Seedling leaf changes and death

[Delerium]

Anne sorry to see your having trouble with some of your tomato plants. If you ever need any clones off my plants i will be more than happy to root some for you and mail them out to you. I have Cuostralee & the Regular Berkley Tie Dye if you need replacements.

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by aclum

OK - here are 2 of the photos. You can see how the leaves and stems are twisting and the leaves are getting coarser.

Anne

This looks viral to me. I've had something similar and so did my mom, shortly after aphid infestation.
In my case, most of my plants recovered but didn't do as well. In my Mom's case, we ended up replanting, as I had plenty of extra plants and her's had only been in the ground for a couple of weeks. Her next batch did just fine and also didn't have aphids.

[aclum]

Hi Delerium,

Thanks so much for your kind offer of plants!! Actually, I have been thinking about how I could maybe send you some root riot cubes with some appropriate packaging and return postage to get some cuttings from you. We live so close to each other that things would probably arrive overnight even with just first class mail. Although larger plants would be better. Give me another week or so to see where I stand. Of course I'd reimburse you for any costs.


Tracy,

Thanks for the input on the virus. Unfortunately, I'm thinking I might have a bunch of different things going on at the same time. A virus seems to be the most difficult problem to deal with.


Steve (and everyone),

I called the lawn service to see if the lawn guys had sprayed anything and apparently they had, but not roundup. Didn't catch what it was, though. The owner is coming over on Thursday to assess the situation and, if he thinks it could be herbicide damage, he'll reimburse me somehow. (Although I wouldn't want him to take money out of the gardeners' salaries as I'm sure they don't make much as it is).

I sprayed the plants with sulfur for russet mites on Sunday. It might have been a bit too warm or I might have sprayed too much or not had some of the plants shaded enough, but a few of them developed quite distinct browning along the bottom edge of the lower leaves. The rest of the plant looks fine. I took at photo, but unfortunately, I seem to be unable to post photos at the moment.

I examined the plants with a 20x loupe and didn't see any insects, BUT I did see an apparent red spider mite scurry across the outside of one of the cups! Only saw the one.

Will keep you all posted on things....

Anne

[Delerium]

I'll get started on some cuttings for you Anne. Even if you don't need them i will try to get them rooted in case you run in to problems. I think we are only a hour away from you. Please let me know which varieties you might need so i can start looking for suckers if i have those varieties.

Originally Posted by aclum

Hi Delerium,

Thanks so much for your kind offer of plants!! Actually, I have been thinking about how I could maybe send you some root riot cubes with some appropriate packaging and return postage to get some cuttings from you. We live so close to each other that things would probably arrive overnight even with just first class mail. Although larger plants would be better. Give me another week or so to see where I stand. Of course I'd reimburse you for any costs.


Tracy,

Thanks for the input on the virus. Unfortunately, I'm thinking I might have a bunch of different things going on at the same time. A virus seems to be the most difficult problem to deal with.


Steve (and everyone),

I called the lawn service to see if the lawn guys had sprayed anything and apparently they had, but not roundup. Didn't catch what it was, though. The owner is coming over on Thursday to assess the situation and, if he thinks it could be herbicide damage, he'll reimburse me somehow. (Although I wouldn't want him to take money out of the gardeners' salaries as I'm sure they don't make much as it is).

I sprayed the plants with sulfur for russet mites on Sunday. It might have been a bit too warm or I might have sprayed too much or not had some of the plants shaded enough, but a few of them developed quite distinct browning along the bottom edge of the lower leaves. The rest of the plant looks fine. I took at photo, but unfortunately, I seem to be unable to post photos at the moment.

I examined the plants with a 20x loupe and didn't see any insects, BUT I did see an apparent red spider mite scurry across the outside of one of the cups! Only saw the one.

Will keep you all posted on things....

Anne

[Heritage]

Anne,

Thanks for posting the great photos I will explain why I think it is not herbicide damage later tonight. I need to find some photos on the web to illustrate my reasoning.

Also, I don't have any plants to send but let me know if you need seeds and I'll get them in the mail ASAP

Best,
Steve

[aclum]

Hi Steve,

I just thought to forward you copies of some of my e-mails to Scott with the photos attached. I sent these to your home or business e-mail - hoping the photos come through. Really looking forward to your reasoning and examples on why I might not be dealing with herbicide damage. It'll be interesting to hear what the owner (Juan) of the lawn service we use has to say about things tomorrow.

Steve and Delerium,

Thanks for the offer of seeds, Steve, and the offer of cuttings, Delerium !

I need to sort through things after talking to Juan to see what I might still be missing when all is said and done. I'll probably have a better idea of what I might need by the end of the weekend.

Will keep you all posted!
Thanks again,
Anne

[Heritage]

Thanks Anne, I received your emails! I'll try to post tomorrow... today had too many interruptions

Steve

[Heritage]

Anne, thanks, I received your latest emails.

Now my reasoning for thinking your main problem is russet mites instead of herbicide damage…

All of the 2,4-D type of herbicide damage I have seen on tomatoes distorts the new growth but the older growth is, by comparison, much less affected. I found a good set of photos showing the damage caused by the various herbicides showing symptoms similar to yours:
link to pdf

Notice how the bottom leaves on all of the examples are twisted and gnarled, but have not died or fallen off. The bottom leaves shown in the article are not in terrible shape until the whole plant has yellowed and is close to death. Your photos, in general, show plants with leaf loss progressing from the bottom up, very typical of russet mite damage. Your bottom photo (of Coustralee) demonstrates this especially well - all of the bottom leaves are gone but the tuft of green on the top is in fairly good shape. I wouldn't expect this progression with herbicide damage.

Also, notice the parallel venation described in the article. This, along with ruffled, upturned leaf edges are typical of herbicide damage, and is also common on the sets of leaves just below the new growth. Stringy, ruffled, leaves with parallel venation. I don't see this on your plants (except possibly BTD Heart, and she looks almost like that with her normal wispy leaves.)

Additionally, the brown stems shown in your photos are typical of mite feeding damage.

Anyway, that is my reasoning. If I were you I would assume the experts are correct and go with herbicide damage as your diagnosis for now. However, I would keep up a spray program for russet mites, and I would continue to keep a close eye on the bottom leaves of the healthy plants for any signs of mites.

Best of luck, please keep us posted,

Steve

[aclum]

Hi Steve,

Thanks so much for all your help (and the link). It'll be interesting to hear what Juan (the owner of the yard service) has to say this afternoon. He no doubt has better eyes that I do and might be able to see something I (and the photos) can't see. I haven't seen any insects (even with the loupe) recently and no bugs falling off when I tap on the plant over paper - but I trust your verdict on the russet mites and will keep spraying!

I did a more through assessment of my plants today and will probably keep some of the affected ones that seem to be recovering - just to see what happens with the new growth (in the meantime, I've started growing replacement plants for later). I'm especially curious to see if some of the suckers or new leaders coming out from the base of the plant develop normally.

Right now I think I'm OK for plants and seeds. Keeping some plants and filling in with backups (almost all new varieties) plus more control plants for grafts, I'll have filled up my 40 spots I planted about a month ago, plus about another 20 plants in a newly prepared bed. I think I lost about 20 varieties in this whole ordeal and now have seedlings started (some with true leaves) for all but a few of these. Will start a few more seeds today for the other varieties. I had been thinking about doing staggered plantings leading up to a fall crop anyway.

I'll let you know what Juan has to say.

Thanks again,
Anne

[aclum]

Hi Again,

Juan never made it by yesterday. He had an afternoon Dr's appt. out-of-town and I guess he wasn't back in time to check out the garden while there was enough light. I guess he'll come by Monday.

In the meantime, it looks like the "die-off" has run its course. I'll post a few photos of plants in the garden in a bit (once my brother gets them downloaded, etc.).

In the meantime, here's a photo I took this morning of another oddity. It's a Virginia Sweets about 2-1/2" tall from soil line to tip top. Very odd sucker growth! (Photo sort of overexposed - actual plant is a darker green). I may just grow it out to see what happens.

More photos to come....

Anne

[aclum]

I'm back!

Here's (what I think is) an interesting photo. It's of two Goose Creeks planted out at the same time. The one on the left is ungrafted and the one on the right is grafted onto RST-04-105-T rootstock. As I recall, the the plants weren't all that different from each other when I planted out, although I suspect that the grafted one might have been at least a bit smaller (due to the extra time it takes for the grafted plant to heal and catch up to its ungrafted sibling).

With the pairs of D. Summertime Gold and Magi-Qo, the ungrafted versions were just marginally better than the grafted versions. They generally don't look that much different from each other, whereas I thought the difference between the two Goose Creeks was somewhat stark. BTW, I keep wanting to write "Geese" Creek instead of Goose Creeks !

Cuostralee and BTDH both look salvageable and the nearly dead Crnkovich Yugoslavian is sending up a nice looking shoot or leader from the base of the plant. I'm not expecting too much from these particular plants in the way of production, but all I really want is a taste of these new-to-me varieties.

Anne

[Heritage]

Originally Posted by aclum

I'm back!

Here's (what I think is) an interesting photo. It's of two Goose Creeks planted out at the same time. The one on the left is ungrafted and the one on the right is grafted onto RST-04-105-T rootstock. As I recall, the the plants weren't all that different from each other when I planted out, although I suspect that the grafted one might have been at least a bit smaller (due to the extra time it takes for the grafted plant to heal and catch up to its ungrafted sibling).

With the pairs of D. Summertime Gold and Magi-Qo, the ungrafted versions were just marginally better than the grafted versions. They generally don't look that much different from each other, whereas I thought the difference between the two Goose Creeks was somewhat stark. BTW, I keep wanting to write "Geese" Creek instead of Goose Creeks !

Cuostralee and BTDH both look salvageable and the nearly dead Crnkovich Yugoslavian is sending up a nice looking shoot or leader from the base of the plant. I'm not expecting too much from these particular plants in the way of production, but all I really want is a taste of these new-to-me varieties.

Anne

Hi Anne,

You sure have an interesting garden I think you might be right and possibly do have more than one thing happening. From what I can see, the left Goose Creek doesn't show any russet mite damage, it looks to be either mild pesticide damage or a virus.
Thanks again for the photos, if you get a chance please post any other photos, particularly a photo of the new growth on Crnkovic Yugoslavian. If you can get a close-up of the left Goose Creek foliage, it would be helpful.

Thanks
Steve

[aclum]

Hi Steve,

Your wish is my command !

So far the garden's not quite what I had in mind when I set out plants on March 15th, but, as you say, it certainly has been "interesting."

Here are the requested photos plus a few extras:

The Crnkovic Yugoslavian with new growth. Plant happens to be grafted but new growth is above the graft union.

Berkeley Tie Die Heart - seems to be recovering some so I'll keep in garden (plus probably put in another grafted one - have some new rootstock -courtesy of JameL to try out).

A more detailed version of the ungrafted Goose Creek shown previously

The Cuostralee on 3-24-14 (posted before, I think)

The Cuostralee today (4-13-14) recovering some (will keep growing it out).

Lucky Cross and Barlow Japanese, both of which I'll pull.

Enjoy!
Anne

[b54red]

Anne I just got to read through this thread and I am sorry for your troubles. Several years ago I had severe herbicide damage to half my garden brought in on the wind from who knows where. My shed blocked off half the garden and some of the taller plants protected smaller ones directly behind them that were in the path of the drift. I tried to keep most of them going and eventually most did send out new growth that looked better but they never did produce very well. Only the ones with very minor deformities to a few leaves seemed to recover completely. I have seen it once since then but not as severe and as soon as I saw it I just removed the plants and replaced them with new seedlings saving myself a lot of anguish. Kind of like pulling off a band aid quickly and getting the pain over with.

I hate saying this but a lot of those plants don't look like they will ever recover fully and you might be better off just replacing them now. I could be over reacting but I have just found that with a long growing season it is usually best to cut my loses early. Maybe I've become too jaded after seeing thousands of tomato plants die way before their time from fusarium, pests, TSWV, nematodes and a multitude of foliage diseases. It took me a very long time and a lot of disappointments to get to this point but it sure has made life in the mater patch more fun.

If you do have a major mite problem the only thing I have found that works long term on them is an insect growth regulator. Around here they are selling it at all the garden supply places now. It has worked for me the last couple of infestations I had with only two applications.

Good Luck whatever you decide to do. I wish you lived near here I would gladly give you plenty of grafts to replace the ones you have lost.

Bill

[aclum]

Hi Bill,

Thanks for the good advice and offer of grafts if we lived closer ! Sounds like you've really got the grafting mastered .

I'm pretty sure you're right (as are others who have advised me - including the guy from the county extension), that some of the plants might recover but never produce much if anything so might as well pull them now and get it over with .

I've pulled a number of the plants pictured but have kept a few just out of curiosity (assuming they have nothing contagious). I have enough space now so I can afford to "lose" a few spots to questionable plants. And production is really not an issue for me.

The two Goose Creeks will be a great example, I think, to use in comparing normal vs. recovered plants during a full growing season - so I decided not to pull the one with the spikier leaves. I've got back-up seedlings for the cuostralee and BTDH, but I'm just curious as to how they progress so I'm keeping them for the time being. I'll probably end up ripping them out when the back-up seedlings are big enough to use as replacemnts. Keeping the Crnkovic Yugoslavian with the little sucker or leader coming up just to see what happens. The plants that remain are all in pretty good shape. (Although I might, unconsciously, be lowering my standards a bit ). I'll probably set out back-up transplants tomorrow and the next day.

Thanks for your interest and advice! I'll keep the insect growth regulator in mind for mites, etc. - although I'm not sure that I still have them.

Hope your beat down plants largely recover and fingers crossed for better weather!!!

Anne