Beginning Stages of BER or just Ugly Toms

[z_willus_d]

Yesterday evening while pursing my vines and taking in the splendor of my best early producer (well, perhaps I shouldn't say "producer" yet), an Early Goliath that's about 6' tall now, I noticed something very disturbing on the blossom end of the EG's green fruities. They looked dark (well it was dusk), sunken in, and leathery; in short, ugly and deformed. I've purchased and once before grown beefy tomatoes that looked about as bad on the bottom when ripe, but these are still young and growing toms, susceptible to who knows how much additional distortion and, perhaps, rotting. See the first two pics for the EG.

After noting this, I quickly scanned the other vines and noted an adjacent Paul Robenson had a similar condition, though not quite as pronounced (see 3rd pic). Also included (4th pic) a Vintage Purple mutant.

This year, I didn't add any lime to my raised beds, but I expected the "Organic Choice" soil bags mixed with horse manure and my worm casting compost would be sufficient. When first blossoms set, I mixed in 2-3 Tbs. of bone meal at the base of each vine. I've also been foliar spraying this "Tiger Bloom" product (anyone use this?) for phosphate mainly.

I've spent some time researching BER recently for a co-worker friend. It's interesting to find a couple different views on the topic, most apparently true but context is everything. Carolyn's large post (#10) in this thread seemed a good, well informed, scientific summary (more so than most at least):
http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?p=177400

What I gathered from this is that BER is far less likely due to Ca++ deficiency in the soil and more so an issue with the plants ability to uptake the Ca++ and transport it to the fruit blossom end where its needed. There are various reasons for why this would be, but the one that Carolyn suggested most salient is plant stress either due to excessive cold/hot temps, over-fertilization leading to excessive growth not commensurate with the root support system, or perhaps generally less likely poor soil balance. We've had 100+ degree heat (35-45% hum) these past several days, and my soil may be a touch acidic at ~6.5; it certainly could be over-fertilized, as I believe I loaded in horse manure that hadn't fully composted when planting this Spring.

In summary, I found these leathery, craggy brown spots on the bottom of the largest tomatoes in my small garden, and I'd like to know if they foreshadow the beginning of blossom end rot (BER) for these three to five vines, ten to 15 fruit. Or, is it possible I'm just dealing with some crusty tomato ends that will still develop tasty, viable fruit? Most of the pics and tomatoes I've seen in person with BER were obviously black, mushy and rotten or on the way there. My toms aren't nearly so obvious. If I do have the early signs, is there anything I can realistically do to improve the situation? Molasses tea? Lime? More Bone meal? Foliar sprays? Based on Carolyn's comments, I'm not too hopeful any of those specious remedies have much chance to help.

I appreciate the expert opinions on this, and hoping to hear that I'm just playing the overly concerned parent.

Thanks,
Naysen