BER - Where do I begin?

[PastorJeff]

I'm growing six tomato plants in 3 Earthtainers. Two Parks Whoppers, two Celebrities, and two Better Boys.

Just as the tomatoes are starting to look promising, I've discovered what I assume to be blossom end rot on several tomatoes in each container! What I find is either a green or ripening tomato that has a large dark-brown spot on the blossom end.

As far as I know I followed instructions precisely when building and filling the containers. I added the lime as instructed. I'm using an AWS, and live in central New Jersey, where tomato picking time should be only a week or two away.

I'm freaking out!

What should my first steps be to stop this from spreading? What causes it? And, are the non-rotten parts of the BER tomatoes edible?

These are the strongest, healthiest looking tomato plants I've ever had, and I've made a huge investment in time and money to get this far. Plus, my reputation is on the line among all the people I've been bragging to. (Ok -- I get it -- Pride goes before a fall.

Please help me salvage this harvest !

-Jeff

[kath]

Lots of info here about BER and its causes (much disputed) and the increased likelihood of its occurrence in containers. Even watering seems to be important. It's not a disease and it doesn't spread to other plants/fruits, so just pick off affected fruits and hope that the new fruits will be fine. Don't think you can salvage the fruits- the rot just keeps getting worse as the fruit develops.

My tomatoes are in the ground and I'm still seeing a lot more BER than usual this year and Dunellen isn't all that far from here, really. As the season progresses, it's usually not a problem.

[Stepheninky]

I usually use a 1 TBS of molasses per gallon of water and in my containers 5 gallon grow bags will use about 1/4 of a gallon of that on each one. Be it irregular watering or calcium that causes BER is debatable a bit, IMHO both can be causes as I think its a nutrient uptake issue. Either way the molasses should help it as its a chelate and the sugars in the molasses should also encourage soil microbes that will also break down the available nutrients and make it more available to the plants.

The effected fruit as stated will not recover but if its not too bad then yes you can possibly cut off the BER end and still use the unaffected part of the fruits. Either way I would remove the effected fruits so the plants energy will be used to set and make new fruits.

Hope that helps

[rnewste]

Jeff,

As others have said here, there is still a bit of the "unknown" as to the direct causes and treatment of BER. My own experience in EarthTainers has been very variety dependent - - some varieties like Big Beef have NEVER experienced BER, where others seem more prone to it.

The "good news" is that over time, the percentage of BER afflicted fruits diminishes, and by the mid-Season, it will be mostly gone. I know it is tough to be patient - - but hang in there. The good news that you reported is about the really healthy plants!!

Raybo

[platys]

I've found that some plants are just more likely to get it than others. For example, I have a Siletz and a Sioux right next to each other in 10ish gallon containers. They have the same media, and are watered the same way. The Siletz is covered in tomatoes, with not a spot of BER to be seen. the Sioux has about 5 tomatoes growing, and I just plucked two off due to Blossom End Rot.

Now, I just got back from a week long trip, and I'm sure that my husband and neighbor didn't water them as much as I would have. For some reason, not everyone enjoys standing in my backyard, dodging mosquitos and watering tomatoes for an hour. So I'm hoping that with deeper watering, the Sioux will turn around. However, there were other varieties I grew last year that just did not like containers at all (Great White was the worst), while others, like Japanese Black Triefel or Hawaiian Pineapple, couldn't have cared less where they were planted.

[beatpoet]

Japanese Black Trifele is the only non-cherry variety I'm growing that hasn't had at least one tomato with BER this year. I've been seeing it more on my Roma plants and my Red Zebra than anything else so far.

[Tom C zone 4/5]

Pastor, BER will pass. Take a deep breath. It'll be OK.

[platys]

I know Roma's are particularly bad about BER in containers - I haven't even tried to grow them. Opalka HATED my containers - I got maybe one fruit off of it. Next year, I'll plant it in the ground where I put in a test Brandyboy.

But, generally, it will pass. If you can keep the containers from drying out, that will help - tomatoes don't like going from wet to dry back to wet.

[beatpoet]

Yeah, I've got some mulch I intend on putting on all my tomatoes today to help keep them from drying out as quickly. Especially with the forecast for this week having multiple days in the 90s

[rsg2001]

My only BER so far this year is in an Earthbox with two Eva Purple Ball tomatoes. There are about 40 tomatoes en route - the plant is ultra heavy - and we just had to tie it to the corner post on the patio in order to stabilize it. Just since we did that, I've had to pick off 3 with BER, which I'm sure came about due to the handling. However, I can't complain... not yet, anyway.

[Katmary]

I'm having problems with black plum and ironically, Japanese Black Trifele! I picked my first of the latter today it was okay, but the one next to it was still green and had BER almost all the way to the top, it was disgusting. I have about 15 plants and those two are definitely the worst hit. Our weather's been cooler than usual. I planned to give them all some fish emulsion, but will add Molasses to the water as well and see what happens. I'm still waiting for Pruden's Purple to turn color, can't wait! I just started getting harvests where I needed more than one hand a couple weeks ago, so it's been slow going for this area.

[Dewayne mater]

I'm not sure of the details of your circumstances, so I will just tell you about my experience with BER in earthtainers and perhaps it will help. FYI - the details of my experience are pretty well cataloged in a thread last year, so I would search that. Ray, Ami and other tomato luminaries weighed in.

At the start, I assume you put lime in your tainers at the start of the season. If not, you are probably going to need to add a supplement to your watering on every fill up. Many smarter folks than I say that BER is caused by a calcium uptake issue. There are several known causes of calcium uptake issues. In my case, I believe extreme heat was prohibiting proper calcium uptake. In short, I got my tainers off the drive way and up on to 2x4s to get the tainer base off of that heated surface. I also bought the cheapest bamboo window shades I could find and placed them (doubled) in front of each tainer so that no direct sunlight hit the tainers and cooked the roots. Third, I added a liquid calcium supplement to each refill of water . I obtained it from a local hydro shop. Finally, I put a sunshade cloth over the tomatoes. Now, we get pretty extreme and constant heat in Texas (especially this year) so you may not have to do all of these things. I will just say that when I did this, BER disappeared completely. After 2-3 weeks, I started using a liquid fertilizer in the water instead of the calcium and my plants really seemed to like that. Good luck!

Dewayne Mater.

[Katmary]

Thank you for responding, Dewayne mater. Your tomato in your avatar looks delicious! I recruited some help with my ETs as I've had back surgery, but my Dad and I followed Raybo's updated instructions. We did one container at a time and mixed up the lime, bark pieces, and potting mixture (I'm blanking on something, sorry!) and stir it up with the shovel, then fill up the ET, watering in between every few shovelfuls. Oh, the other thing is adding fertilzer, duh! I have most of Raybo's ET stuff saved, and my Dad and I have been using ETs for a few years now. It may be that I need to add more fertilzer at this point. There's ants on the retainer will right behind my ETs and I'm a bit nervous about putting Molasses in them, though I picked up some funnels and figured I could add it to water, I'm still deciding. I have soaker hoses going into a pipe that fills up the bottom fairly well. Ironically, my two paste tomatoes (were labelled incorrectly) don't have any BER!

The Black Plum are doing a bit better, though the Japanese Black Trifele is sometimes BER and sometimes it's like all the liquid dropped to the bottom of the tomato, but it's skin is still closed. I don't know if that's BER or not, but I've started to bring the tomatoes in once they're almost ready to be picked to see if it'll help.

Normally I have more heat problems, but we've stayed in the lower 90's with only a small spurts in the upper 90s and a couple days in the 100s. I have an oak tree that adds shade to the ones on the ends, but the two tomatoes with BER are getting good sun. I can't cover them as they're hanging way over the top of my trellises. I did notice a new hydroponics store not too far away, I just may stop in and see what they have! Thank you for adding your experiences and advice for me.

[PastorJeff]

The good news is that the BER has, as predicted, gone away of its own accord, and I'm busy harvesting some of the best tasting tomatoes I've ever grown. So sweet!

One disappointment is that my beefsteaks are really not that big. They look like normal size tomatoes.

One triumph is that my Earthtainers survived Hurricane Irene unharmed. We lost several large tree branches, but not a single tomato!

-Jeff