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Old July 7, 2012   #1
ElectraJim
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Default Blossom End Rot in my SWC buckets help please

BER is really messing with my tomatoes this year. I have great growth, plenty of tomatoes, but they are getting blossom end rot before they have a chance to turn red...or pink...or yellow..

Anyway, we have had a few weeks of temps in the 100's. Yesterday at 107F.

My question is, is there anything I can do to stop, slow down, or prevent this from continuing, or is the damage already done?

I grow in a primary mix of Promix, pine bark, (and other stuff) and I added lawn lime to my soil mix to start with. I grow in 5 gallon buckets SWC design...

Is the BER caused by the excessive temps?

Thanks,
ElectraJim
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Old July 7, 2012   #2
chrisrap1
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I have the same problem here in NJ with the temps. Been reading a lot about cures etc. They range from hydrated lime to tums to adding calcium and then some say do nothing at all and wait it out, and all the other remedies people have seems very confusing.

Last edited by chrisrap1; July 7, 2012 at 03:13 PM.
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Old July 7, 2012   #3
ElectraJim
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Same here chrisrap1. I've been watering in my SWC's through the tube, so the water is being wicked up... I had a suggestion to water the soil from the top.
I use a drip system, on a timer, to keep the bottoms filled up.
Does anybody think that watering from the top would help?

I don't want to spray everything with "stuff" and find out that it caused harm, and didn't help anyway.

I found this thread...I think I'll go to the store.. sigh...
http://www.tomatoville.com/showthrea...ight=Lawn+Lime

ElectraJim

Last edited by ElectraJim; July 7, 2012 at 03:53 PM.
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Old July 7, 2012   #4
babice
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ElectraJim View Post
BER is really messing with my tomatoes this year. I have great growth, plenty of tomatoes, but they are getting blossom end rot before they have a chance to turn red...or pink...or yellow..

Anyway, we have had a few weeks of temps in the 100's. Yesterday at 107F.

My question is, is there anything I can do to stop, slow down, or prevent this from continuing, or is the damage already done?

I grow in a primary mix of Promix, pine bark, (and other stuff) and I added lawn lime to my soil mix to start with. I grow in 5 gallon buckets SWC design...

Is the BER caused by the excessive temps?

Thanks,
ElectraJim
From what I've been reading it's usually caused by not enough calcium -- which is either because of inconsistent water or because there's not enough calcium in the soil. I've also read that sometimes you get the BER on your first fruits but it goes away (as the lime makes more calcium avail in the soil). But - we've had the triple digit temps here too and I've been finding my EBs need to be filled at least once a day if not more. Yesterday I personally hosed my toms in the EBs off (so the water would cool them and to thwart any aphids or mites that might be thinking of living there) and I was generous with the hosing off...in other words...some of the water probably got into the top of the soil. I only did this because it's been so triple-digit-hot for so long.

I have read on this site and possibly on the EB forum about a calcium nitrate "snack". You could consider that. And make sure you're filling your reservoir up often enough in this heat for them to have consistent water available to them.
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Old July 7, 2012   #5
ContainerTed
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BER is caused by stress to the plant. And high temps are certainly stressful. There has been a lot of mis-information about adding calcium and a hundred other things. When the temps are this high, put some shade on your plants and BER will not be as prevalent.

A call of calcium deficiency may be good if the soil is the only suspect. Overwatering, underwatering, irregular watering. high temps, widely fluctuating temps, and anything else that puts a flowering, fruiting plant quickly into a stressful situation will usually result in BER. The plants feel threatened and go into survival mode and that will include aborting their fruit.
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Old July 7, 2012   #6
ElectraJim
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Quote:
Originally Posted by babice View Post

I have read on this site and possibly on the EB forum about a calcium nitrate "snack". You could consider that. And make sure you're filling your reservoir up often enough in this heat for them to have consistent water available to them.
I was wondering if "bottom up watering" isn't as good as "top down" watering in the absorption of calcium in a SWC.
The containers are staying pretty filled, and often. I have a drip system filling the bottom (down the tube) a few times a day.

It's easy to blame the heat for everything, but as long as a tomato plant has water, can they not be able to fight off BER completely?

Edit: I just saw your post ContainerTed.. Unfortunately, moving ~50 buckets isn't really what I want to do. I have them lined up to get the most sun possible in my yard.
I also have them all in one long row.. bummer.

Thanks for the info.

ElectraJim

Last edited by ElectraJim; July 7, 2012 at 04:34 PM.
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Old July 7, 2012   #7
babice
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Yeah, definitely ContainerTed knows a heck of a lot more about this than moi as I'm new to the tom growing thing. So - yeah - what he said!
I have both container toms and EBs. I don't think the bottom-up watering should give any poorer results for calcium uptake than tom-down. How often are you filling your water reservoir? And when you fill it is it taking a lot of water to fill it?

p.s. what I meant in my earlier post is that I've read that the poor calcium uptake can be due to many things, one of which might be inconsistent watering - so, for example maybe they got a lot of water one day due to the heavy rains and then the reservoir went dry after a few days and then when you filled the reservoir the soil soaked it right up and the reservoir emptied fast again? That could be one example. What I was doing with my EBs before this high heat spell hit was filling the reservoir once a week. But that has simply not been good enough during this heat. I'm up to filling it every day and it's definitely not just overflowing right away so I can tell the soil is taking it up. But, if you think their water availability has been consistent, it could be that the heat has made it hard on them to do anything but survive (thus the stress CT wrote about).

Last edited by babice; July 7, 2012 at 05:19 PM.
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Old July 7, 2012   #8
JamesL
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Read Carolyn's post in this thread on BER.
Size of your reservoir might be a factor with respect to the heat.
The plants might benefit from an additional top watering if you can manage it, extra water and a cool off. I think it is hard to over water when the temps are north of 100.
http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=23668

Edit - even a hose down on the outside of the containers to cool them off and thereby cooling off the media and the roots could help.

Last edited by JamesL; July 7, 2012 at 05:55 PM.
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Old July 7, 2012   #9
artis
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Container tomatoes develop BER quite often. In my personal experience there are two main causes:

1. Irregular watering, especially if the plants are allowed to dry out till they start to wilt.

2. Too much nitrogen fertilizer in the form of ammonium. This is a very common cause of BER that most people fail to recognize. Unfortunately, nearly all synthetic "tomato plant food" available at Home Cheapo is overloaded with ammonium salts. Stay away from Miracle Gro if you are growing tomatoes in containers.
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Old July 7, 2012   #10
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Out off my 15 containers on my deck I've had 3 tomatoes that have BER. Only one variety had ber on it. It my franks large red. The bad thing is its only had 12 fruit on it so far because of the relentless heat wave... All my containers were set up the same and treated the same. Thats seems odd.
I'm sorry, i didn't see this was swc. mine aren't sorry again

Last edited by augiedog55; July 7, 2012 at 09:33 PM.
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Old July 8, 2012   #11
chrisrap1
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In my buckets I made the reservoir deeper by adding a spacer between the 2 so now I have solid 3" reservoir as apposed to a 1.5" res and have a solid 1" gap for air/overflow. So I don't have watering issue as I fill everyday or every other.
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Old July 9, 2012   #12
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I think BER is more variety specific. Heat figures in as the hotter it gets the more the plant perspires from the leaves thus the nutrient laden water in the plant is bypassing the fruit and out the leaves it goes. It is a Calcium deficiency but only at the fruit. CT's suggestion of shading the plant will slow down the plant perspiration allowing more nutrients for the fruits.
I grow primarily in containers and the only BER I had was in Roma type tomatoes. As the weather cooled down the BER subsided. Ami
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