Cotyledons dying, everything else is fine!

[SamiKihano]

I don't know what's happening, but all of my peppers seem fine. My tomato plants are growing quickly, but all the cotyledons shriveled and turned brown.

My prudent's purple are affected the worst. I'll post pictures in a bit...

[Worth1]

Plants have real leaves time for them to die.

Worth

[MissS]

Worth is right, but allow me to phrase it a bit differently. Once the plant has true leaves, the plant no longer needs the cotyledons and they then yellow and fall off. The plant now has true leaves to produce the energy to continue its growth.
The cotyledons die off once there are true leaves present, NOT death to the entire plant.

[Deborah]

I always pinch mine off if they're still on when true leaves appear.

[SamiKihano]

I sounded like such a doofis... I'm kind of embarrassed in hindsight, I have started many things from seed in my life (never tomato plants) and the cotyledons either fell off or I cut them out of ocd.

Seeing it happen to dozens of plants I had never started before made me a bit startled. I keep hearing people IRL say if you smoke tobacco before touching a tomato it will die (wives tale? Not risking it..) And being rather protective of my garden, I got a bit frantic when my significant other took a drag of pipe tobacco next to my plant window... Naturally I got upset and blamed the yellowing on him, further adding to my embarrassment..

[Worth1]

Highly unlikely you will get tobacco mosaic virus from tobacco.
The tobacco industry goes to the extreme to keep this from their fields.

Worth

[Starlight]

Originally Posted by SamiKihano

I sounded like such a doofis... I'm kind of embarrassed in hindsight, I have started many things from seed in my life (never tomato plants) and the cotyledons either fell off or I cut them out of ocd.

Seeing it happen to dozens of plants I had never started before made me a bit startled. I keep hearing people IRL say if you smoke tobacco before touching a tomato it will die (wives tale? Not risking it..) And being rather protective of my garden, I got a bit frantic when my significant other took a drag of pipe tobacco next to my plant window... Naturally I got upset and blamed the yellowing on him, further adding to my embarrassment..

Don't feel bad Sami. These are our babies and we all worry over what is happening to them. I get nervous myself if I think I see something strange going on and ask dumb questions all the time. When it's your babies, sometimes you react first and think later.

The good thing is, now you have your answer and next time you grow tomatoes, cuz you will get hooked on them so be warned, you'll know what your doing.

Don't be afraid to ask any question here. Especially with growing tomatoes for the first time, you'll probably have lots of questions and see things developing with your plants you've never seen before. The folks here are patient and will answer you. Everybody wants to see everybody learn to grow the best tomatoes they can.

[MissS]

There are no stupid questions! If you do not know the answer then I bet that there were 5 other people that did not either, so you helped them.
Besides that, you asked something that I could answer. I ought to be THANKING you for that!

[Deborah]

I'm paranoid about smoking near my tomatoes. I've read that being near smoke isn't dangerous but touching the plants after smoking is. So I don't do either. Who knows.

[My Foot Smells]

Guess it all depends on what you are smoking Deborah

[SamiKihano]

smoking tobacco and then touching your nightshade seedlings seems to cause the leaves to wilt.
I think it may be the resin on your fingers from smoking. Only tobacco seems to have this affect.

I always like to make a habit of never touching, or touching my seedlings as rarely as possible. I would have posted pics by now if i could figure out how to from my droid

[Starlight]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Highly unlikely you will get tobacco mosaic virus from tobacco.
The tobacco industry goes to the extreme to keep this from their fields.

Worth

I agree with Worth on this, sorta.

Years ago when tobacco first started being made, yes, plants were getting TMV when smoking or handling plants and then handling tomato and pepper plants.

Of the course of time, tobacco varieties were developed with resistance to TMV. Cig smoking didn't seem to hurt the plants at all. Not sure about cigars or chew.

Until recently, I would have no worried, but now they are having to manufacture cigs with paper that has who knows what chems in them that makes the cigs quit burning. Was done to help stop forest fires and grass fires if I remember right. They also changed the development and materials in the filter.

Touching or not to touch, I think has to be a personal choice as it is your plants. Go with what you feel most comfortable with.

[SamiKihano]

Perhaps the caustic nature of the tar produced by smoking something that would remain on one's fingers. We use wood ash to change the pH of pelts before we make rawhide, it wouldn't seem to matter if it was wood smoke, tar from inside a stove pipe on your fingers, tobacco smoke.... I have seen the spots I touch die when I touch them after smoking tobacco.
I never thought it was tmv, it seems more like a singular chemical burn. I haven't kept doing it to find out though =D