It looks like typical blight to me. My Roma's are always the first to develop it in early summer after producing a small crop - and then they die. I've canned enough tomatoes this summer for several years. I may skip growing tomatoes next year altogether. That is, except for a plant or two for table use if I can find a resistant variety.

It looks like typical blight to me.

There are at least three diseases with "blight" in their names: Early Blight, Southern Blight/Southern Wilt, and Late Blight. In addition, "blight" is sometimes used as a generic term for tomato disease.

It's important to know which disease you have.

The only one of the three I know well is Late Blight. I don't see any definite signs in your photos -- but neither can I say for certain that your plant doesn't have Late Blight.

Late Blight has hit my tomatoes two of the last three years. I recognize it by the characteristic leaf lesions. They are wedge- or diamond-shaped, nearly always at the edge of the leaf, and first appear as a wet-looking, dark gray. Then they're a dry-looking dark gray. Then they lighten to tan. Eventually fuzzy gray spores appear.

In later stages there will be irregular brown patches on stems, entire leaves will dry up, and eventually the fruit will be infected. If the plant's in bad shape, fruit that look fine when picked will likely succumb within a few days, so it's important to check every part of every tomato at least once every 24 hours.

Here is Cornell's page of excellent Late Blight photos:
http://www.longislandhort.cornell.edu/vegpath/photos/lateblight_tomato.htm

And this is Cornell's tomato disease diagnostic:
http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/DiagnosticKeys/TomKey.html

Unfortunately, this is a holiday weekend and things are veeerrry slow. Hopefully one of the experts will take a look at this.

Thanks for the links to the Cornell pages. I really wish I knew more about gardening. I have combed over numerous sites and just can't find figure it out.

I haven't seen any spots or lesions on the stems or limbs. The limbs just seem to wilt and die along with the leaves, but the stem stays green. Any "spots" on the leaves don't have any white discoloration (sporulation?). I didn't see any obvious signs of fungal growth (like powdery mildew) either. I thought that maybe it was (a?) bacterial canker but the wilting doesn't start on the outside leaves.

My tomato plants from Spring actually grew to nearly 6' tall, but didn't perform very well and had very similar issues. I did get some fruit from our grape tomato plant (maybe 20-30) and none of them had any problems. No lesions or decay (and they tasted great). But the entire plants (a grape and Better Big Boy) had their stems and limbs turn an odd yellow hue and as the plants grew taller the wilting would move up the plant, and the Better Big Boy never set any fruit.

I'm really at a loss. Since this has happened 3 times it would seem like there should be a common reason. They all came from the same place and were planted into the same place. I bought them all from the same company (the ones in the peat pots), but I'm sure people have had success with their plants (otherwise they'd be out of business!). That's why I thought maybe it was an issue with the soil (drainage, nutrition, location) or maybe a disease that made it in on the soil I bought. Or, more likely, something I'm doing/not doing.

I don't live in Texas, but as I understand it, people in much of that state (as well as other very hot climates) plant their tomatoes very early in the year. Those plants cannot survive the summer temps. So later they set out a second group of plants.

Could that be what is happening to your plants?

Since each of the two yearly seasons is so short, early varieties are preferable. And so are heat-tolerant ones.

You might look at this thread, as well as following the links it contains:
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tomato/msg0821572324857.html

That's all I can suggest. At the moment, most people seem to be away on vacation, so you may get more responses later (I don't know if "later" will be simply after Labor Day, or a week after Labor Day). If you don't, you could bump this thread up to the top.

Pic 4 looks like mite damage. In hot, dry weather, mites can kill a plant within 2 weeks. Using a magnifying glass, look for them on leaf undersides.

That's a great point about heat stress. Before I built our garden bed I read story after story about making sure it got plenty of sun and how so many failed due to bad location. So, of course, I placed mine right in the middle of the back yard that gets 12-14 hours (sunrise to 6pm) of 95+ degree full sun. The post you linked to makes a great point about letting them have a rest from our heat during the afternoon. I wonder if anyone else noticed the same problems from tomatoes due to heat stress/too much Dallas heat. Maybe I took the "full sun" advice too far?

I will definitely poke around under the plant again tomorrow to look for mites. I had looked for spider mites but didn't notice the telltale webs. The description of tomato russet mite damage sounds dead on: bronzing of stems, leaf curl, causes wilting of limbs, starts at the bottom and moves upwards. Maybe my mistake was not looking very closely at the HEALTHY leaves directly above the damaged limbs.

I guess the best word to express my "yellowing" is "bronzing"?

Texasbanzai, I am south of you about halfway to Waco. My garden gets NO shade at all during the day and my tomatoes looked WAY worse than yours. In my case it was a matter of mites, aphids, and not enough water. So I am diligently fighting the bugs, I make sure there is enough water, and as an added measure I tilled some good fresh goat poo into the tomato bed. You would not even recognize what they look like today.

An indeterminate tomato should produce for you the entire growing season. I know they can because I have planted them in March and still was picking from them before our first frost in November.

This is a picture of one of my plants taken 2 weeks ago:

I took this picture yesterday:

Wow, rocky_acres! Kudos!

That's an incredible turn around in 2 weeks!

What did you use to battle the mites? Just wettable sulfur? Did you break out anything more powerful?

And how did you change your watering habits? Do you just water more often/longer? I have drip hose around my garden that I turn on every 2-3 days for 30-45 minutes (whenever the soil feels dried out about 2" down). I always assumed that it was more than enough water but I wouldn't surprised if I am wrong. I have a bell pepper plant, a jalapeno plano, and some beans in the same garden bed and they don't seem to have issues anywhere close to these problems.

I did have 2 bush-variety cucumbers in the same garden that were chronically affected by aphids. I would have to jet spray every leaf every 2-3 days otherwise they would completely take over. Washing them off and using insecticidal soap just didn't seem to do the trick. I even resorted to trying Sevin (in the spray bottle) on every single leaf, top and bottom, and they wouldn't stay away! Luckily they only had a taste for my cucumber plant and never nibbled on anything else...

I hunted around the plant for quite awhile this evening and couldn't find any mites. I only saw the occasional creepy-crawly and a few ants. I also checked and the leaves and stems do not have a greasy feel. I guess my guess of russet mites might have been premature. I did however spray the plant down (every leaf, top and bottom, stem and limb) with insecticidal soap until soaked just in case. I'm not sure what to do next...

Have you fed them?

My Celebrity was looking very sad- same thing, wilting at the base, moth eaten, but not sick. Fed 2x with Tomato Tone + 1 time with Bloodmeal (12-0-0) and it's happy to be alive again. Actually has managed to set some fruit in our heat.

I used 1 tablespoon dishsoap per gallon of water in a pump sprayer. I make sure to saturate the top AND bottom of every leaf. It takes me 2 days to do all the plants this way. Then again I only spray before 11 a.m. so I'm not burning the leaves. The next day I put the hose sprayer on and set it just below jet and spray down the plants. I also tilled in some good old fashioned goat poo (I have dairy goats) so they are getting fed too.

What is your soil like? Try adding some manure and work it in to the soil. I have a mini-tiller and MAN I love that thing. Fantastic for short cultivation chores. If you can get goat poo it's some of the best - not too hot, even if it's fresh.

I used 1 tablespoon dishsoap per gallon of water in a pump sprayer.

What brand and model of dishsoap? (Dawn has many "models" so I need to know exactly what kind.)

I didn't use Dawn. I used the local grocery store's knock-off brand. It was an antibacterial type tho. I would be sure to stay away from any that has "bleach" in it - I'd be afraid that would burn the leaves....

"What is your soil like?"

When I first built the garden in spring I added about 1/2 top soil (the "quality" stuff from Lowe's in the yellow bag; it is a very rich, dark soil) and 1/2 bagged compost, plus 1 bale of peat moss. I used a 'claw' cultivator to mix it all together. I was skeptical over how good a job I'd done, so when I planted this tomato plant I removed a 2x size hole and used potting soil instead. When I later removed the other 2 tomato plants and 2 cucumber plants I planted in spring I removed about 1/2 the soil and used a gas-powered tiller to till up the bottom half and added 1/2 top soil and 1/2 "garden soil" (from Miracle-Gro) and tilled it all in.

I used some store-bought insecticidal soap this time because I wanted to be sure it would work. I'd previously used some homemade soap (using Dr. Bonner's 18-in-one Hemp Lavender Pure-Castile Soap) to try and fight the aphids but I wasn't sure if it really did much since they just kept coming back after I'd spray anyways.

I soaked the plant head-to-toe yesterday evening (around 6:30pm) and came back around 9am and jetted it down to wash it off before the heat of the sun, but I'm still not sure if it'll help much. I just don't have much else to help this thing except to pull it out and give up on growing tomatoes (for their sake, mostly).

Perhaps try some fertilizer. I think it's Jiffy that puts out these tomato spikes you sink in about 1' from the base of the plant. They look like mini tree fertilizer spikes. I have used them (before we got goats) and they really give a boost....

Since the soil mix you're using isn't the basic clay dirt found in our area then perhaps you are over-watering too. Tomatoes only need 1-2 inches per week....

I will definitely go look for the plant food spikes. When I tilled up the bed a few weeks ago I added about 1 lb of Plant-tome but it might not have helped the tomato much.

I definitely feel like I can't get the watering right. I try to keep after it, but I normally don't get a chance to check the soil until the evening (after it's already dry). I've tried all forms of watering: hand watering, soaker hose, drip line, drip line w/ mini-soaker hose, ... I never have the feeling that any of them are really providing a good, reliable soaking.