My tomatoes are turning to ash !

10 years ago

I got my first ever nice, fairly tall tomato plants growing in my garden in sunny tropical SEA (something like 200km from Saigon).
However, first one and now several seem to be turning to ash from top buds or leaves, but in the worse cases also further down the plant (in the pictures it's from the top).

The soil is approximately 40% EWC, 30% boiled and washed rice husks and 30% Finnish peat moss, with some organic fertilizer stuff (fish bits and blended rotted bubbled greens) and some crushed sea shells.
There's Devilish little 2 year old who has been watering them a tad too much, which ultimately killed one plant before I got it stopped and I'm suspecting maybe the remaining plants getting too wet has given them some kind of fungal thing or ?

Featured Answer

ronalawn82

10 years ago

mriimmilee, the condition appears to affect the youngest leaves on a vegetative growing point. Reproductive (flowering) growing points off the same main stem appear to be unaffected (as yet).

I cannot decide if the flowers are drooping. You are in a better position to know. If they are indeed drooping, there might well be a condition at the roots; that is causing the decline / death at the growing tips. The vegetative leaves will respond more quickly than the reproductive flowers.

There is the hopeful sign that the stalks below the 'ashen' leaves appear quite healthy. I would snip off the affected leaves with sharp, sterilized blade. You mention other plants that have died. Did they show similar symptoms? Did you confirm overwatering as a contributing condition.

Long ago and far away, we used rice husks as a soil conditioner for the kitchen garden. It was spread in a thick layer and set afire. It burnt very slowly but grew good crops afterward. I have no experience with any of the components of your potting mix.

One of the best pieces of advice I have ever got, came from an Entomologist. "When you decide to discard a plant; for whatever reason, always do a post mortem. You will either learn or confirm something. He was right most of the time.. The rest of the time I confirmed that I learned nothing.

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Comments (9)

ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
10 years ago
i am sure you will get an answer here ....

but there are two or 3 very active tomato forums ... and in least one.. they specialize in container growing ...

ken
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mrjimmilee
Original Author
10 years ago
Thank you for your quick replies.

Ken - could you point me towards the container growing forum for tomatoes?

Ronalawn81 - the plant that was taken out of circulation had the ashen issue to a much further degree, with dropping leaves and it was almost falling over (they're held up by fishing line). I'm holding back on watering and I'm checking the PH value, since the little girl that has been watering them (this has been put to a stop already) was using drinking water with a rather low PH value.

My potting mix consist of rice husks/hulls as a substitute for perlite/vermiculite and I used peat moss and earth worm poop apart from rice husks. The issues with perlite (floats to top, isn't renewable and isn't available in SEA) meant that Rice Husks are much preferred, but as I have to prepare them myself (straight from the rice mill) perhaps boiling them for 5-10 minutes wasn't enough or I need to do more washing and scrubbing and PH neutralization before mixing it in the soil perhaps.
I'm surprised you haven't heard of EWC or peat moss, as I thought they're pretty universal.

Anyhow - this kind of plant disease - I figure it must be systemic and I fear I can't do anything to reverse it. I figure I might be able to slow it down by preventing over watering, but once it's in the plant it stays there. If this is the case, the clones I took from the plants might also be infected! I'll start new plants and a green house that'll be locked (preventing babies, rats and other destructive elements from entering).

Would still be nice to figure out more precisely what ails them though...
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
10 years ago
have you tried a tomato forum?? .. i would be very curious if you did ... could you link us to that post ... just copy paste your original question ... to a new post in those forums ...

your water devil story cracked me up ...

ken
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
10 years ago
I figure I might be able to slow it down by preventing over watering,... If this is the case,...

==>>> one of the best local greenhouse growers ... does not water a pot.. until the plant wilts slightly ... letting the media near completely dry ...

he says it causes a response from the plant.. perhaps a hormone release ... and inspires the plant to grow more roots ... etc ...

now.. whether he would do that when fruit is hanging on the plant is another question ... but by then... you ought to have some idea how long the period is between waterings ...

perhaps an experiment for next year ... plant one pot just for an experiment ...

ken
mrjimmilee
Original Author
10 years ago
Hi ken_adrian - yes children really are one of the worst pests, at least in a garden and when not under strict supervision. I usually let plants go fairly dry before watering, among other reasons the potting soil I make from coco peat or peat moss, with rice husks and earth worm castings, tend to be a bit on the heavy side (haven't got enough of the peat), which also means daily watering will be a problem.
Since I'm in a tropical South East Asian country, I don't have to wait a year, but rather could just start some new one and I do have 5 clones coming from these plants.
I'll search for the fabled Tomato forum and try to make some pictures that encompass more of the whole situation . . .
mrjimmilee
Original Author
10 years ago
OK, so this whole post/thread has been moved to the tomato pest forum:
http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/3631768/m=23/my-tomatoes-are-turning-to-ash
ken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
10 years ago
i once planting a couple dozen named hosta with name tags... and my babe ... when i was done and cleaning up the mess.. brought me all the tags and told me i forgot them ... lol ...

plant the kids a couple pots that our theirs .... for them to take care of... and teach them to leave yours alone ....

ken
rgreen48
10 years ago
I'd consider putting it in the Growing Tomatoes forum. It's the most active tomato forum on the site, and you'll certainly get a few more responses.