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m_gold

Why are my tomato leaves yellow/brown?

9 years ago

Is this a lack of nutrients or a disease or a watering issue? A few leaves at the bottom are looking like these in the picture below. The rest of the plant is a hunter green color and looks great to my amateur eye. There are also quite a few small green tomatoes starting to grow.

please help.

Comments (12)

  • 9 years ago

    Agree, prune and keep track of future developments. Hope you are spraying regularly with some kind of fungicide.

    m_gold thanked edweather USDA 9a, HZ 9, Sunset 28
  • 9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    if you haven't already, once tomatoes set fruit it's good idea to give them fertilizer with slightly higher nitrogen.. not implying your leaves are yellowing due to lack of nutrient, as there are several things that can cause it.. but if i had to guess, it's one of the reasons.

    m_gold thanked stevie
  • 9 years ago

    Thanks to the addvice, I have this plant a 9-3-6 fertilizer last week.

    I waited to see the results and I'm seeing more browning and leaf death but not as much overall yellow. It doesn't look like one leaf shriveled up (pic below) and I'm not sure if it's related but one of my green tomatoes had a hole in it (possibly unrelated). I'm including pictures below and hopefully this updated info can help someone offer me more help.

    Thank you


  • 9 years ago

    For what it's worth, this is all happening at or near the bottom leaves. The top of the plant and most of the middle is a good color green, like this.


  • 9 years ago

    Is the plant in-ground?

    m_gold thanked gorbelly
  • 9 years ago

    Raised bed garden @gorbelly

  • 9 years ago

    Are you sure you're watering enough/water is getting to the root zone effectively? It really looks like drought stress to me.

    At any rate, aside from double-checking your watering and adjusting it if necessary, all you can do is keep pruning off affected foliage and spray fungicide regularly.

    The fruit looks like it has BER. It can occasionally occur on the side of the fruit, and I think I see signs of it internally at the bottom as well. This would support a problem with watering.

    The leaf in the third pic is wilted because it's broken. Probably damage from a storm/wind, an animal, or even from you as you work on the plant/tie it up/etc.

    I really think this is all an issue with watering.

    m_gold thanked gorbelly
  • 9 years ago

    @gorbelly

    thank you.


    Mother Nature will be dropping about 2 inches of rain slowly and constantly all day today. Hopefully that helps and I will reassess. Thanks

  • 9 years ago

    FWIW, my experience with drought stress is that appearance of yellowing and browning is often delayed by a few days from the stress that caused it. If I walk out and see that my plants are wilting, I water them, and they seem to perk back up fine. But a few days later, the leaves that were most wilted will often start to show browning and yellowing after the fact.

    m_gold thanked gorbelly
  • 9 years ago

    I'm now noticing Brown dots on the leaves. Does this offer any more clues as to the problem and solution?


    the plant also looks leggy(that might not be the right term). As my other tomato plants are full almost like a bush. This tomato plant seems to have larger gaps between the leaves and fewer leaves. This could be underrated. Thanks

  • 9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    That looks like a different problem than your original. Looks like bacterial speck, perhaps taking advantage of a weakened plant.

    I like Serenade against bacterial speck. It seems to work a little better for me than copper against this particular disease. But you may want to use copper, as it's more effective against more diseases. Nothing will cure the plant now, only slow down disease progress.

    Speck is typically slow-moving and you can usually keep a plant going until frost if you spray regularly and prune off diseased foliage diligently.

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