Tomato plants suddenly dying!

[bhostasa]

Hi all -

We've had a great garden every year for last 8 years in the exact same spot. This year was going just as well as years past until about a week ago. We have about 15 tomato plants and all of them looked really good. About 4' tall, fruit all over them, thick stalks, etc. Suddenly, one of them starting drooping and looking sick. I ended up pulling it out and discarding it to keep whatever the problem was from spreading.

I just went out and check the garden this evening and seems to be spreading to 3-4 other plants. Anyone have any ideas or having this problem? I've got a mix of Early Girls, Better Boys, Beef Steaks, Cherry and Romas. We had a ton of rain lately but the garden area has always drained well.

I'm starting to panic! Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

thanks!

 

[themichelob]

bhostasa--any indication that you have gophers working in your garden? If they are munching on the roots, the plants will surely look sick and die. Any other symptoms of disease on the dying plants? Hope you figure it out before they're all gone. Regards, Mike

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Gophers will do it. It is almost instantaneous, and the plant pulls up very easily, revealing the lack of roots. I fought that for several years, then decided to make a basket out of hardware cloth, and plant my tomatoes in it. That solved my problem. They got a couple of my un-basketed pepper plants this year though; peppers, in the past, have not been very attractive.

 

[gwdixon]

Don't want to be an alarmist but it may be Tobacco Virus. An indicator is that the center of the plant turns brown first and it goes downhill from there.

Google "Tomato tobacco mosaic virus" (TMV) for photos to compare. It is spread by a small wasp and is incurable if I remember correctly.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Tomato+tobacco+virus&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a#gs_rn=20&gs_ri=psy-ab&gs_mss=Tomato%20tobacco%20mos%20virus&pq=tomato%20tobacco%20virus&cp=19&gs_id=3f&xhr=t&q=tomato+tobacco+mosaic+virus&es_nrs=true&pf=p&client=firefox-a&hs=zyQ&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&sclient=psy-ab&oq=Tomato+tobacco+mosi+virus&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.49147516,d.cGE&fp=9ed980586318a08a&biw=1092&bih=673

I've had it in my garden and it is devastating. The only cure is to spray with insecticide regularly - like every 10 days from when they are small. If you are an organic gardener then you're SOL.

 

[jinman]

Without pictures, it's nearly impossible to diagnose your problem, but here is a link to sets of pictures that describe 100s of problems that can infect your tomatoes.

 

[sam5570]

did you notice the plants you pulled up were the stems that were under the ground the same size as the stem above ground? there is a worm that eats the center of the stalk and kills the plant. I have had it happen to some of mine every year, just had one so far this year

 

[Paddy]

I'm with Jinman. These modern varieties have dozens of issues. Most will tell you plant somewhere else, rotate your crop. We are in large pots so we just dump the dirt and start again. Bummer though. Hope you find the critter.

 

[bhostasa]

I tried to attach a few pictures of one if the plants. Hopefully it worked.

The root system seemed very strong on the plant that I removed. No indication of moles.

Hopefully the pictures help. Thanks for the advice guys.

 

[jinman]

Brad, have you had a long period of mostly rain and cloudy skies followed by several days of clear skies and hot sunshine? I've seen plants shocked by a sudden change in average temperatures or going to hot sunny weather after a long period of rain. The plants never develop a deep system of roots and then they are challenged to supply the plant with water from an undeveloped root system. Your photos seem to show the wilting is from the top-down rather than bottom-up. Being unable to take up enough water quickly enough would do that, but the plants should show recovery overnight. If they don't recover, then it looks like Southern Blight might be the problem.

 

[sam5570]

if they have blight you can dig a circle about 3" from the plant put one teaspoon of Epson salt in the circle cover up and water. this has worked for us several times

 

[MossRoad]

I tried to attach a few pictures of one if the plants. Hopefully it worked.

The root system seemed very strong on the plant that I removed. No indication of moles.

Hopefully the pictures help. Thanks for the advice guys.

I can't see any yellowing of the leaves and its the entire plant limp, not working its way up or down. Unless I'm not seeing it in the pictures. Is the ground saturated under them? They look overwatered to me. I'm raising tomators in bucket for a few years to get a disease out of my garden soil. One of the buckets drains plugged and my plant wilted and fell over. I drilled holes in the bucket, the thing drained and two days later it popped back up. So, I see you have plastic mulch, which is great for weeds and saves water because it blocks evaporation, but it also traps water, so just see if the soil is saturated to satisfy my curiosity.

Also, moles do little damage to plants and are actually benificial to soil areation and water penetration. Moles are meat eaters, not vegitarians. They eat primarily earthworms and ground insects like grubs, not plants.

 

[Dishpointer]

Aphid infestations will show the same symptoms. They pierce the plants and draw out the moisture. Check for tiny bugs on the stems of the plants and if present, spray/dust with sevin.

 

[troutsqueezer]

Hit the appropriate forum and ask there. You'll get some good answers.

Tomatoville® Gardening Forums

 

[MossRoad]

How's your 'maters this week? Just curious.

 

[CliffordK]

My biggest problem is that I'll go out to the garden and find my tomatoes with absolutely no foliage on them. But, I know what causes that problem (brown, white tail, and weigh about 200 lbs).

I decided to try to plant the tomatoes on my back deck this year to see if I can do a little better.

It sounds like something has been compromising your root system. Did you buy nursery stock? Perhaps you should talk to the nursery.

 

[stuckmotor]

The linked article gives a list of various resistant varietys and what they resist. If you can find something in the list that none of your affected plants are resistant to. You might have the culprit. Resistant Tomato Varieties - The Best Approach to Wilt and Nematode Problems

 

[joshuabardwell]

My biggest problem is that I'll go out to the garden and find my tomatoes with absolutely no foliage on them. But, I know what causes that problem (brown, white tail, and weigh about 200 lbs).

You know what goes good with tomatoes?

Venison!

 

[MossRoad]

You know what goes good with tomatoes?

Venison!

And rabbit, too.

 

[bhostasa]

Well, I'll cautiously say that they look a tiny bit better. Whatever was affecting the tomatoes has spread a bit (4 tomato plants, 3 pepper plants). The plants feel a little stronger but they're still nowhere close to where they were a couple of weeks ago.

I've been trying not to panic and put tons of chemicals on them. I try to avoid that method anyway but i wanted to let the soil dry out and see if the heavy rain was the culprit. I'm gong to give it another couple of days and see how they're doing.

At this point, cucumbers, strawberries, basil, cilantro and mint are all doing really well. Fingers crossed on the sweet corn, peppers and tomatoes. Thanks for all the advice guys. I'll keep you posted!

One more thing, I've had really good luck with critter control by using the liquid fence around the perimeter of the garden. Just throwing that our there!

 

[joshuabardwell]

I reckon you can quit worrying about basil, cilantro, and especially mint. I have some mint growing ornamentally in a garden bed near my house. When it gets long and leggy, I just mow it down with the weed whacker, and it comes back, fresher and stronger than ever. Mint will spread like a weed, given a chance. You can't hardly keep it down.