Bacterial Speck or insect damage, or both?

[clkingtx]

These are all from a Large Red Cherry tomato that has been producing pretty heavily. Fearing the worst, I yanked the plant, but am wondering if this is a cause for concern. I have another LRCT that is showing the same symptoms in the fruit. I know the one with a hole in it is insect damage(right?), I am just curious which kind of insect, and what the brown stuff inside is. The others I am unsure of, and if it is disease, should I yank the other plant, too? There are no leaf symptoms, and the weather is hot now, but we had about a week and a half of cool, wet weather that ended about 4-5 days ago. These 2 plants in question are in ground, or was in ground; and I have one in a 5 gallon bucket that is fine, whose fruit is unblemished. The only other tomato variety producing is sweet 100, and fruit is also unblemished. It only seems to be in the in ground LRCT plants...Not sure what to think. Thanks for any advice! All the tomatoes are firm, except the one in the first picture, which has softening under the spots.
Thanks,
Carrie

[Paradajz]

if i understood correctly you pulled the plant which produced those fruits out?
are there any other producing similar fruits? if there are, most probably it would be wise to pull them all out.

br

[RayR]

Looks like Gray Wall (Blotchy Ripening), which is a physiological problem, if so you pulled the plant unnecessarily. If your leaves are mottled also, it could be TMV (tobacco mosaic virus).

[clkingtx]

Thanks for the responses. I do have one other that has one fruit that looked similar, but has other normal fruit as well. I am waiting to get rid of it until I am sure that it is necessary. The other plant was an easy decision because I had some better liked varieties that needed to go in the ground. The more I read, the more I think it isn't a disease. The plants that produced the off tomatoes have no foliage problems, other than a few bug holes. The stuff I read on Gray wall says possibly from lack of sun.... We did have a week and a half of cloudy, rainy, cool days. That is incredibly unusual for us, and these plants had been acclimated to lots of heat and sun. I am going to just watch the plants close for now...Weird stuff!

[RayR]

It's one of those things like BER where there is no single definitive cause, but is more often a combination of factors.
I understand that TMV would cause browning of the interior of the fruit along with mottling of the foliage, but a mild strain of the virus may show no foliage disorder. A bacterial infection through a wound in the skin caused by insects or whatever can cause browning too.
Blotchy uneven ripening like yours or yellow shoulders (I've had that in the past) may just be a problem with Potassium uptake. Environmental conditions can play a role like weather or soil temperature or a real deficiency or K in the soil, or a fertilizer imbalance that is limiting K uptake like too much N.

[nancyruhl]

According to Carolyn, TMV can be ruled out. Here is a quote from her

"And while you see the letter T after many F1's, which is for TMV ( tobacco Mosaic Virus), no one really has a problem with that any more b'c about 20 years ago all tobacco grown in the US is TMV resistant. The only place TMV crops up is in large scale commercial greenhouse operations where it's spread meachanically, not by the normal insect mediation.

So don't smoke Turkish tobacco. ( smile)"

[clkingtx]

RayR, I think you nailed it. I had been monitoring the plant I removed(and the two others near it), trying to decide how to treat a potassium deficiency(I had already removed those other two, just to prevent disease attacking the plants because of reduced immunity, for lack of a better term). I am sure the deficiency was/is caused by the method of irrigation I have been using. I have soaker hoses watering the interior of my garden. On the perimeter, I have a trench dug to supply those plants there. When I attach the soaker hose to the supply, I do it loosely, so that the hose connection slowly drips, and fills up the trench, supplying water to the other areas of the garden. I think the potassium was washed away from the plants, as the ones affected were the ones closest to where the water originates. I believe the article you cited confirms this because the pictures it shows could have been of my fruit, and it says cloudy, rainy weather can trigger the problem, which is what we had prior to noticing the problem. Also though I have not found any internal browning in any of the affected fruit, I am finding the white corky areas in some. I am really glad I decided not to pull that other large red cherry tomato plant. I learned last night, that a sprinkle of salt improves their flavor to something really special!

Nancy, thanks for that quote, it is nice to know that TMV isn't too much of a concern for me! Neither of us smoke, so not much danger of exposure there(except for possibly the jerks who sometimes throw trash(cig butts and beer bottles ) over our fence from the alley) . I would guess(and hope) that Turkish tobacco is more expensive and hopefully out of reach of those who would litter in someone else's backyard!

Now I wonder what would be the best way to get a very slow release potassium source for this area? Maybe burying bananas or banana peels there? The cheaper the better, as funds are VERY limited, lol!

Thanks again! The guys and gals on this site are the best!
Carrie