Stick your finger directly in original pot you bought the tomatoes in, and see if it is dry. If plants where root bound they expand their roots slowly, and even if soil around original pot is wet, the pot itself could be dry - I had it with my just plant peppers in a hot day. I thought they drooping because it was very hot, checked soil - it was wet, shaded them - they didn't get better. Then I checked the soil directly in the pot - it was completely dry. So watering right there brought them back to life in 20 min)

i've watered it the last two days and it doesn't seem to be helping. I think i'm going to lose one of them as it doesn't appear to be getting better.

any other ideas? I may pull the plant up if no improvement tomorrow because i'm scared it may spread to the others.

That is no disease, it is massive root damage affecting the entire plant. Cause unknown.

Any chance this was in a peat pot and the pot wasn't removed before planting? Was it heavily root bound when planted? Nematodes would be affecting your other plants as well so that's out. Voles? Watered how much? Soak it well until all the soil around it is wet surface and all. Shallow watering creates water dependent plants that wilt quickly. How deep was it planted? What and how much have you fed it it? has it been sprayed with anything? Any sign of pests?

Dave

the pot was removed when planting. I removed the lower branches and planted them fairly deep where only the top of the plant was out of the ground. This was about 45 days ago. I have sandy soil so I water around 1 inch twice a week. It has had two small feedings in 6 weeks. 16-4-8 fertilizer based on the soil testing i did. The soil has a high pH of around 7.0. Never sprayed with anything and luckily not pest so far. I plan to pull the plant up tomorrow to inspect the roots and stem.

And thank you for your help. I'm at a loss for this one.

Please let us know what you find!

Wondering where you live - here, I'd suspect gophers. Little suckers like to run around invisibly underground eating roots and leaving you with a rootless dead plant. They also like to tunnel around root areas, which diverts water away from plants. Just another thought, again depending on where you are.

In the first pic I can see a couple holes in the ground so something is definitely tunneling under them. And in the second pic it looks like there is a ridge of soil just to the left of the plant which would indicate a tunnel.

Rodney

I live in South Carolina. I'll try to post some pics of the roots this evening. Now it looks like two more plants have started wilting. All my other plants are doing great. Squash, Green Beans, Peppers, Cabbage, radishes...etc. Just something going on with the tomatoes and I need to figure it out before I lose them all.

Maybe you should try putting some in containers... to make sure you get some tomatoes this year.

Well as I said in my previous post today, it looks like a critter is tunneling under your plants and if it isn't eating the roots it sure is damaging them. Fixing the critter problem will prevent the root damage and you'll have no more wilting/drooping tomato plants.

Rodney

Here are some more pics. Any other ideas? I can't find any evidence of a critter anywhere. thank you all for helping. The crosscut stem looks like it has hardened around the outer rim. Not sure if that is anything.

-Crosscut at base of stem.

jennycatoe's ideas · More Info

-length of stem cut near the base

jennycatoe's ideas · More Info

- roots of plant

jennycatoe's ideas · More Info

humsi- gophers leave big mounds of dug up soil. As forgotten mentioned there are some small holes in the pics. I would suspect voles (field mice) that leave little holes just like that. Nancy

nancyjane, they leave big mounds of dug up soil around the entrances/exits to their tunnels. Tunnels can extend forever (invisibly) underground, and normally feeding holes will not have any mounding around them, just a hole. They will also eat the roots right out from under the plants from their tunnels without even coming above ground (can't tell you how many suddenly dead plants I've literally just gently pulled from the ground with no roots, and found a tunnel underneath). We resort to raised beds and, if we must plant in the ground, everything goes in a wire gopher basket. I'm talking about the pocket gophers we have down here, not sure about the tunneling habits of other gopher types.

I once had a similar wilting problem with my tomato plants. It turned out to have been caused by white flies, They are very small winged insects that suck the juice out of the plants on the under side of the leaves.

Thank you GardenDan. I'm going to go check under the leaves and see if there is anything. I can't find any real evidence of voles. I've contacted the Clemson university to see if they can identify the issue and will post if I finally determine anything. My father in law told me he planted 50 tomato plants here about 3 years ago and he lost every one of them to this problem. Others seem to be wilting now.

Update: Bacterial Wilt was the results from the lab test. I lost all 22 plants.