Happy Farming . com

Photo by jayneandd.
We all want great tomatoes from our tomato plants, but often the plants are hit by diseases or pests and although some fruit develops wouldn’t it be nice to maximize the yield from each plant to get a killer crop, by curing the diseases or getting rid of the pests?

The first thing to do when you notice a not so healthy looking plant is to find out exactly what is going on, so that you can begin you search for the cure. Below is a list of symptoms together with possible causes to get you going on your quest to grow the best possible tomatoes. Try doing a Google image search once you get an idea of what your tomato plants are trying to tell you, and see if it looks like what you’re seeing on your own tomato plant leaves.

Discolored leaves

Yellow

As you can see below, a yellow coloring of your tomato plant leaves can be caused by many different things. The color yellow either covers the entire leaf, is limited to patches or limited to just spots, depending on the cause:

• A lack of nitrogen affects the lower leaves. It spreads to the upper leaves.
• A lack of calcium affects the upper leaves
• A lack of manganese is rare, but will result in dead patches on the leaves, ringed in yellow
• Wilt diseases can cause a shortage of nutrients, which will then result in a discoloring of leaves
• Fusarium Wilt affects older leaves
• Verticillium (Verticillium dahliae)
• Leaf spots (Early Blight or Target Spot)
• Root rot
• Mosaic virus results in mottling
• Aphids
• Spider-mites can cause a white-yellow speckling

Light green

• Too much nitrogen
• A lack of manganese

White

• A lack of iron
• Powdery Mildew results in powdery patches

Black

• Fusarium Crown Rot

Curling leaves

• A lack of potassium affects older leaves
• A lack of iron
• A lack of copper is rare, but results in blue-green flappy leaves
• Curly Top virus affects upper leaves and results in a purple-like color

Spots on leaves

Brown

• Early Blight or Target Spot (Alternaria solani)
• Late Blight (Phytophthora infestans)

Dark

• Bacterial Speck (Pseudomonas syringae)
• Bacterial Spot (Xanthomonas campestris pv vesicatoria)

Purple

• Late Blight (Phytophthora infestans)
• Tomato Spotted Wilt/Impatiens Necrotic Spot Tospoviruses

Wilting leaves

• Fusarium (Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. lycopersici)
• Fusarium Wilt
• Fusarium Crown Rot
• Verticillium (Verticillium dahliae) can result in wilting at midday but recovery at night
• Bacterial wilt (Ralstonia solanacearum)
• Root rot
• Tomato Spotted Wilt/Impatiens Necrotic Spot Tospoviruses (TSWV or INSV)
• Nematodes causes the plant to wilt prematurely
• Walnut toxicity if the plants grow near a walnut tree

Drooping leaves

• Fusarium (Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. lycopersici)
• Fusarium Wilt
• Fusarium Crown Rot

Flies on leaves

• Whitefly (1 mm), more often seen in a greenhouse than out in the open
• Thrips (1 mm), onion thrips (Thrips tabaci) and flower thrips (Thrips obscuratus)
• Fruit fly

Removing some of the leaves

If the problem is that you have too many tomato plant leaves then here are some tips on removing some of the leaves to provide the plants with more sunlight and oxygen:

• Single vine variety: All ‘suckers’ can be removed and staking should first be done after the first flowers appear to create a strong plant.
• Multi-stemmed variety: All stems should have the same size. Any side stems below the first flower cluster can be removed to create a strong main stem.
• Determinate variety: ‘Suckers’ below the first flower cluster can be removed.
• Sterilize knife or scissors between plants, or use your fingers to pinch of unwanted leaves and branches
• Remove branches during dry days to avoid bacteria getting into the ‘wound’ because of rain
• Remove sick leaves and branches to reduce spreading of diseases
• You can reuse any clippings – they will grow into new plants if you stick them into the soil!

Cucumber leaves

I haven’t been able to find any evidence saying that tomato plants can’t rub leaves with cucumbers. I think it’s a myth and more a question about space. Cucumbers grow big leaves, and they could overshadow a tomato plant if the plants were standing close.

While it should be safe to grow cucumbers near tomatoes, there are some plants that are even recommended companion plants for tomatoes, like French marigolds (Tagetes patula), because they deter nematodes. Other plants that act as pest control are:

• Basil
• Chives
• Parsley
• Onions

Source:

How to Grow Juicy Tasty Tomatoes by Lucia Grimmer and Annette Welsford

I took a break from my aquaponics project as I was getting discouraged by seeing the previous batch of seedlings dying a slow death on top of my aquaponics plant tank. It seemed like I had missed some important point in the process of growing aquaponic plants, so I actually drained the whole plant tank, cleaned it, and installed a traditional filter in the fish tank / aquarium to keep the pet fish happy. That’s how fed up I was with my aquaponics problems.

… But I soon got too annoyed with the empty plant tank and my unreached goal of bringing this beast into production mode, so I went outside an started cutting side branches off my large tomato plants that I’m growing in self-watering containers beneath the south facing wall of the house. I learned from the ebook “How to Grow Juicy Tasty Tomatoes” that cuttings from a mature plant will easily grow into new plants if you stick the cuttings into the soil. Fortunately it works with aquaponic coconut fibers too:

The cuttings grew into tall plants, actually a bit taller than I have room for beneath the ceiling. The maximum grow height available in this system is small since the fish tank must be placed beneath the plant tank, and the fish tank in this case is an ordinary aquarium which you what to place on an aquarium table to be able to enjoy the fish without having to lay down on the floor

A quick look at the new tomato plants gives you the impression that they are healthy, and the stems and leaves have a healthy color:

But if you take a closer look at some of the largest tomato plants you’ll find that some of the leaves have wilted:

(WARNING: Oldest aquaponic joke coming up: “I’m sure I gave them enough water…” Ha. Ha.)

I have to find out what’s causing this, and even the small developing tomato flower stems are affected by this too. The leaves turn dry and crispy and turn into dust if you squeeze them.

I wouldn’t say that the submerged roots look particularly healthy:

Rasmus noticed the same brown stuff on the roots of my previous batch of aquaponic plants and recommended adding air bubbles directly to the plant tank. I think it helped back then but I forgot to reinstall the air pump after I cleaned up the plant tank.

Lots of challenges still with this relatively new aquaponics home system in the corner of my living room. And I’m still having wet dreams about adding automatic electronic measurement of pH and conductivity.