing plants want to continuously build up adequate Ca in tissue for many functions, not just fruiting.

  • 15 years ago


    Definitely a stressed plant! All that leaf roll on the plant is a dead give away to some severe stress.

    All sorts of possible causes from the herbicide exposure already mentioned to pests, excess fertilizer, to poorly draining soil/container.

    Could you give us more details on the possibility of herbicide exposure including neighbor drift, what the soil mix in the container is, what and how often you have fed it, exposed to lots of rain or overwatering lately, and what zone the plant is in (outside I assume)?

    Dave

    Thanks to everyone for the helpful responses!

    I think Dave hits the nail on the head. This is my first time growing tomato (or gardening for that matter) and I used compost instead of potting mix in the container. I didn't know that until I started lurking this forum :)

    I never heard of "leaf roll" until Dave mentioned it, so I Googled for it and it seems like my plant was a victim of being overwatered. There was also some rain about 2 weeks back.

    I'm in zone 9. The container has a bunch of small holes in the bottom and about 10 half-inch-sized holes right above it.


    Another question. What's wrong with this one?

    {{gwi:1313282}}

    It's about 8-inches tall (was 7" yesterday) growing in a 16oz cup w/ MG potting mix. It's droopier in the evening than in the morning. Overwatered again?

  • 15 years ago

    It is getting rootbound (causes the drooping) and needs to be transplanted to a bigger container.

    Are you going to re-pot the other one into soil-less mix?

    Dave

  • 15 years ago


    It is getting rootbound (causes the drooping) and needs to be transplanted to a bigger container.

    Just transplanted another smaller one that has similar droopiness:

    {{gwi:1313283}}



    Are you going to re-pot the other one into soil-less mix?

    Dave

    I'll leave it as is because I have a few more that I planted from seeds that are ready to go in a week or two. If anything, I would like to see the different between a "bad" growing medium (compost) versus the soil-less mix. :) I've been adding about 4 teaspoons of EB Stone tomato/vegetable every two weeks.

    Thanks!