Blossom End rot

[AngieP]

New to the tomato world. My tomato plants appear healthy and strong; thrilled when I saw my first fruit. A few days later I noticed the bottoms of several tomatoes turning a leathery, dark color. I've done some research and it appears to be blossom end rot due to a calcium deficincy in the soil. Any suggestions to help me would be greatly appreciated!

[ubergoober]

May different schools of thought on BER. Some think it is a calcium deficiency and some feel it is more of a problem due to inconsistant watering. I know that with the heavy rains followed by high heat and drought is what happened to mine. I lost about 10 or so tomatoes but all seems OK now. Adding that I did nothing other than to keep an eye on soil saturation.

[AngieP]

THats exactly whats happening here weather wise; 90 degree, hot sunny days, then thunderstorms, torrential rains & then back to the heat. I water in the morning when it is still cool and again in the evening after the sun goes down. Some of my tomaoes that are coming in now look fine and I have pulled off the ones that showed signs of BER. I'm really looking forward to my little crop of tomatoes and peppers. Hopefully I wll have a little larger garden next year, but first I have to get through this season!

[huntoften]

The only good thing about BER is that it usually only affects the first fruits and goes away later in the season.

[coloken]

Lots of it this year. You say and most people think that it "
is "due to a calcium deficincy in the soil". The experts say that it is Calcium deficincy in the plant system and not the soil so adding to the soil is a waste of time. Lots and lots of dscussion about this. Most of the time it stops as the plant gets older. I have never had more than one or two in all my years in a garden, then this year I have tomatoes in a GH in container and dang near every one has BER from my eratic watering. They should get over it and i hope they do.

[mecktom]

They do seem to "outgrow" it but it seems some varieties are more proned to having it. Does anyone else find that?

[FILMNET]

Roma's are the worst

[ubergoober]

The plants I have pulled BER affected fruit off of were my Pruden's Purple, Costoluto Genovese and one or two off of my Siberian. Everything else seems ok so far.

[French-Connection]

Originally Posted by coloken

Lots of it this year. You say and most people think that it "
is "due to a calcium deficincy in the soil". The experts say that it is Calcium deficincy in the plant system and not the soil so adding to the soil is a waste of time. Lots and lots of dscussion about this. Most of the time it stops as the plant gets older. I have never had more than one or two in all my years in a garden, then this year I have tomatoes in a GH in container and dang near every one has BER from my eratic watering. They should get over it and i hope they do.

I have just done a post about BER on my blog as it is appearing a lot at this time of year, well this side of the pond. I think this post really sums up the problem really well. Do not try too much to sort it out by adding calcium, Just get your watering right, especially in containers of grow bags. If they dry out, the problem will show itself a few weeks later, so too late to do anything really.

[carolyn137]

Bolssom end rot has many causes. But the good news is that it ususally goes away as the plants mature and can better handle the many stresses that can induce it. It used to be thought that BER was due to a lack of calcium but research has shown that plants with BER fruits have plenty of calcium.

Here's a post I wrote about BER and perhaps it will help explian some of the issues:

Subj: BER
Date: 01/27/2002 10:38:29 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: Cmale
To: Cmale

From: cmale
Date: Fri Jul 27, 2001 3:08 pm
Subject: Blossom End Rot


Subj: Re:Blossom End Rot
Date: 97-05-26 20:28:45 EDT
From: Cmale

Blossom End Rot (BER) is one of the most common tomato problems seen in the early part of the season. It is a physiological condition, not a disease caused by a fungus or a bacterium or a virus. Therefore it cannot be treated.

And as I'll explain below, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to
prevent. BER has nothing to do with the blossoms, it refers to the fact that at the end of the tomato opposite the place where the tomato is attached to the stem, called the stem end, is the bottom of the tomato, which is called the blossom end. You often can see remnants of the blossom attached to that end as the tomato forms. At the blossom end one sees a flattened area that looks
leathery and initially brown and then black, as the fruit rots.

BER is said to occur when there is uneven watering, drought, heavy rainfall, excessive nitrogen fertilization, rapid plant growth or root pruning during cultivation, high winds and rapid temperature changes. So lots of conditions have been associated with BER. But the rapid plant growth and nitrogen fertilization are both common to conditions seen early in the season, and indeed, that is when most BER occurs. Then it usually just goes away.

BER occurs because under the conditions just stated, Ca++ moves from the fruit into the vasculature (stems) of the plant. Or, some feel that Ca++ never reaches the fruits becasue under stress demand for Ca++ exceeds supply.This lowered amount of Ca++ is what causes BER. Excessive rates of transpiration (kind of like sweating in humans) also is involved in Ca++ displacement. Thus, the plant as a whole is NOT Ca++ deficient, the Ca++ has just been displaced.

Many books and magazine articles tell you that by adding Ca++ in the form of lime or eggshells, for instance, that you can prevent BER. That does NOT appear to be true. It was several years ago that I found out that University field trial experiments have so far failed to show that BER can be prevented by addition
of Ca++. I recently e-mailed my friend at Cornell who told me all this two years ago, to again confirm that it was still true, and will update you, if necessary. Peppers and many cole crops are also susceptible to BER and there's quite a bit of literature on BER and Ca++ for those crops also. The results are the same; addition of Ca++ does not prevent BER.


Some data strongly suggests that foliar spraying with Ca++ is of no use because not enough gets to the fruits to do any good. And it's known that the sprays for fruits that are sold are usless. No molecules can get across the fruit epidermis. If they did, just what do you think would happen to the fruits when it rained.LOL

Not all varieties of tomatoes get BER. Some never do, others are horrible. That's not surprising since certainly there are slight physiological differences between varieties. After all, almost all garden tomatoes, with the exception of the currant tomatoes are in the same genus and species, Lycopersicon lycopersicum. And we humans are all in the same species, Homo sapiens, var. sapiens...and look how different some of our physiologies are.
Whoa!

So, BER is a physiological condition, cannot be cured, and current
literature data suggests it cannot be prevented. It occurs on some, but not all varieties of tomatoes, is usually seen early in the season and then stops, for most folks. It would be nice to say that you could even out your watering, prevent droughts and heavy rainfalls, ensure even and not rapid growth of plants and not disturb the roots by shallow cultivating. But on a practical basis, I think we all know that's almost impossible. So, BER has never bothered me, I just ignore it, and it goes away with time.

Adding Ca++ to soils that are Ca++ deficient makes sense, but few soils are. And if soils are acidic, Ca++ is not taken up well but addition of Epsom Salts to the soil can aid in Ca++ uptake in such acidic soils.

Many folks add Ca++ and then see that BER disappears. What they fail to realize is that BER is going to go away anyway, as the season progresses. And that's becasue as the plants get larger they are better able to handle the many stresses that can induce it. So one cannot correlate addition of Ca++ to disappearance of BER. Universities have done so many stidies on this already
becasue BER is a billion dollar problem in the commercial veggie industry.

Of all the stresses that can induce BER thetwo that are most under control of the home gardener are fertilization and water delivery.

That is, too much fertilizer causes plants to grow too rapidly and is perhaps one of the major causes of BER developing. Too rich soils do the same thing. Plant growth simply outstrips the ability of Ca++ to get to the fruits.

Mulching to help ensure even delivery of water also can be done and is also one of the two major causes, IMHO, of BER.

BER appears usually on half ripe fruits but also can appear on grass green ones.Lack of Ca++ only occurs at the blossom end of the fruit and it causes tissue destruction which leads to that papery greyish/blackish lesion appearing.Now sometimes that lesion opens up and fungi and bacteria enter and that causes the rotting and also the appearance of fungal growth on and in the lesion.

Just pick off any BER fruits that appear and soon the next fruits to ripen will BERless.

Many books, magazine articles and websites still say to add Ca++ as lime, eggshells, etc, and seem not to be aware of all the research that has been done in the last 20 years. But many books, magazine articles, are now sharing this newer information about addition of Ca++ not being able to either prevent or cure BER except in rare situations of low Ca++ soils or acidic soils.

I suppose it will take another generation for the right information to be present everywhere. And from my own experience i can tell you that there will be folks who will get madder than can be when they read this kind of info becasue they simply believe otherwise. So be it. LOL Addition of modest amounts of Ca++ aren' t harmful, but I feel strongly that folks should know what's going on with past and current rsearch re BER and Ca++.

Hope the above helps.

Carolyn
NY, zone 4/5
The above updated on 7/27/01Horseshoe
Efland, NC
(Zone 7a)

July 11, 2002
07:28 PM Post #300199
Quote

Thanks Carolyn, lots of great info~


I can't delete Shoe's response and I'm sorry for the formatting but it's part of a FAQ at another message site and that's how it transferred when cut and pasted.

And I do hope what I wrote above helps. So much research has been done to disprove the old idea of limiting Ca++ in the soil that I wish folks would understand what BER is all about.

And yes, paste varieties are THE most susceptible, as they are to Early Blight as well, but for sure other varieties can develop it as well.

[rsg2001]

I have generally found BER to be exactly as Carolyn describes - something that goes away as the season wears on. However, I have two Eva Purple Ball plants in a self-watering container that, this year, have produced 8 BER tomatoes so far -- haven't had one that has fully grown yet (I take off the BER tomatoes so the plant doesn't put more energy into them). There are three small ones that haven't shown it yet. They're the only BERs I've had this year so far (counting both the in the ground and container planted tomatoes). It really surprises me because I've not treated that container any differently from the others. I've grown Eva in SWCs before with great success. I'm chalking it up to the weird conditions this year - the super hot spells we've been having. I've been doing a good job of making sure the containers aren't drying out.

Robbin