Secondly, I have a Sweet Million that has some black, dry leaf edges. IâÂÂve read that can be caused either by watering problems or disease. ThereâÂÂs one spot thatâÂÂs perfectly round where my finger is - does that indicate anything? Do I pinch off the leaf stems as soon as they start to turn bad, or leave them on as long as possible?

Thanks for your help,
-Chris

There are a number of reasons why the leaves could be curling. One is herbicide damage. However, I think you can rule that out. Herbicide damage leaf roll is normally more on the newer growth and the leaves can also be deformed.

Could be physiological leaf roll. This can be caused by a number of factors including heat and drought. What are you feeding them by the way?

As for the possible disease on your second picture, I will let more experienced posters handle that one. But, personally, I start picking leaves off when I notice that much black spots.

Here is an article from the Clemson Extension that may help.

http://www.clemson.edu/extension/hgic/hot_topics/2008/05tomato_leaf_roll.html

I think the 2nd image is early blight. Remove the leaves and try to keep the leaves pretty dry. Damp conditions usually encourages fungal activity like early blight

Thanks for the replies. I had ruled out herbicide damage and blamed the leaf roll on over/under-watering, but then it didn't fix itself when I thought the soil was properly moist. The leaves are leathery, and I don't know if it's possible for them to get back to normal?

I sprinkled a small handfull of a granular organic fertilizer (3-5-5, or something?) around the base and watered it in 2 weeks ago. I just bought some Miracle Grow Tomato fert. for regular use on a tomato I'm growing in a container, but I haven't used it on the raised bed yet.

I was afraid the 2nd photo was blight. I've read a bunch of posts today that talk about preventative spraying from day 1, but the ship has sailed on that. I'll pick the damaged leaves off tonight, and try to find some straw mulch to put around the base, to prevent splash-back when watering. Is there anything else you recommend?

I also have 4 other tomatoes, that so far don't show any sign of blight. They're all within about a 6 foot radius of each other. Is there anything I can do to prevent the spread?

Thanks.

early blight really sounds a lot worse than it actually is if caught early. Removing and infected leaves and getting them offsite is the first step.
When your plants are decently sized, remove some of the lower leaf steams that are near the soil to allow more air to circulate and prevent moisture from staying on the leaves too long.
This is what i usually do to fix blight. There are sprays and recipes on the web to try to prevent the spread. I really didn't have much of a problem afterward so i didn't spray.

If you have a closer picture of the leaves and the damage it would help to confirm if it is early blight or possibly something else

This post was edited by Erich_k on Thu, May 30, 13 at 21:41

I meant to take a close-up picture when I got home last night, but got carried away and just starting pruning off all the diseased foliage. Some of these leaf stems are quite long, with over a dozen leaflets on them. Do you recommend taking off the entire leaf (from where it meets the main stem) if any part is diseased, or can I just prune off the leaflets that are damaged? I pruned off the entire thing, but ending up taking a painful amount of foliage, and now I'm worried I may have done more damage than was necessary...

Also, possibly but not necessarily related, many of the ripe cherry tomatoes seem to have many little yellow dots on them. In this picture, the two in the middle have some strange blotches, where the center is fine but surrounded by yellow, and the tomato behind to the right has a big yellow blotch. It's not dried out or leathery, so I don't think it's sunscald... any ideas?

Thanks - Chris

i never saw such a weird marking like that for tomatoes before.

Usually when i see damage on the leaf i remove the leaf, if the leaf stem has damage i remove the leaf stem.

You shouldn't worry too much about removing foliage as long as there is a healthy growing tip it will be fine. Even if it doesn't have a growing tip it might just grow a sucker, tomatoes from what i seen will fight as hard as they can to keep growing.

Thanks. Does anyone else know if the physiological leaf curl will recover back to normal? Or what these strange spots on my cherry tomatoes are?

Here are two more pictures of my leaf disease. It's on a Sweet Million, which should be fairly disease resistant, right? So far, it's the only one out of five tomato plants to have problems. The plant is quite big, though, maybe 4 feet tall with 6 good growing stems and lots of ripening fruit.

Thanks,
-Chris

Another shot of pruned off foliage.

I posted on another of your threads re this same topic. (don't recall where that is.)

Anyway, it's not fusarium.
Probably environmental. -- you live in a hot dry place.
The spots on the tomatoes remind me of damage from a sucking pest, perhaps stink bugs.

I would start with the fungicide sprays asap.

This post was edited by sjetski on Sun, Jun 16, 13 at 20:22

I think the yellow spots on the tomatoes might just be from where they were touching each other, or touching the plant, while being watered. Unless the tomato spots 'progress' in some way, I don't think they are important.