Any idea what is wrong with plants?

[Pamela58]

Hi - I noticed these spots yesterday. They are on every tomato plant and can be found at the top, middle, and bottom leaves.

We have had a lot of rain the last several days and we had pea size hail for about ten minutes.

Thanks for your help!

[oakley]

Could be storm damage. Mine got hit last night in a strong thunderstorm. The far right looks like a muncher. Was it like that before?. I have TortoiseBeetles but they are slow
feeders and leave behind smaller pea size holes. (so few right now i just pick them off)

[Pamela58]

A few of the leaves did have "munch marks" prior to the storm....

[oakley]

You will have to look for the suspect. Different pests have specific times to feast.
Best to identify, then use the best method recommended to eradicate. Look under leaves
and look for droppings. Minor damage, a leaf here and there, i just find them and drop
into a jar of IsoAlcohol.

Some caterpillars can do major damage fast. Some dig right into fruit.
BT or pyrethrins if its a cat. They feast from the edges in. Like your pic.

[Pamela58]

I don't see any pests however I have seen moths land on the leaves so I am going with the BT.

Interestingly enough, there is almost no damage to the NBD plants.

Thanks for your help Oakley!

[bower]

The brown marks in the first pics could certainly be weather damage.

I like to keep an eye on leaf damages whatever kind, and periodically remove either whole leaves or the damaged parts and dispose away from the plant. Even if it is weather damage, the plant gets no good from heavily damaged or dead leaf tissue, and it's a place for decomposer or disease organisms to set in and fester. If it's tiny pests or disease, I am limiting the colonization by removing what looks bad. Sometimes a judgement call whether to keep a partly damaged leaf when the plant doesn't have many leaves on. But tomatoes grow so fast, they replace their leaves very quickly, so I don't allow any bad ones to hang on for long.

Sometimes when I move plants outdoors from the greenhouse they lose all of their foliage in the first few days! and quickly replace it with tougher stuff. Tomatoes are pretty amazing.

[Pamela58]

Thanks for the advice!

I sprayed BT two days ago and removed the leaves. I see a small weblike substance on the leaves however when I shake the leaves over a white piece of paper, nothing shows up.

Something bit into a tomato - if you need a clearer pic I will pull out the big camera and macro lens.

I bought some Spinosad and have some DE - thinking about spraying that tonight. Any opinions on this?

Thanks!

Pam

[Pamela58]

Here's the pic.

[bower]

That looks like a big bite and if the dark spot is a hole, you might find the culprit inside. But it is definitely one of the bigger pests, a caterpillar or a slug! I had slugs in the greenhouse one summer and they wreaked havoc on my tomatoes as soon as they blushed.
For caterpillar your BT for caterpillars is the remedy of choice. It doesn't affect beneficials but specifically the caters. For slugs there's a pelleted product that goes under several names, Slug B Gone is one if I recall, which is an iron compound, again, harmless to other things but deadly to the slug, you sprinkle it on the ground. I have seen it work really well on brassicas and greens at the farm, but for some reason did not attract the slugs that were hiding in my containers and climbing up to eat succulent tomato at night. They knew what they wanted.
I don't know if DE works on slugs? Maybe if you sprayed it on the lower stem really heavily that would stop them from climbing up. Otherwise it is pretty broad spectrum so could affect good bugs as well as bad, if you spray it everywhere.
Spinosad is for leaf miners, thrips, spider mites and other tiny things. This is not what bit your tomato fruit for sure, but if you see a lot of tiny leaf damages again (I never see the critters themselves) then maybe worth a go. I know I have mites in my greenhouse that are always followed by hordes of tiny spiders, so small I can only assume they eat the littler guys. Both mites and spiders then disappear a few weeks later. I considered DE for mite control but will wait and see how the spiders do first. If the mites keep coming I'll DE the leaves. If I had Spinosad I would consider that too.

[Pamela58]

Great info Bower! Do you think slugs could get on a deck into Earthboxes?

[bower]

It depends how many slugs you have, and how wet it is.
Best way to check for slugs, take a watermelon rind (or a hollowed out turnip!) and put it upside down on the soil surface overnight. You will find them on the underside in the morning.

[oakley]

Originally Posted by Pamela58

Great info Bower! Do you think slugs could get on a deck into Earthboxes?

That's a stretch for slugs, but possible. They got into the top tier of my worm composter.
(on the ground). DE works for slugs. Just a dusting on the soil surrounding the stems.

Slugs usually will stick to other bedding plants around the home. Hosta, slug crack.
Lettuce, leafy greens.