What is causing this damage to my tomatoes?

Can anyone help me please. Many of my tomatoes are rotting at the base. Am I doing something wrong to cause this?



( photo / image / picture from Gardengirl's Garden )

 

It looks like a classic example of "Blossom-end Rot to me.

I do not know what you are doing wrong, or even if you are doing anything wrong...but the most often accepted cause is a shortage of Calcium.
It doesn't mean that the soil in your garden is deficient of Calcium, but rather that the plant cannot properly absorb the calcium in the soil due to uneven water ering.

One of my things with growing toms is that I always set myself a sort of schedule for watering. I give water with or without food suppliment on certain days--and I always give the SAME amount of water each time. This helps to avoid the problem. I also add seaweed calcium to the soil where I plant my toms.

It is important to maintain the soil at an even level of moisture, and thus avoid say, allowing the soil to become VERY dry and then flooding it with lots and lots of water from tie to time.

It is also possible that the soil could have too much nitrogen in it. If this is the case, then cut back on your feeding and be sure that the food that you are using has a lesser amopunt of nitrogen. Look for the NPK amounts on the back of the food suppliment box/sack.

One further thing that can cause this is extreme weather swiungs from hot to cool. Excessive drought followed by heavy rain downfall will also do it in outside plants.

There will be other folks that may come on here with good ideas, surely.
Anyway, I hope this helps, these are my thoughts.

 

Gardengirl I think Sjoerd covered it very well.

 

Thank you for your thoughts Sjoerd. Some interesting points there. Firstly, I usually grow my tomatoes in pots as I have limited space. I always plant them in multi-purpose compost and feed with proprietary tomato feed. The only thing I am probably guilty of is not keeping the soil at an even moisture level. I have from time to time noticed they are drying out and then as you say 'flooded' them with water to make up for it.
It is too late for this years crop, although having said that I have had few nice ones, they haven't all rotted off, but will keep a copy of your post for reference next year. Many thanks.

 

I get the picture, Gardengirl. Growing toms inside and outside are two different techniques...and growing them in pots different again--but the red thread is that no matter how or where you grow them, once the have begun to set fruits, keeping their soil moist evenly is a very important factor, I believe.
I am not sure that it is too late for this season though. there may still be a bit of time to go whereby you can still harvest more 'healthy' toms. Have you topped your plants yet? If not perhaps you can get a few. It would be worth a try.
Just because some toms have blossom end rot doesn't mean that they all will. Just remove the bad ones and carry on.

 

I have topped them Sjoerd, I believe you have to do this after 3 trusses. Is this correct. I will do as you say and remove all the damaged ones and see how we go. Many thanks.

 

I've struggled with keeping the pots evenly moist this year too, GG.

It feels like I have to water daily.... The top of the soil dries out in our heat but maybe they're too wet at the feet.... Have wondered if I've watered too much... I've had cracking on the fruits. But then even the fruit on the plants in the ground have had cracks... I wonder if it is for the same reasons you're having the rotting problem???

 

Splitting can be either radiate longitudionally or latitudionally. The splits going from stem towards the blossom end are the most common in my toms, when it occurs.
The cracking, or splitting of toms can have several causes:

**In my toms it's usually because the tom plant takes up too much water too quickly.

**The thing is, Daisy--it's all about the elasticity of the tom's skin. Different types of toms have more ot less elasticity naturally; however, other things can play a role here--for instance, if too leaves have been removed, the skin will become tougher and so the temp swings between daytime and nightime are too great for the skins to handle, so the rapid and dramatic expansion and contraction of the skin cells can result in cracking.
You get the picture here, right? Not enough leaves means rapid and high rise in temp from the sun, and when the sun goes down, the cooling can be quick as well. It is a time differential that is greater than it would have been had there been more leaves (or even shade) present.

**Irregular periods of slow and fast growth rate. This stresses the tomato's skin on a cellular level. Now, if the skin 'hardens' during the preceeding "slow-growth spell", and an ensuing period of "fast growth" comes along, then the skin can and often does split.

** Creating an overly succlent fruit by using too much of the inappropriate type of fertilizer/food. In other words creating a plant and fruit that has too much niotrogen and not enough potassium.

I see that I am beginning to border on the esoteric, I don't want to do that. If I think about this problem it really does just boil down to skin elacity and how certain conditions can challenge it and push it past the limits of it's retentitive capability.

Well, it isn't fair to make comments and not come with suggestions for dealing with the problem.

How one can deal with tomato spliting:

**Devise a proper watering program that avoids irregularity in times and amounts of water/food given.

**Do not prune your tom plants too heavily. You can prune and de-sucker your plants often, so long as you don't take too much at once. Once the plants have already produced 2-3 bunches (trusses) of toms keep suckering, but stop de-foliating the leaves.
At some point (depending upon where you live) you can see that flowers that are forming too late in the year will never make it to fall--cut the top of the plant off! You can remove these no-hopers too and then the plant can concentrate on putting it's energy into giving you nice and healthy fruits.

**Search and find a proper tomato fertilizer to feed your toms with keeping an eye on the "N" and "K" levels on the box. Avoid those fertilizers that contain too much nitrogen.

**Keep an eye out for pests and disease that can destroy your plants leaves. This is related to the second point above where I spoke of not pruning too hard.
It's a thin line between not having enough and having too much foliage. Finding this line is something that only comes with experience, and varies from county to county, state to state and country to country.

When I read back over this I seen that I have gone a bit OTT....no, not "a bit", a lot! I apologize. You didn't even ask for a comment.
Now that I have formulated my thoughts on this, I am lothe to just delete them. Perhaps they will be helpful to someone.
These are my ideas, I can imagine that others may have different. Hopefully they will also add there thoughts as well and there will be a good choice for gardners to choose from.
I really must be more careful with posting comments.

 

Don't apologise Sjoerd, I find your remarks very helpful. My word, I never knew there was so much tlc needed to produce a good tomato I am sure many of us will benefit from your vast experience.

 

Ach Gardengirl, all the TLC is probably not necessary just to get some toms to eat...but I enjoy doing all the extra work to get the best I can.

 

BTW G'girl--did you notice that I responded to your inquiry about when to top the plants in that long piece that I wrote up above?
I find three trusses not enough, personally. I usually stop at 6. This is because my greenhouse prevents them from getting any taller. I do not like for the leaves to press against the glass of the greenhouse, as the moisture emitted from the leaves condensates on the glass and this can become a medium for disease.

 

Yes, sorry Sjoerd, I did notice, just forgot, senior moment I suspect

 

Oh gosh, I welcome your input and found your comments to be really helpful Sjoerd. I'm kind of getting into this tom thing. You know I have had one thing after another with my garden this year but I have learned a whole lot.

The problem in my case could be a couple things that you mentioned. I think water absorption is the biggest problem. Especially in the pots. Although they are large "enough" I suspect that down deeper in the pot, the soil is wetter than I realize because the soil on top feels dry. I think I wind up watering too much water too quickly -- I have to water the pots each day. I also wonder about the temperature situation. The pots are sitting on my driveway and they are shaded during the nice a.m./midday sun and then they get blasted with the intense, hot afternoon sun. Maybe they don't have time to adjust to the temp changes?

I only have two kinds of tomatoes, and def each type shows stress differently. The heirlooms have almost like stretchmarks going around the fruit. The other variety (whose name I can't remember at the moment) shows some spits at the stem area going down. They seem to split later in the ripening process so if I pick them just a little earlier, it's better.

Really interesting about topping and pruning the plants (which I didn't do with any organization!) and cutting them once it's too late in the season for them to ripen. I reckon around here, I have about another 6 weeks of hot sun but it doesn't frost until end of Oct or even early Nov.

OK, I'm rambling. How fun to jabber on about tomatoes though! Thanks so much, Gardengirl and Sjoerd!

 

Y'know, GG...I asked-around abpout ending the tom's life after three trusses. The old hands say 4, so you were spot on.
I discovered that the "limit" is greater for those being kept in a greenhouse.

 

Thank you Sjoerd. I did as you said and removed the damaged ones and must say I have had a few tasty tomatoes without any damage