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