That doesn't look like any of the blights, especially not Early Blight. Looks exactly like flea beetle damage,

Dave

I think you may be right based on other similar photos on the net. Should I just moisten the leaves and give them a dusting of DE? I usually don't start DE application until my pepper leaves start getting slug damage in late June.

Your choice. I don't worry about flea beetles. Their damage is just an appearance issue and seldom any threat to the plant. And they are nearly impossible to kill anyway. I prefer not to create risks for my beneficial insects when it is just an appearance thing.

Dave

Thanks for confirming. After looking further into it, it seems to be less of an issue as the tomato plant rapidly grows upwards.

In my opinion , those white spots can be due to sun burn. When (during hardening off) small droplets of water stay on the leaf, under bright sun, they acts like magnifying glass, buring the leaf. The effect will be initially a damage to the tissues that is not visual, but as the damaged tissues die and dry out , you will see the white blotches or dots. Somehow this happens to the older lower leaves, mostly. JMO

Well, I was very careful in hardening them off, more so than in previous years and I had good results then. This year I did it over the course of about 10 days. The warmer than usual early days of May made the job easier this year. They did not see any direct sunlight until about day 4 when I started giving them some late afternoon soon. Evenutally I gave them some morning sun, followed by shade, then some late afternoon sun. Then eventually full sun for about 3-4 days before transplant. What really stinks is we're in the middle of a cool down here. Temps are expected to drop to the low 40s tonight and tomorrow and the wind gusts are pretty strong here in NJ today. Despite the loose 5-1-1- medium they are in, they are holding up so far.

Your mix looks great! I had a young plant be broken by a sudden windstorm once, so now I always stake even when they're teeny.

Looks like flea beetle damage or maybe you spilled a few drops of liquid fertilizer onto the leaves.

Seysonne, I used to grow plants at a commercial nursery just outside of Houston TX and I can tell you that I have never seen water droplets burn ANY kind of plant. We irrigated most of our 300 acres of crops with overhead sprinklers. And it gets hot and sunny in Houston! I believe that is a wive's tale? Have you personally seen it happen?

NCR... I was talking about the plants in hardening off stage.. , not in the greenhouse or in the field during the season.

Have I have seen it to happen ? YES just this season.
I must say that it is not crucial. You can just ignore it.

ON flea beetles : I have never seen flea beetles to be interested in tomato plants. They Love peppers, eggplants, tomatollos.
One more thing: Flea beetle make holes, perforation. I enlarged njitgrad's picture. There are no holes but white dots/blotches.

Well they are just white blotches, not holes so I don't know what to think now. Two days before planting I did briefly dunk all of my durapots in a liquid organic MG fertilizer solution so the leaves may have gotten wet and the flats were subsequently placed in direct sun on a warm afternoon. But not all branches are affected. I will check all 12 of my plants later today.

Yea, njt, ... fertilizer burn is another possibility. But definitely not Flea Beetle work.
But whatever it is, I would just ignore it. Unless you see more new occurance .

Sey

It is flea beetles. I just checked outside and saw little black specs on my Sweet Chelsea leaves. When I went to touch them they hopped off into the darkness. So I guess it's time for an application of DE, right? Should I wet the leaves and dust it under the leaves? Or just spread it at the base of the plant on top of my 5-1-1 mix? What's interesting is that they were on the higher branches instead of the lower ones closest to the growing mix.

I had spots just like those on my tomatoes. As they only occurred on the older, yellowing leaves, similar to your pic, and wasn't a perforation through the leaf but rather looked like a burn mark, I assumed it was environmental (i.e. sunburn), related to transplant shock and a mediocre job hardening off, rather than flea beetles. I had flea beetles pretty bad last year, and they ate up the potatoes and the eggplants pretty bad, but ignored the tomatoes.

Mine seem to have more of those spots this year too. I was thinking it had something to do with the cooler, wet spring......but I don't think it's a big problem.