Grow Your Own Magazine

My tomato plants seem to have done well (on my first attempt) and have shot up. But I have noticed 3 potential problems -

1) Yellow/White spots on the leaves, any idea what this is?



2) Little bumps on the stem, kind of like little bubbles - or like something is growing inside and is going to burst out like that alien film...



3) The leaves are starting to curl inwards - what does this mean? They are too hot? Too little water? too much water?



I'm just a newbie so all help welcomed...

mine all have bumps. you know if you plant them deep then the stem will root and i have alwasy just assumed the bumps were to do with that. never caused any probs. the leaves look wilted to me which i would assume to be lack of water and i dont know about the top photo

Picture three is due to too much heat and not enough water. When tomatoes go over 25 degrees they stop forming fruit until the temperature goes down. If they are in a sunny greenhouse try shading the glass during the hottest periods. Damping down the floor will also help cool things down a little.

Hello JXM, I agree with Leona about probs 2 and 3. As to the yellow spots its hard to be sure from the photo but if the leaves continue to go yellow it might be a magnesium deficeincy. Watch them, and if yellowing continues spray them with Epsom Salts (magnesium sulphate) You can buy it in the chemist. Mix 6 Teaspoons in a pint of water and spray it over the tomatoes every day for 5 days. If magnesium deficiency is the problem you will see almost instant results. Do let us know how you get on. I had the same problem myself and got the Epsom Salt remedy from the Vine with miraculous results.Thanks to everybody who contributed to that.

Your spotty leaves may be red spider mite. Try keeping the greenhouse damped down as they like Hot & dry not humid.

If you look at the plants thru a magnifyig glass you may just see them, they'll be a browny colour at the moment. not to be confused withthe little red spiders that you get on concrete etc

__________________
ntg

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.
A large group of professionals built the Titanic

http://grief-encounters.blogspot.com/

Yes the leaves are going yellowy - but also on the underneath of the leaves there are a few little brown dots... so it could be the spider mite thing - do they cause this type of problem?

Whatever it is, it is spreading fast - what do I do about the mites?

Spray the leaves with some soapy water. This will do two things,

1. Help keep things moist which they don't like
2. Smother the little buggers in soapy water & thereby suffocating them

You may need to do it a few times.

You coud give them a bit of Epsoms salts as well it won't hurt them

__________________
ntg

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.
A large group of professionals built the Titanic

http://grief-encounters.blogspot.com/

The 'little bumps' are normal.My toms leaves are curling as in photo, but they are outside in semi-shade, and are well watered.Thought perhaps watering to much,but don't know now!!!!

I grew tomatoes for the first time this year in the greenhouse and took all the precautions by providing shade from the sun and keeping well watered and fed and all the plants have burnt to a crisp! My parents reckon its because I used growbags and should have used big pots instead. Does anyone else have any input as too why this happened?

quite a few of mine got burned before i shaded the greenhouse but i just took the damanged leaves off and they are fine now

It is looking like my problem was indeed red spider mite. I hosed them down with red spider mite killing stuff which seems to have been partially successful.

What do I do about the affected branches? should I chop them off? If so is there a special place to cut them - ie. near a bud? or just hack it off near the main stem?

On one plant this problem has affected the bottom half of the plant - what will happen if I chop off all the lower stems? will it survive? will it still produce tomatoes?

The bumps on the stem are the beginning of roots.

Drooping leaves - I have several varieties of toms in my greenhouse and it is just the one variety that is droopy.

According to one of my books, you get leaf curl like that on tomatoes if there is too great a difference between night and day time temperatures. Don't know if that helps.

Quite a few of my tom plants have curly leaves(my daughters and daughter in laws plants are the same) but the plants are still growing well,so I'm not bothered!If I get any damaged looking leaves of any sort I just take of that leaf.If whole stem,as long as not main one I pinch whole stem off. The main plant carries on growing.