Black Stem Problem

[StephenCoote]

Hi all. It is spring down here, and many New Zealanders now have tomato plants in outdoor gardens.

A friend has had several young plants affected by a problem which turns the stems black. He sent me a photo which I hope appears in this post. Can anybody suggest what this problem might be and how it might be avoided or dealt with? I've never been aware of this type of thing and I've grown tomatoes for quite a few years now.

Many thanks in advance... Stephen Coote

[Gardeneer]

I have seen that this past season on some of my tomatoes. I checked and found out that it is very thin layer. All those plants survived . At first I was thinking that it probably was grey mold. I kept spraying with all kind of fungicides and chlorine solution but it did not go away.
I could never figure it out what it was. Some web info said that it was some sort of blight. What ever it was, did not kill my plants and those stems flowered and fruited.
Sorry, not much help.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by StephenCoote

Hi all. It is spring down here, and many New Zealanders now have tomato plants in outdoor gardens.

A friend has had several young plants affected by a problem which turns the stems black. He sent me a photo which I hope appears in this post. Can anybody suggest what this problem might be and how it might be avoided or dealt with? I've never been aware of this type of thing and I've grown tomatoes for quite a few years now.

Many thanks in advance... Stephen Coote

There are several diseases that can cause black stems,Early Blight being one of them.

The link below is from the Pest and Disease Forum here and I suggest you check out the two Cornell links first as well as the aggie Tamu one.

I know they will help.

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=21

Carolyn

[ginger2778]

Kinda looks like a neem oil burn, or other spray burn, but it is weird if that is the case that it only is on an isolated area of the srem.

[StephenCoote]

Thanks for all your ideas and especially for the useful link. I didn't find anything that seemed to be an exact match with what I've seen, but - as suggested - the problem could be early blight. Perhaps in a few days the plants will look different and be a better match to some of the 'symptom photos'.

It will be interesting to see which plants aren't significantly affected by this problem.

Thanks again for your help.

[b54red]

I had that same thing on a couple of my late plantings but they kept right on producing and that area gradually became a dull dead looking spot on the main stem.

Bill