Buckeye Rot

[mjdetroit]

Earth Tainer gardening....started two containers this year with tomato plants. The new tomatoes have developed what appears to be Buck Eye Rot....dark coloration at the bottom of the tomatoes....not just those that are near the soil, but further up the plant as well. I am assuming that this is caused by too much moisture combined with hot and humid weather (Dayton Ohio). Is there any way to combat this disease? The plants had been doing great until this was discovered this morning. I use an automatic watering system (from EarthBox).

[liannenc]

This looks more like blossom end rot (BER) to me. BER is evidence that the plant is having difficulty utilizing calcium effectively. Google "blossom end rot causes" and you'll see the different conditions that can cause it. I believe Carolyn has posted in the past that in some cases BER is also due to the plant's root system having to catch up to the rest of the plant, and I have found that while I see a fair amount of BER early in the season, the plants do seem to outgrow it. I pull off the affected green fruit when I find it and toss it-- no sense in wasting the plant's energies on fruit you can't eat! I believe you can compost the affected fruit, too, if you want.

[mjdetroit]

Many Thanks!....I did look up BER and agree with your assessment......pulled off the effected fruit and will spray with a calcium solution (any suggestions on this?) and see what happens.

[feldon30]

Originally Posted by mjdetroit

will spray with a calcium solution (any suggestions on this?)

My suggestion is even out your watering schedule and add some dolomitic lime if you can.

Most soil already has enough calcium for tomato plants. The problem is having the right soil conditions/pH/water content/frequency for the plant to be able to actually use the calcium that's there. Adding calcium may or may not work, I've heard mixed results.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by feldon30

My suggestion is even out your watering schedule and add some dolomitic lime if you can.

Most soil already has enough calcium for tomato plants. The problem is having the right soil conditions/pH/water content/frequency for the plant to be able to actually use the calcium that's there. Adding calcium may or may not work, I've heard mixed results.

Agree with Feldon here.

THe problem is not uptake of Ca++ from the roots, rather, it's bad distribution of Ca++ within the plant when the plants are under stress. And that means too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry growing too rapidly, and the like.

When tissue Ca++ levels from plants that have BER fruits has been measured that Ca++ level is within normal limits indicating that root uptake was fine.

THe only two exceptions to what I just said are if the soil has NO Ca++ which is rare indeed and if the soil or mix is too acid, in which case Ca++ is bound and can't enter via the roots but that can be reversed by altering the pH as Feldon mentioned above.

Application of Ca++ to the plants has not been very successful. If done when the fruits are green and immature it has shown some positives, and that's b'c the epidermis of immature fruits is thin as compard with larger fruits.

Google this subject and you'll find those who say crushed eggshells put in the planting hole can help, or applying milk to the foliage can help, or using Stop Rot can help. And for ever link that's positive there's one that's negative and many of them don't use controls so the data is useless.