Sey - you must be psychic!!

In addition to the high daytime temps we definitely had a few evenings of heavy and soaking rains. Within the last three weeks I'd say at least three long sustained storms with 2" of rain at least. I'd say there were also a couple times where constant on-and-off light rain kept the yard damp for a period of time, never had a chance to fully dry out. With that said, still standing by...

Your mention of "not enough oxygen" touched off something in my brain just now. Out of nowhere, just recalled a random afternoon from last July where I knelt over the tomato patch with a dandelion puller in hand and stabbed 10-15 little holes into the soil around a few of my plants. I know this was done on advice from my Excitable Italian Uncle, but I can't remember what problem the E.I.U. and I had been discussing that day. But I do remember that later that week the plants seemed a heck of a lot happier in general. I reckon I'll give it a try tonight when I get home, what's the worst that could happen....?

Well.... stabbed the hole in the soil, and in the meantime Baltimore has had one heavy soaking rainstorm and two lighter sprinkles. And yet, the PR plants are looking even worse. Basically devoid of 80% of foliage now. Those leaves that do remain look bright + healthy, but are pointing straight south at this time.

Fruit still looks great, but I'm fearing that once I pick that, that'll
be the end of these particular plants. Too sad to contemplate! I mean, seriously! So will there any further diagnoses from the Dr. Houses of the tomato world...?

I don't know if it is a problem where you live, but mine acted just like that when I had bacterial wilt a couple weeks ago. Once it wilted, it never recovered. I actually thought it was too much fertilizer and rain, but it got worse each day. The only way to know though is putting a cut stem in water and looking for white ooze.

I DON'T want you to go pulling and cutting your plant yet based on what I say because I am by all means, nowhere near as experienced as some on this forum. If you really wanted to test it, see if you can find a sucker close to the base of the plant and cut it and test, that way you don't lose the whole plant. That is what I did before jumping to a bad conclusion. And, like I said. I don't even know if it is a problem in your area.

Anyone else have ideas?

Dawn

yeah, looks like wilt to me too. Had one plant succumb last year.

Dawn and Linda - appreciate the advice on the bacterial wilt. I don't think I'd heard of this before. I really need a 1-pg tomato disease cheat sheet to keep track of all these things.

If I can find a low piece of branch to discreetly remove, I'll try the white ooze test tonight.

One more rookie question: what about eating the tomatoes from these plants, if it really is bacterial wilt? They're all coming along great and maybe showing a bit of ripe color. Would hate to throw them out, but don't want to get bacteria-fied myself. Advice on that??

mister_caledon wrote:
> I really need a 1-pg tomato disease cheat sheet to keep track of all these things.

Mister, this might help:

Tomato Disease Identification Key By Affected Plant Part: Stem and Whole Plant Symptoms (Cornell University)

Don't know the answer, but loved the "bacteria-fied" comment.

You can eat it. All those fungal bacterial problems specific only to plants, so eating tomatoes is safe.

Just checked in with my Excitable Italian Uncle who took three of the PR plants that I had raised. The E.I.U. lives in SE Pennsylvania and tells me he's having similar symptoms on one of them. Pruned it aggressively two days ago but the remaining foliage is getting worse. Could this problem be due to a bad batch of seeds? Or something I did wrong while raising indoors or hardening off?

mister, not sure if you saw my message above...

Daniel, I did peruse the webpage that you linked to. Bacterial wilt looks likely but I didn't see anything about root causes (no pun intended!). Just did some reading up on other pages... looks like causes may include:
- Damage to roots or stems of young plants (don't think so)
- Root knot nematodes (don't think so)
- Insect or animal damage to roots or stems (doubtful?)
- Plants not spaced far enough apart (meh)
- Very hot weather (yes!)
- High humidity and/or rainy period that has left ground constantly saturated (yes!)

Most distressing are the warnings that "the bacteria can survive in the soil for up to three years, even in the absence of host plants". I'm not terribly interested in the suggestion to rotate other veggies into that same spot like cabbage or corn. So is my best option to yank the plants and scoop out/throw away the soil in the area where they had been planted? Ack...

Any plants that look sick to me I pull up n throw away I had a plant look bad early in the year and pulled it. Looked like some kind of Wilt. We have crazy weather here cold and super rainy storms and more rain a tiny bit of heat and humidity and now cloudy and cool and rainy. Guess we won't have any summer here. I have been reading about using corn meal as an anti something. Had a plant with some brown spots on the lower leaves. Removed all of them and put about 2 cups of cornmeal around the base of the plant. It doesn't look worse so far but if it does it will be pulled too. But with heavy rains every day or every other day and cool temps, it's not really great for tomatoes and peppers. I wish you luck. Oh and it is very advisible to rotate crops every year. I know it is very difficult if you have a small space to garden.

The mystery deepens!

I told the Excitable Italian Uncle about the wilt question, and how one could cut a stem piece and put it in a glass of water to watch the whitish bacteria oozing out. There was no stopping him.... he ripped that sucker out and did the water test. No ooze.

As a double-blind experiment, he did have a big spare seedling which he then placed in the same garden spot as the sick PR. Tilled in a little lime as he did so, too. Will see how that guy fares once we get closer to mid-summer...

Oh I One I pulled out I replanted anew plant in the same spot. It is okay so far. I put cornmeal just in case it helps do something lol.

Mister, how do your plants look today? Did your excitable Italian uncle look at the stem he cut by any chance and notice if it was discolored? When I cut mine, it was definitely brown, then when I put it in the water, the ooze came within about a minute or two. Mine was in unmistakeable.

I have read bacterial wilt can start in the soil or infected seed, which would explain why both of you are having problems (if it turns out that is what it is). I also just replanted spare plants in the same spot yesterday, so will see if it causes problems. The general advice for bacterial wilt is avoid the area for three years, so I will be replacing my bed in August. I still have an unknown disease in my garden no one has been able to solve for like 3 years, so don't feel bad.

Dawn

I really do appreciate all the advice and consolation, guys :)

As of now (Saturday afternoon) my plants are looking sadder still. Only one or two clusters of leaves have any pep left in them at all. And currently in the midst of a full day/night of steady rain. Boo hiss. So it's probably inevitable that they're gonna get pulled this weekend.

The E.I.U. did do a close visual check of the stem, cut lengthwise and crosswise. Reported that everything looked quite green and healthy. Meanwhile the two other friends who took my PR seedlings reported back with no symptoms of wilt.

Suppose I'll post the results of the water/white ooze test here later.

Also I spent $1.50 on two new little plants at this morning's farmers market. Both are more in the mainstream/hybrid/disease-resistant realm of tomato-dom. I figure I'll pot them up and put them in place of the PR's once they're relatively tall. It's late in the season but hey, what have I got to lose. If they get hit with the wilt, then $1.50 isn't that much to spend on a "live in-situ" soil test.....

Forgot to circle back here - I pulled both PR plants over the weekend, and they in fact PASSED the cut-stem-in-water test. No ooze. Inside of the stem looked nice and green and healthy too.

If not bacterial wilt then I'm with Sey's topmost post... too much rain and maybe not enough mulch probably spelled doom for these guys. The heavy soaking rains we've had this June have really been crazy, and I'm obviously not the only one. These were the smallest of all my plants, too, so perhaps the most sensitive, whereas the bigger guys rode it out a little better.

Little market plants are up on deck (Big Beef, MT Fresh) and hopefully can go into the raised bed in another few weeks..... and the Circle of Life will continue (cue 'Lion King' soundtrack).