Are you suspecting BCTV or what? Have you seen leaf hoppers? What was the problem last year? Are you absolutely positive that your straw mulch contained no herbicides in it? Etc. Lost of possible causes.

Personally I'd snip off the affected branch in the pic and see if the plant doesn't recover. JMO

Dave

Dave, I don't know what BCTV is. I am suspecting spider mite(s) since I am pretty sure that's what I saw on one of its leaves. Last year I had spider mites, also the year before, but, as I said, they appeared much later in the season.

No, I'm not positive that the straw mulch was herbicide-free. The other plants are ok so far. They have been planted in this bed since May 1.

Thanks for the advice about cutting of the curled branch. It's just the very top growth and the rest of the plant looks good. I may give it a try. I was hoping if it was mite(s) that the Safer would take care of it and the leaves would uncurl.

That's herbicide damage. Either some drifted from nearby or some of your organic stuff is contaminated w/a commercial-use herbicide. You can run a simple bio-assay to determine if it's the latter.

The info is here:
http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/soilmgmt/Clopyralid.htm

Here is a link that might be useful: herbicide contaminated OM

Spidermites don't cause your symptoms. I'll 3rd herbicide damage.

i am having the same exact issues and look the same as the picture above, no spider mites that i can see. I am either thinking it was herbicide damage or possible cmv. I have 10 tomato plants in the ground 3 are very shriveled and all new growth is shriveled mutated growth, 3 others are starting to show slight signs. i have four tomato plants in pots with organic store bought potting soil and they are the most perfect plants no signs of anything they are are right next to the in ground plants. so im wondering if something is in my soil. any help is appreciated, thank you.

OK, so the soil is the same as last year's, amended with Black Kow, a very reputable brand of composted cow manure.

The straw mulch was purchased at Lowe's. I could try removing the mulch, which I laid on very heavily.

The other possibility is that my yard guy spot treated for weeds in February and some of those clippings may have been blown toward the raised beds (if so, they weren't noticeable to me. There were no clippings visible in the beds when I mulched the tomatoes with straw. Could they even be an issue if the treatment was in February?

I think I need to remove the straw mulch from everything. I mulched both the raised beds and containers with it 2 weeks ago, and so far, only one plant has the curling leaves. But it could still be developing if the straw is contaminated. I am yanking the curling leaf plant. I will get another bale of straw from another supplier and hope for the best. I don't want to leave the plants unmulched.

I will plant a test plant with some of the compost in a container and see if it starts to suffer this problem. But the compost will be from a different bag/batch of the Black Kow, so that won't be definitive if it results in a healthy plant.

Sheesh! Problems so soon in the season...my yard guy has strict instructions not to spray any herbicides without warning me first (and he does my neighbor's yard as well).

Thanks very much for all the input.

Your choice of course but why be in such a rush? Monitoring sickly appearing plants for a few days not only allows them the chance to recover but it can be a great learning experience. Especially when you don't know the cause of the symptoms for sure.

IF the straw is contaminated then it is likely a diluted dose still on it and it will dissipate with a bit of time and rain and watering. And this is the only plant showing symptoms even tho all are mulched. While some plants are more susceptible to weed killers than others, many also recover.

Pull the straw back from the plants a bit and watch and wait and see what happens. It teaches us patience in gardening if nothing else and that is a valuable lesson to learn.

Dave