Beginning Stages of BER or just Ugly Toms

[z_willus_d]

Yesterday evening while pursing my vines and taking in the splendor of my best early producer (well, perhaps I shouldn't say "producer" yet), an Early Goliath that's about 6' tall now, I noticed something very disturbing on the blossom end of the EG's green fruities. They looked dark (well it was dusk), sunken in, and leathery; in short, ugly and deformed. I've purchased and once before grown beefy tomatoes that looked about as bad on the bottom when ripe, but these are still young and growing toms, susceptible to who knows how much additional distortion and, perhaps, rotting. See the first two pics for the EG.

After noting this, I quickly scanned the other vines and noted an adjacent Paul Robenson had a similar condition, though not quite as pronounced (see 3rd pic). Also included (4th pic) a Vintage Purple mutant.

This year, I didn't add any lime to my raised beds, but I expected the "Organic Choice" soil bags mixed with horse manure and my worm casting compost would be sufficient. When first blossoms set, I mixed in 2-3 Tbs. of bone meal at the base of each vine. I've also been foliar spraying this "Tiger Bloom" product (anyone use this?) for phosphate mainly.

I've spent some time researching BER recently for a co-worker friend. It's interesting to find a couple different views on the topic, most apparently true but context is everything. Carolyn's large post (#10) in this thread seemed a good, well informed, scientific summary (more so than most at least):
http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?p=177400

What I gathered from this is that BER is far less likely due to Ca++ deficiency in the soil and more so an issue with the plants ability to uptake the Ca++ and transport it to the fruit blossom end where its needed. There are various reasons for why this would be, but the one that Carolyn suggested most salient is plant stress either due to excessive cold/hot temps, over-fertilization leading to excessive growth not commensurate with the root support system, or perhaps generally less likely poor soil balance. We've had 100+ degree heat (35-45% hum) these past several days, and my soil may be a touch acidic at ~6.5; it certainly could be over-fertilized, as I believe I loaded in horse manure that hadn't fully composted when planting this Spring.

In summary, I found these leathery, craggy brown spots on the bottom of the largest tomatoes in my small garden, and I'd like to know if they foreshadow the beginning of blossom end rot (BER) for these three to five vines, ten to 15 fruit. Or, is it possible I'm just dealing with some crusty tomato ends that will still develop tasty, viable fruit? Most of the pics and tomatoes I've seen in person with BER were obviously black, mushy and rotten or on the way there. My toms aren't nearly so obvious. If I do have the early signs, is there anything I can realistically do to improve the situation? Molasses tea? Lime? More Bone meal? Foliar sprays? Based on Carolyn's comments, I'm not too hopeful any of those specious remedies have much chance to help.

I appreciate the expert opinions on this, and hoping to hear that I'm just playing the overly concerned parent.

Thanks,
Naysen

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by z_willus_d

Yesterday evening while pursing my vines and taking in the splendor of my best early producer (well, perhaps I shouldn't say "producer" yet), an Early Goliath that's about 6' tall now, I noticed something very disturbing on the blossom end of the EG's green fruities. They looked dark (well it was dusk), sunken in, and leathery; in short, ugly and deformed. I've purchased and once before grown beefy tomatoes that looked about as bad on the bottom when ripe, but these are still young and growing toms, susceptible to who knows how much additional distortion and, perhaps, rotting. See the first two pics for the EG.

After noting this, I quickly scanned the other vines and noted an adjacent Paul Robenson had a similar condition, though not quite as pronounced (see 3rd pic). Also included (4th pic) a Vintage Purple mutant.

This year, I didn't add any lime to my raised beds, but I expected the "Organic Choice" soil bags mixed with horse manure and my worm casting compost would be sufficient. When first blossoms set, I mixed in 2-3 Tbs. of bone meal at the base of each vine. I've also been foliar spraying this "Tiger Bloom" product (anyone use this?) for phosphate mainly.

I've spent some time researching BER recently for a co-worker friend. It's interesting to find a couple different views on the topic, most apparently true but context is everything. Carolyn's large post (#10) in this thread seemed a good, well informed, scientific summary (more so than most at least):
http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?p=177400

What I gathered from this is that BER is far less likely due to Ca++ deficiency in the soil and more so an issue with the plants ability to uptake the Ca++ and transport it to the fruit blossom end where its needed. There are various reasons for why this would be, but the one that Carolyn suggested most salient is plant stress either due to excessive cold/hot temps, over-fertilization leading to excessive growth not commensurate with the root support system, or perhaps generally less likely poor soil balance. We've had 100+ degree heat (35-45% hum) these past several days, and my soil may be a touch acidic at ~6.5; it certainly could be over-fertilized, as I believe I loaded in horse manure that hadn't fully composted when planting this Spring.

In summary, I found these leathery, craggy brown spots on the bottom of the largest tomatoes in my small garden, and I'd like to know if they foreshadow the beginning of blossom end rot (BER) for these three to five vines, ten to 15 fruit. Or, is it possible I'm just dealing with some crusty tomato ends that will still develop tasty, viable fruit? Most of the pics and tomatoes I've seen in person with BER were obviously black, mushy and rotten or on the way there. My toms aren't nearly so obvious. If I do have the early signs, is there anything I can realistically do to improve the situation? Molasses tea? Lime? More Bone meal? Foliar sprays? Based on Carolyn's comments, I'm not too hopeful any of those specious remedies have much chance to help.

I appreciate the expert opinions on this, and hoping to hear that I'm just playing the overly concerned parent.

Thanks,
Naysen

It looks like BER to me and the lesions of BER can range in color from beige to a darker brown to black. Usually the black ones appear black b'c the damaged area has been infected with just normal fungi in the air that have black spores.

What can I say that I didn't say in the post you refer to that I wrote? BER is an environmental problem associated with stress to the plants, which I discussed. Unless you know that your soil has NO Ca++ or that your soil is so acidic that Ca++ is bound in the soil, then there's no need to add anything at this point in time.

Well, that's how I see it right now.

[lurley]

I would wait a little before pulling off that fruit, it just looks like Blossom end scars to me right now, especially the second photo.

Sent from my X10a using Tapatalk

[TZ-OH6]

To me it looks like blossom scarring, a little catfacing and some zippering. My early stage BER is a discoloration on normally formed fruit, which gets darker as the affected tissue dies.

[feldon30]

If I had to guess, I'd say that's just blossom scarring/catfacing. That 4th picture is a Triple. It could produce a real monstrous tomato.

[z_willus_d]

Thanks all for the responses. I showed that first pic to my high-enthusiast tomato growing neighbors over my back fence, and they didn't even take a very close look before proclaiming it most likely was BER. I can buy into that given the atrocious heat we've had the past week, but then I've got what I thought was a really nice irrigation setup: 1 4-port 1/4" manifold with four "leaker" hoses running down each bed. I was watering around every 6-days. I would turn-on a slow leak and soak the bed for hours. I have 3-4" of fine bark mulch, and whenever I dig below a few inches, I see tons of worms and most hummus. Lately with the heat I've started watering twice a week with the same long soak, but this is probably unnecessary because I've seen no signs in the plants of a lack of water.

Now my neighbors also said that over-watering is probably the cause of the supposed BER. That's really got me confused because I've read several big posters on this site suggest that they were seeing BER in the summer heat and they started watering heavy and regular, daily, and the problem went away. I'm not really sure I should change my water regimen, which I've been careful to maintain with the exception of a move from once to twice a week soaks. I'm considering changing back to the one soak a week scheme or perhaps shorter soaks of 1 or 2 hours rather than the 3 or 4 I've been laying.

Anyway, back to the question is this BER or not. The reason I wasn't so sure is it does kind of look like scaring or poor formation and less the water mark earmark of BER. I don't know much about what causes the former, and in fact I hadn't heard the term until I read it in the responses to this thread. I was about to pull the fruits yesterday, but my gut said I should wait until at least one of them started to get mushy, black, necrotic, etc. I've bought been given and even grown tomatoes that have large leathery patches on their butts. I usually just cut out that part and the rest of the fruit is certainly edible.

BTW, what are the typical causes of blossom scarring/catfacing? In the case of that 3-prong monstrosity -- yes that one is ugly at least if not BER'd -- I expect the bottom scared as it stretches to accommodate the siblings.

Carolyn, as for the soil pH, I went a little nuts a while back and purchased a $300 Hanna Instruments soil pH meter. The day it arrived, I took it around my house measuring the soil beneath every green thing I'm growing, including my slightly alkaline hose water. I found that my beds were in a decent range of ~6.35-6.8 pH. I think if anything, I might have too much nitrogen of the wrong sort. I loaded the beds up with horse manure that had not fully composted back 2 weeks before planting in early April. I've read that this type over nitrogen "fertilization" can stress the plants and cause BER. There is also the heat stress. I think my water regiment is clean and regular. If anything, I might be over-soaking on my deep soaks, during which the plants might get a very slow drip/leak immersion over the span of 3-5 hours.

Sorry for the long response, but there actually were a couple questions in there along with a lot of background information.

Thanks again for all the help!
-naysen

Note, the pics I posted are as follows:
1- pH of hose tap water
2- pH of my worm castings (a little higher than I expected, perhaps the eggshells.
3- pH of the leach from my worm farm
4- pH of the Early Goliath soil
5- pH of the Paul Robenson soil
6- pH of the Vintage Purple soil

[carolyn137]

BTW, what are the typical causes of blossom scarring/catfacing? In the case of that 3-prong monstrosity -- yes that one is ugly at least if not BER'd -- I expect the bottom scared as it stretches to accommodate the siblings.

******

I looked at the pictures again just now, with my glasses on , something new following the bilateral cataract surgery that's needed for close up viewing now, and I think I could be convinced that all but one picture does show blossom scarring.

What causes it? Some fruits never have such scars, some have small linear ones and others have kinda belly button ones. So I think it's probably genetic.

Catfacing? More is known about that and it usually occurs with large fruited varieties, well let me just type out what's in my tomato pathology book:

"Abnormally cold weather during flowering is known to enhance this disorder. Also high soil nitrogen levels and any disturbance to the flowering parts during anthesis ( pollen shedding, CJM) can increase catfacing."

Otherwise the book also says that it's especially important on large fruited varieties and the severity is variety dependent.

And most of us have seen that catfaced fruits are usually found only on the earliest fruits and when the weather is warmer, for the reasons cited above, catfacing usually goes away.

[z_willus_d]

And he breaths a long sigh of relief... I apologize the pictures are not the clearest, and I agree it's quite easy to mistake the darkness for a water spot. Whether these tomatoes display blossom scarring, catfacing, BER or some combination of the above, I am worried for some -- those in particular that seem to have a quarter to half inch cavernous crater formations and look open to infection.

For now, I'll hold the course and say a prayer for these very slow ripening fruits of my labor. I suspect it will be a while yet before I see any red/purple/yellow/orange colors due to the continued 100+ degree temps current and forecaster out.

Thanks for the closer look and opinion Carolyn.
-naysen

[feldon30]

Actually, I usually remove triple or quadruple blossoms because while they tend to produce large tomatoes, a significant portion of the fruit is unusable as it is corky or tough. Also I think the plant probably spends an inordinate amount of energy growing and ripening such misshapen fruit. I don't have any evidence to back up my theories however. Plus there is the advisory not to save seed from such fruit since it is more likely to have resulted from an insect cross-pollination.

With 100 degree temperatures, waiting every 6 days for 4 hours sounds...off... to me. Just personally, I would not water less frequently than every 3 days with such high temperatures. I typically water 60-90 minutes every 2-3 days when it's the hottest. Any more than that and water runs out the bottom of my beds.

When you step back from all the statistics and guesses, BER boils down to consistent moisture being available to the plant at all times. Early in the season, I am a believer in deep, infrequent waterings to grow the best root system you can. But when it's 100 degrees, I don't care how much mulch you've got or how deep your roots are, you've gotta keep those plants cool and well-watered.

Again, these are just my theories, your soil may be completely different and your current watering schedule may be completely adequate.

[z_willus_d]

Feldon? I’ve been dithering lately (at least mentally) on exactly what the best water strategy is for my situation. My beds are fairly deep (~2feet) and I've never seen water leaking out the bottom with my ultra-slow soakers. I don't get much over 5 hours direct sunlight, which may help some with the evaporation. I've have not seen evidence of sad, wilting plants in the afternoon, something I used to get in pots. I check beneath the mulch and always find moist soil. So, I'm in agreement that once a week seems slim. I recently started watering twice a week, and maybe I'll amend that to once every 3 days. My main concern was with the possibility that I have overly hummic soil that might be holding H2O too tightly, and that I could then be over-watering in a sense, causing a kind of oxygen asphyxia. In any case, my goal is maintaining a very regular schedule and not introducing aberrations or high acceleration changes to the amount of water supplied to the plants. I’m still chewing on the comment my neighbors made about overwatering having been the cause of the supposed BER. I think I would have had to have first under watered the plants followed by and significant increase to over-water for the BER to appear.

Thanks.

[dice]

You can tell whether it is BER or merely a large-blossom end scar
from catfacing by how soft it is. BER is kind of soft and squishy at first,
because it represents the collapse of cell walls within the fruit,
but the moisture is still there. Large blossom end scars without BER
are usually dry and firm.

[Stepheninky]

just looks like blossom scarring and catfaceing to me, you will know its ber as the tomato will rot on the end and I really do not see that at all.

What variety is the tomatoes in the pics?

Some Varieties are more susceptible. It can be to a small degree be genetic as the fruits may have thinner skins or the flesh can be softer. Though the main causes are cool weather and/or poor pollination.

As the summer season continues you should see it less. The fruits are safe to eat just maybe less attractive.

The last pic you show looks like a fused blossom. Where more that one blossom have fused together to form a really big fruit ( think Siamese twins) these can be a bit ugly but the fruits will have a more impressive size.

[carolyn137]

Catfacing can show itself in many ways and notice the webbed catfacing ones which are the same as the poster pictured:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&b...5l1374l2-1.3l4

And BER can also show itself in many ways ranging from beige lesions, either soft or hard, to the much darker lesions which have usually been colonized by just normal fungi in the air that have black spores.

http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isc...2017l0.1.2.4l7

I think the pictures in the above two Google IMAGE searches are pretty darn good.

[z_willus_d]

It's been about a week (well five days) since my first post, and I haven't seen any signs that the tomatoes are getting any worse, despite having continued to grow. I'm having to anchor the struts up on that first plant, the early-goliath, just to keep them and their tomato weight from pinching off the weak stem. I suppose tress anchoring is a topic of and in itself.

Stepheninky, you asked about the varieties... the 1st and 2nd pics show an early-goliath I received from a coworker (BTW, does anyone have any experience with this hybrid -- it's the largest producer of green tomato mass in all my plants at present); the 3rd pic, is a Paul Robenson purchased from nursery; and the 4th a Vintage Purple germinated from seed and given gift from same coworker.

It's curious to see that the pics of the two categories of google searches, catfacing and BER aren't mutually exclusive. That is to say, the majority of the tomatoes depicted are categorically distinct, however there is a minority that could be assigned to either.

The weather was certainly cold for Sacramento earlier this Spring, so I expect that explains the scarring/catfacing. I've noticed more recent fruit-blooms have produced clearer, though not perfect, fruits with less obvious scaring. Unfortunately, the few three or four small fruits that my vintage purple plants have put out have all looked twisted and deformed. If they aren't awful tasty, I'll have to excuse them next year in lieu of something more productive and regular -- like perchance this Early Goliath or a Brandy-Master I have that is also producing well. Perchance added because I have no clue as to the taste, texture or consistency of those two hybrids.

--naysen

[Stepheninky]

Originally Posted by z_willus_d

It's been about a week (well five days) since my first post, and I haven't seen any signs that the tomatoes are getting any worse, despite having continued to grow. I'm having to anchor the struts up on that first plant, the early-goliath, just to keep them and their tomato weight from pinching off the weak stem. I suppose tress anchoring is a topic of and in itself.

Stepheninky, you asked about the varieties... the 1st and 2nd pics show an early-goliath I received from a coworker (BTW, does anyone have any experience with this hybrid -- it's the largest producer of green tomato mass in all my plants at present); the 3rd pic, is a Paul Robenson purchased from nursery; and the 4th a Vintage Purple germinated from seed and given gift from same coworker.

It's curious to see that the pics of the two categories of google searches, catfacing and BER aren't mutually exclusive. That is to say, the majority of the tomatoes depicted are categorically distinct, however there is a minority that could be assigned to either.

The weather was certainly cold for Sacramento earlier this Spring, so I expect that explains the scarring/catfacing. I've noticed more recent fruit-blooms have produced clearer, though not perfect, fruits with less obvious scaring. Unfortunately, the few three or four small fruits that my vintage purple plants have put out have all looked twisted and deformed. If they aren't awful tasty, I'll have to excuse them next year in lieu of something more productive and regular -- like perchance this Early Goliath or a Brandy-Master I have that is also producing well. Perchance added because I have no clue as to the taste, texture or consistency of those two hybrids.

--naysen

I have not yet grown early Goliath but might next year. I saw a Master Gardener report from north or central CA were they grow out all the bush types. It was the #1 producer in the trail and had the 2nd best taste for the bush type Goliath tomatoes. The regular Bush Goliath was # 1 in taste and #8 in production. I do have one of those growing and can say its not bad at all taste wise for a bush variety but the production is on the lower side.