What's wrong with my tomatoes?

[britesea]

The leaves of my tomatoes have curled up until some of them resemble a fiddlehead fern. I've never seen this on tomatoes before... can someone give me an idea of what's going on? I just found out my son had not been deep watering them so my first thought was water stress. I deep watered them yesterday but I see no change yet.

 

[Smart Red]

Here are a few reasons for tomato leaf curling. What I see -- here in south-est, central-est Wisconsin -- looks like herbicide damage. That causes the fiddlehead fern look.

What are your neighbors doing?

 

[Collector]

I have not saw them do that before, hope it turns out ok!

 

[PhilaGardener]

Did you use any compost from outside sources? There have been increasing issues with herbicide contamination in municipal and commercial compost that have been causing all sorts of problems for folks. I hope you find out what is causing it soon!

http://smallfarms.oregonstate.edu/sfn/f09Herbicide

 

[journey11]

They don't really look like heat/lack of water stress, do they. I've always seen them curl parallel to the center vein, not all balled up like that. They don't have that dry, crispy look or any browning of the margins either. Doesn't look like any disease that I am familiar with. Strange!

 

[britesea]

I did see Vector Control come down our street a while ago, but I don't know of any other spraying being done. The compost I used was 4 year old horse manure from some friends of mine- never had any trouble with their manure before. The only other outside sources was that I had to buy some topsoil from the nursery- but I've used the topsoil and the manure throughout the garden and the tomatoes are the only plants acting weird; my peas, favas, peppers and squashes all doing fine.

 

[digitS']

@britesea ,

I have found this to be helpful (like just about everything Cornell puts out there ):

Tomato Disease Identification

It does look like herbicide damage but maybe clicking on the leaves link will help.

Steve

 

[Ridgerunner]

You might try contacting your county extension agent or local Master Gardeners (usually the extension agent knows the Master Gardeners) and get a sample or photos to them. They should be aware of any diseases or insects local that could cause something like that. It looks like herbicides to me too but the pepper is a close relative and I find squash fairly delicate. Maybe a neighbor was killing poison ivy or something and the drift just hit your tomato and missed everything else? Doesn't seem likely does it?

Is this just one plant or all of them? Are they that close to the other crops or is herbicide drift a real possibility?

Vector control should be spraying for mosquitoes, not an herbicide. The stuff they use for that should definitely not harm any plants. Has a utility been spraying an herbicide to control brush under power lines?

 

[britesea]

All 7 of my tomato plants are affected, but not the borage I planted in the middle of them to attract bees.
DH did remember someone spraying the sides of the road, which I missed. But only the tomatoes are affected, not the jerusalem artichokes, nettles, lemon tree or potatoes- all of which are closer to the road than the tomatoes, nor the peppers and squash which are on either side. It is the oddest thing.

Another idea DH had was that I made some DIY earthboxes for the tomatoes, using blue plastic 18G totes-- could the plastic have something in it?

I don't know whether to just give up on tomatoes this year, keep trying with these, or yank them out and plant something from the nursery and hope I get some tomatoes before Sept 18 (average frost date).

I have to go in to town today, I'll try taking a little piece of tomato plant in a ziploc to the Extension office.

 

[journey11]

Maybe the tomatoes are more susceptible or are showing signs sooner? It does sound probable that it is herbicide drift. They are not supposed to spray on windy days, but I'm sure there are those who don't care and will anyway. I have neighbors on the main road who have permanent signs up along the road telling the DOT not to spray along their property. Might be something to think about.

The plastic totes are ok to plant in and are commonly used for that.

I'm sorry your tomatoes got ruined. I would be really upset to lose a whole summer's worth of tomatoes.
(I'd also hang on to hope for a while and see if maybe they'll perk up just in case.)