What's wrong with my tomatoes?

   / What's wrong with my tomatoes? #1  

Pilot

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Oregon
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JD 770, Yanmar 180D, JD 420 (not running), had a Kubota B6200
We have tomatoes in a new raised bed where no tomatoes have ever been grown before. The plants are doing well, but one variety, "Legend" is producing strange fruit. The end opposite the stem dies and turns gray-brown and since the end dies & stops growing, the fruit ends up flattened. So we may have a 3" diameter tomato, but only 1.5" from stem to tip. The rest of the tomato is fine. The tomatoes are not on the ground.

Other tomatoes in the same raised bed are fine.

Any ideas?

Thanks.
 
   / What's wrong with my tomatoes? #2  
Did the seeds come from Gilligan's Island ?
 
   / What's wrong with my tomatoes? #3  
Pilot, The same thing is happening to my Roma tomatoes in my raised bed garden. The cause in my garden is the Leafooted bug which sucks the juice from the end of the tomato and caused it to turn gray-brown. The organic way to control this bug is to use citrus oil spray. If you spray water on the tomato plant you might see some of these bugs fly.
They have also been attacking the tunas on my prickly pear cactus.
Leaffooted bug
 
   / What's wrong with my tomatoes? #4  
txdon said:
Pilot, The same thing is happening to my Roma tomatoes in my raised bed garden. The cause in my garden is the Leafooted bug which sucks the juice from the end of the tomato and caused it to turn gray-brown. The organic way to control this bug is to use citrus oil spray. If you spray water on the tomato plant you might see some of these bugs fly.
They have also been attacking the tunas on my prickly pear cactus.
Leaffooted bug

I've always heard things were bigger in Texas. Takes a pretty tough fish to take on a cactus. Must be one **** of a bug ;)
 
   / What's wrong with my tomatoes?
  • Thread Starter
#6  
Jinman, thanks for the link. Looks like blossom end rot. I'll have to Google that & learn more. At least now I have some words for Google! You link suggests calcium deficiency, which could be the case since we have lots of rain & acidic soils.
 
   / What's wrong with my tomatoes? #7  
I was going to suggest blossom end rot. The cause is typically inconsistent watering.
 
   / What's wrong with my tomatoes? #8  
Pilot said:
We have tomatoes in a new raised bed where no tomatoes have ever been grown before. The plants are doing well, but one variety, "Legend" is producing strange fruit. The end opposite the stem dies and turns gray-brown and since the end dies & stops growing, the fruit ends up flattened. So we may have a 3" diameter tomato, but only 1.5" from stem to tip. The rest of the tomato is fine. The tomatoes are not on the ground.

Other tomatoes in the same raised bed are fine.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

As others have said it does look like blossom end rot, but there might be more to it than that. Would you care to give a rough "map" of how you grew those tomatoes? Info on how you started them, soil, type of gardening (chemical or organic), watering details, etc. I've been growing tomatoes for a long time and I can probably help you avoid BER and many other problems.
 
 
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