Cracking and/or black in tomatoes????

[ira1948]

One tomato turned black on bottom and when I cut it open it was black inside.

Others (different varieties) develop black lines around the bottom of the tomatoes.

Any ideas? suggestions?

[feldon30]

Sounds like Blossom End Rot.

The root cause is inability of the plant to effectively distribute calcium through the stems into the fruit. However before you run out and buy BER spray or start crumbling TUMS tablets, realize that the secondary cause is usually inconsistent watering and/or a lack of mulch. And finally, some people do need to add a small amount of Dolomitic Lime to their soil to compensate for the acidity of peat moss or natural acidity of their soil.

BER is not a disease. It's a physiological condition.

[ira1948]

Wow - thanks.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by ira1948

One tomato turned black on bottom and when I cut it open it was black inside.

Others (different varieties) develop black lines around the bottom of the tomatoes.

Any ideas? suggestions?

Black on the blossom end is BER as Feldon just mentioned.

The black interior is called internal BER and usually the fruit shows no external evidence at all, but sometimes both can appear.

The black lines at the blossom end is called zippering/

A search here will bring up lots of threads about BER and you can Google ....tomato zippering..... if you want to know more/

I just remembered where my BER artive was so I'm cutting and pasting it here:

With BER there is NO problem with absorption of Ca++ though the roots. The problem is maldistribution within the plant that can be induced by a number of stresses which include uneven delivery of water, too much N, growing in too rich soil, too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry you name it.

As the plants mature they can better handle the streses that can induce BER so usually it goes away.

The two exceptions are first, if the soil has NO Ca++ as confirmed with a soil test, and that's a rare condition, and second, if the soil is too acidic in which Case Ca++ is bound in the soil.

Again, adding lime, egg shells and on and on can not and will not prevent BER b'c absorption of Ca++ thru the roots is OK.

Paste tomatoes are especially susceptible to BER.

The old information about BER being caused solely by lack of soil Ca++ has been shown to be wrong with research that's been done in the last 20 years or so, but it's going to take another generation before the real story gets into books, websites, magazines, etc. Most of the better websites already have the correct information.

BER affects not only tomatoes, but peppers, squash, cabbage, cauliflower, etc., and it's a huge multimillion dollar problem for the industry, which is WHY all that reasearch was done. For instance, when tissues were taken from a plant that has BER fruits and was assayed for Ca++, the normal level of Ca++ was found, it just wasn't getting to the blossom end of fruits. And there's also a condition called internal BER where the fruits look fine, no evidence of BER externally, but when you cut open the fruit the inside is black
Hope that helps

[ira1948]

Thanks. That's great information.
Ira