Based on the photo of the fruit, I'd say a virus is likely, Fritz. The thing that makes me think it's not just blotchy ripening is that I see a ringlike pattern in the bottom right of the fruit in the last picture, and I see a squiggly appearance to discoloration at the top center of that fruit if I look carefully. The only diseases I can think of that cause squiggles/marbling/rings discoloration are viral.
Re: trying to diagnose--
Diseases don't always present in a textbook fashion. Although in a new bed, my cherokee purples succumbed in August to some kind of wilt. Short of a lab test, though, I may never know what it was. My best guess is bacterial wilt because of when it happened (hot weather), symptoms (younger foliage wilting first, no yellowing of foliage, no V-lesions, plant decline was rapid, i.e., less than a week). However, there was no milky exudate when the cut stems were placed in water. There was a small area of browning of vascular tissue on one side of the stem evident in cross section near the soil line, which can happen with bacterial wilt as well as with verticillium and fusarium. So it was an imperfect fit for all 3 wilt descriptions, but the fit was least imperfect with bacterial wilt. Sometimes, we don't get complete closure in life. *sigh*
|