Some people let it ripe and cut of the bad part and others might say cut the fruit off. You make the call. Do you have more plants or is this your only tomato plant? If there is more fruit on the plants and or you have more plants I would say just cut it off. It is likely your plant will grow out of the BER and it will be a thing of the past. Good luck!

I only have 3 tomato plants total, since this is my first time planting anything. The plant with the BER on one of the tomatoes has about 4 tomatoes on them, and I have only 3 tomatoes on the other plant. The last one is a bushier tomato plant and it is just starting to develop tiny blueberry sized fruits.
I don't think I will get many tomatoes since I started planting them so late. It will be very hot here soon. 100 degree F temps and then more!

teeaz, sprtsguy covered everything I was going to mention. My experience is that fruit with BER do not ripen well and do not taste good. My rec would be to toss it. As for BER, there are commercial products to help, but not sure how much help they actually are. It is thought to be a deficiency in calcium.
Wiley

As for BER, there are commercial products to help, but not sure how much help they actually are. It is thought to be a deficiency in calcium.
Wiley

*****

The commercial product Stop Rot is no help at all.

BER occurs b'c of stresses to the plant causing Ca++ to not move within the plant as it should. There is no lack of Ca++ and adding it doesn't prevent BER except in the case were there is NO Ca++ in the soil at all or the soil is too acidic which can be fixed, and both of those situations are not common.

The two stresses most likely to cause BER are uneven moisture delivery and too much fertilizer or growing in too rich soil/containers.

If you go to the top of this first page and click on the FAQ link just scroll down to the article on BER and I think it will help.

BER on tomatoes, peppers, squash, cabbage and more is a multimillion dollar problem for the industry and much research has been done in the past 20 years that has shown that addition of CA++ doesn't prevent BER. If it were that easy there wouldn't be a BER problem. Sigh.

Carolyn

Carolyn,

Is it safe then to say that there is no "So now what?" type solution inside of the same growing yr other than doing a better job at even moisture control?

Is it also safe to say that the only preventative is to prep next yrs soil by what, late fall this yr and then assure even moisture the next growing season?

Tomato Tone states in bold "Helps Prevent Blossom End Rot". I think I've read that bone meal is more availible, quicker than lime.

All of my in ground will be in new ground this yr and unfortunately did not have the fore sight to prep last yr. Is there anything those of us planting fresh can do now that will affect this yr's BER problem?

I've read the FAQ and several discussions but don't think I've seen in one place an "OK, so you have BER" type deal :-)

Thank You!

Carolyn,
Is it safe then to say that there is no "So now what?" type solution inside of the same growing yr other than doing a better job at even moisture control?

****

And not using a lot of fertilizer. Where I live water comes out of the sky so it's hard to control moisture, mulching helps but that depends on how many plants you're growing as to time involved.

And after all, BER does go away for most folks when the plants are mature since mature plants can better handle the stresses that can induce BER, such as too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, high winds, etc.

*****
Is it also safe to say that the only preventative is to prep next yrs soil by what, late fall this yr and then assure even moisture the next growing season?

What you need to do is to get a good soil test done and not with one of those home kits. I doubt that your soil is lacking in Ca++. When the tissues of plants that had BER fruits was examined there was plenty of Ca++ in the tissues but not at the blossom end of the fruits. So the problem is not one of Ca++ uptake from the soil.

******
Tomato Tone states in bold "Helps Prevent Blossom End Rot". I think I've read that bone meal is more availible, quicker than lime.

Stop Rot also says it stops BER. Wrong. The Tomato Tone info is also Wrong for 99.9% of gardeners b'c as I've said before, the problem ism't the lack of soil Ca++.

*****
All of my in ground will be in new ground this yr and unfortunately did not have the fore sight to prep last yr. Is there anything those of us planting fresh can do now that will affect this yr's BER problem?

As I said there's no need to prep the ground re BER, You need to get a soil test done to see what the levels of everything are in terms of next year.

In terms of the possibility of this summer's problem, don't overfertilize, you have control over that, and mulch if you have not that many plants to help ensure more even moisture levels. You can't control the temps and the winds/

And as I've said, as soon as the plants mature the BER problem goes away for almost everyone.

Carolyn

I could add that I did have some very minor BER last yr on a couple plants but one in particular suffered a great deal.

It was very lush so, perhaps too much fert and it was much too lrg for its container so keeping even moisture was quite a challenge.

I did use a liquid calcium product in watering and it eventually went away but more even temps are purported to help them "grow out of it".

It was a German Queen, the first time we grew it and the few eddible fruits it gave us were the best tasting we've ever had.

It is my observation that BER fruits mature sooner than the others. I have cut out the rotten part of the fruit and enjoyed the remainder, which was sweet indeed.

I didn't die. I didn't even get sick. No biggie. And I like to gross my fussy kids out occasionally, by eating other things they think are yucky.

Kidding aside, the remainder of fruit that is not overwhelmed by BER has been sweet and good.

Thanks, because mainly of being on a wooded slope, my area is not uniform enough to make sending off a soil sample meaningful. Soil type is just way too diverse, sometimes within feet.

I've got one of these,

http://www.floriantools.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=florian&Product_Code=FW3000&Category_Code=garden_soil_meter

and have found ph readings in undisturbed (trust me I know how to tell) native soils from 7 to 5.5 easily within 20 ft.

The potting mixes I've used all are in acceptable range on ph. which lends credence to your point that my BER problem last yr was probably weather created or self induced :-)

Thanks

Last year I tried using A cheep tums like antacid from one of the superstores that had calcium in it. When I planted my Toms in went a couple of the tablets.
For a control I used the same variety and did a test. The plants with the calcium added had NO BER, but the ones not treated did?

Carolyn, I think it may be the soil in my container. I should take a picture, this could also be sun damage. Our sun is so strong here and there is no moisture in the air, it is so dry in this Arizona heat. Temps have been in the mid 90's and down in the high 60's at night.
I only see damage on one tomato.
Also thanks everyone for posting..I like to read what everyone has to say, and learn alot.