They look ok,, to me, and not like dying,

Falling lower leaves is normal, especially for big plants like yours, still inside.

Have you now and then delayed watering, seem them wilt ? Or maybe you are watering too much ! and they don't get as much light ?

sey

I agree that the upper leaves do look healthy (at least for now :P ). But what about the stuff on the stems? The plants that have the most of that white, slimy stuff are the ones that have the most severe wilting and leaf loss. The stuff is not baby root bumps - it is slimy and wipes off, but wiping it off leaves a lesion on the stem. I was wondering about some sort of infection (fungal?).

what are the growing temps inside like?

Looks like leaf and stem edema to me. They have been in and out and in and out for some reason. Why?

That is very stressful for them readjusting to the changing environments. Adapting their water needs all the time creates inconsistent watering by the grower (especially in small pots) since they dry out outside and then have too much inside. It's like a person going on a bender one day and then having to deal with the heavy thrist the next. ;-) The plant attempts to compensate for it. Cells swell to store water when available and then rupture.

And at that size they are also probably rootbound which only makes the stress worse.

Transplant them - either into the ground or into bigger pots and put them out and leave them out.

Dave

I don't know if you put all that fallen necrotic leaf tissue in the pot on purpose for the photo op, but that should all be removed. Take a look at it first for evidence of white mold or powdery mildew which doesn't seem as likely. It is hard to see detail there of the 'stem spotting'. Are they just adventitious roots?

The potting soil could contain any kind of fungi (mostly benign, but maybe not all) that feed on wood and other things in it. Insufficient light, coolness, dampness, and still air promote mold and fungi... as you mentioned bring them out and hardening them off is probably the best thing at this stage and fingers crossed it's no powdery mildew. The stem seems thin and tall to me but no mention of the variety. Could just be the combo of insufficient light, poor fertilization weakening the plants and promoting some decay? They need to leave these confines!

Cheers

PC

Chippah - Temps in the house are generally in the 60's, but under the plant lights by the window I'm sure they're in the 70's during the day.

Digdirt - I start taking them out for part of the day as my first step in hardening them off. Is this wrong? Where I live, we still see lows in the mid-40's in May (and had a nice hailstorm on Tuesday). I thought tomatoes didn't like it that cold and did better with more protection. They will be going out into the garden soon (probably next weekend).

I haven't heard of stem edema - can you tell me more about that?

Pupilla -

- I don't see any white mold or powdery mildew.

-The tomatoes are leggy - that seems to be the best I can do with my current setup. They usually do fine out in the garden. The leggy appearance is also exaggerated because of loss of the bottom leaves.

- The pale, irregular, white-green spots on the main stem in the first photo are not adventitious roots. I can take the pad of my finger and wipe them off - they're wet and sort of slimy. Wiping them off does not reveal normal stem, though - there's a damaged area under them. The affected plants have these spots, and the unaffected plants don't have them (and the more spots, the more severely affected the plant is), so I think they have to be significant. I just don't know what they are.

Thanks, all. I'm open to more comments.

Barbara, by "oedema", Dave is referring to the "intumescences"
described in the following article, which the author suggest ....
hardening your plants off yesterday as UV light seems to be preventative
:-). The rupturing, supposedly caused by uptake of water, swelling and
inability to transpire due to moist cool conditions, can invite all sorts of secondary infection,
but if those are benign, the solution is to get the plants out, and they
can recover fine ... being sure hardening off gradually. The UV light is proposed to prevent the condition though they comment that nobody at that time really could pin down perfectly why it happens and some varieties are more susceptible than others. Great article:

Oedema and Intumenscence in tomato, etc.

Cheers

PC

I think that's it. My leaves look very much like that. I found another article that includes photos of affected stems, closely resembling not the active bumps, but the lesions left after the bumps are gone.

I'll get the plants out today. I'll leave them on my covered patio and cover them at night, and into the garden probably on Sunday.

No question you are correct. The sliminess suggests to me the stem lesions could be infected and that with the complaint there are dying leaves and plants make me wonder since the severity of the condition in the leaves is relatively mild IMO. Potential infection is what, if anything, I would be concerned about as I got them hardened off.

I still think the leaves are falling due to the poor lighting and other combo contributing to less than optimal conditions. In what I've had, the leaves just dry and flake bits selectively where the bumps are, so I have a hard time believing it would be slimy on the stem and would like to know.

Cheers

PC