curly leaves and slowed growth please help!

[canoli]

Hello All this is my first post here and I am hoping you could help me out. I have 16 Plants in 2 different beds and I have 3 out of the 16 showing the same strange cured stunned growth. They both seem to be the most severe on the plants closest to the fence. What is strange is that all three are different strains and in 2 separate beds showing almost the identical problem. The first one to show the symptoms yellowed badly before the curling happened. The others showed no yellowing just curled leaves. The Beds are placed perpendicular to the fence and the ones closest to the fence in both beds are showing the worst curling. What else is strange is on 2 of the 3 plants the curling is on only 1 of the "V" branches the other side of the same plant is growing just fine. I am using a homemade super soil in raised beds and all the plants are on a string trellis grown in a "V" pattern.

See the attached pics. I am not sure if this is a dieses, nutrient deficiency or pest.

[JamesL]

Herbicide damage?

[Vespertino]

I have a similar problem on my sungolds. I'm new to tomato gardening so I'm not sure what it is but I suspect either cucumber mosaic virus (cmv) or herbicide drift. I posted pics in the cmv topic for feedback but have none yet.

[Lee]

I'm guessing herbicide damage, from either:
Your yard treatment after plants went in....
Neighbor's yard treatment....
or contaminated soil mix....

2-4-D is the common home herbicide and it causes this exact effect
you are showing..... Check out the rest of the pest/disease forum for more comments on this topic.

Vesperitno, CMV is vectored by aphids. If you don't have aphids, I'd
lean toward herbicide drift. If you do have aphids, then it could still
be herbicide, but that opens up the possibility for CMV.

Lee

[Vespertino]

Hi lee,
Thanks for the info.

I did fight a major aphid infestation on my rose plant that shares the patio with my tomatoes. It is very hard for me to tell the difference between herbicide damage and cmv since they look so similar. What I have noticed is that the leaf curl seems a bit different from some cmv photos where cmv seems to curl the outer edges of the leaves upward and out, while the leaf curl on my plants goes down and under the leaf. I'm not sure if that helps differentiate anything but I figured I should mention it.

While the aphids are suspect my patio is over an apartment parking lot and there are always landscape maintenance crew tending the place. I'm sure they spray the parking lot concrete and lawn for weeds on occasion.

[nathan125]

Any new on the damage to your plants?
if it is herbicide damage your plants might snap out of it after a a couple weeks. ?
Would soaking the soil with lots of water help wash away the 2-4d residue?

hope they turn out okay for you.

[Lee]

Originally Posted by nathan125

Any new on the damage to your plants?
if it is herbicide damage your plants might snap out of it after a a couple weeks. ?
Would soaking the soil with lots of water help wash away the 2-4d residue?

hope they turn out okay for you.

Not an update, but a partial answer to your question...
Not sure for in ground, but a good soaking does wash out 2-4d residue from pots....

Lee

[Paradajz]

i'm afraid there are not very good chances that an update on those photos can be particularily optimistic...
the appearance of so curly folliage, blueish colorations, and especially adaxially ( in- ward ) curled young leafs mostly never is.

[RebelRidin]

This looks exactly like 2-4D damage. Tomatoes are so sensitive they do not actually even have to be exposed to the spray. Just the vapors of the 2-4D esthers in the air can cause it.

My transplants got nailed like this when I was hardening them off this spring. I top watered them heavily and let drain. It took about ten days to recover. The stems were all crooked and twisted but the new growth was OK. They are now in the ground and seem to be doing fine. I do not expect any impac on production in the end.

[Lee]

I don't know if these were hit with 2-4D or not, but they showed
the twisted curly growth that indicates herbicide damage.
However, plants next to them did not have the same effect.

Fortunately, they seem to be growing out of it, which would be great!

Lee

[Paradajz]

Originally Posted by Lee

I don't know if these were hit with 2-4D or not, but they showed
the twisted curly growth that indicates herbicide damage.
However, plants next to them did not have the same effect.

Fortunately, they seem to be growing out of it, which would be great!

Lee

leafs are curled to the other side at your photos ( abaxially curled ), that's generally a sign of stress presence ( with curling leafs this way the plant protects itself from transpiration and various distress factors, it's a natural mechanism ).

on the other side, adaxially curled leafs generally suggest a viral disease. it's an unnatural occurence and a healthy plant will never curl leafs that way, what ever the distress might be.

br,
ivan

[coastal bend]

2-4-d makes the targeted plant grow it self to death. Drift to other broad leaf pants will shorten the nodes on growth untill the plant grows through it. Then it will grow like a normal plant. Depending on how much exposure it had to the 2-4-d. If the plants have plenty of water and good growing conditions it should be fine. After awhile you be able to see where the damage occurred and the healthy growth took over.

[Vespertino]

Mine are growing out of the herbicide damage, some are doing better than others but I'm happy I didn't lose any plants

[b54red]

Dang. I've got it now. Hit just the tomatoes in one corner where my shed doesn't protect them from the wind. I've had it before and some will grow out of it and some won't depending on how bad they have it. I've got a couple that I'm pretty sure won't make it. It is kind of amazing that 15 ft down the row there isn't a sign of it but at the very end it is really bad. At least I have over 50 plants so it won't be the end of my season if I lose a half dozen or so. Of course down at the other end of my garden I'm getting Gray Mold. I hope the two don't work their way to meet in the middle. A week ago everything was looking so good I thought I was going to have my best year ever and now its getting a bit dicey. I better go check for spider mites.

[Vespertino]

b45red: sorry to hear that about your plants hopefully the plants will outgrow the damage.

I wonder if some tomato plants might be more sensitive to it than others.

I am growing both sungolds and brandywine red (PL) on my patio, and the herbicide damage only occurs on the sungolds. The brandywine looks unaffected. Sadly there's nothing I can do, and recently I noticed new damage on the sungolds once they were starting to outgrow the old damage. But I found the culprit: the apartment management hires a landscaping company to spray the parking lot concrete to keep it weed-free. I saw one of their workers with a big tank strapped to his back with a hose and a hand sprayer roaming the parking lot for offending patches of green. I'm 100% sure that's the source since my patio overlooks the parking lot. All it takes is one bad waft...