BER - now what?

[elight]

Of my four tomato plants, one - a Jet Star - has developed blossom end rot on 5 of its 8 fruit thus far. This is my first time dealing with BER, so any help is appreciated.

Should I cut off the fruit with BER so that they don't sap resources from the rest of the plant?

Is there anything I can do from this point forward to avoid more BER? I did add lime to the potting mix, and all of my plants are using the same exact mix. All are in SWCs fed by an automatic watering system, so the moisture level should be relatively constant.

[rnewste]

elight,

You can simply pick off the BER affected tomatoes and discard. No harm to the plant (or other tomatoes) either way.

How much dolomite Lime did you use per EarthTainer?

Raybo

[elight]

Hi Ray,

You'll be happy to know that this particular plant was actually not in my EarthTainer, but rather in a 5-gallon bucket (due to my space restrictions, I only have one EarthTainer).

I can't remember exactly, but I believe in the 5-gallon bucket, I used 1/2 the amount of lime that was recommended for the EarthTainer. I wasn't sure if I should use half the amount since it was half the number of plants in an EarthTainer, or more like 1/4 or 1/5 of the amount so that it was in line was the soil volume as compared to the EarthTainer.

[rsg2001]

I found 3 out of 10 Orange Minsk tomatoes with BER today; the plant, which is in an EarthBox, had dried out in the heat of the last few days. I left its water reservoir fully replenished when I left for a 4-day trip, and when I came back it was bone dry. So I'm sure the BER is do to "uneven watering". They were fine when I looked at them before I went away. I removed them; why have the plant expend energy on them? The other seven tomatoes "en route" on this plant are fine so far. This is the only instance of BER I have seen to date (I have around 55 plants.)

[ContainerTed]

It could be heat stress. I usually don't see BER at all here at the Muddy Bucket Farm, but this year I have a fruit or two here and there among my 200+ plants. The heat and lack of rain is stressing everything.

[Boutique Tomatoes]

I've never seen it here before, but this is the first year we've had a sustained run of 90+ days. I was gone last week and my family didn't water as often as they were supposed to and I came home to some wilting (mostly in the container plants) and all of the fruits that were starting to ripen were hard and black on the bottom ends.

Looks like we have at least another week of this forecast, but at least I'll be home to ensure they get enough water.

[elight]

FWIW, I think I found the "root" cause of my BER. I realized this morning that some of my buckets were running dry despite that fact that my AWS seemed to be functioning. It turned out that some roots had penetrated the landscape fabric (don't know how - we'll have to wait until the end of the season to find out) and grown into the bottom bucket, and eventually up into the drip tubing! So needless to say that plant was drowning. Eventually, the root growth entirely clogged the tubing.

I snipped off the roots, and replaced the sections of tubing. I also wrapped another section of landscape fabric underneath the bottom of the inner bucket. We'll see what happens, I guess, but I have a feeling this will continue to be a pain throughout the season.

[JamesL]

Elight,
Bummer. Did you manage to get any pictures as you were making repairs?

[elight]

Unfortunately, no. My girlfriend didn't have the happiest look on her face when I dragged her out of bed to help out (didn't want to wait any longer than necessary to fix things given today's weather), so it's probably for the best.

I'm a little worried about whether the fix will hold. It's a real pain to lift up the inner bucket, as the cage system is free-standing. If I have to do it again, I think I'll try to get some bricks or something and lift the cage up piece and piece, placing the bricks under the legs, until I can pull out the bottom bucket.

[JamesL]

Weather is brutal right?
Oh well.
I am bad about taking pix in the heat of the moment too. Doesn't sound like your girlfriend would have been a happy photographer anyway....
I forgot that you had built a freestanding cage out of pvc.. (is that right?)

Is the cage supporting multiple plants or just one?

You have to raise the cage and the inner bucket at the same time to not disturb the plants right? Or raise the whole thing and then drop out the bottom bucket?

The brick method sounds workable, but I am envisioning some sort of 2x4 frame that would lift the cage and the bucket. Might require some working room, and I don't recall if you have much space.
Take a pic when you have time, with all of the "brain power" on this board, someone will come up with a quick and dirty effective solution.

Hopefully you won't need to do it again anyway.

[tam91]

Strange, in my in-ground garden, I have 1 plant out of over 30 with BER - the one the land owner bought, an Early Girl that was huge when planted out.

I've been watering almost every day, but we have this ridiculous heat and drought.

Could it just be that Early Girl is the only one, because it's starting to ripen, whereas the others are behind?

[beatpoet]

I'm getting a little bit of BER on my Stupice plant. The others seem fine so far, so I'm hoping its isolated to just that one. Especially since its my only early variety this year. Been keeping a pretty steady watering schedule too.

[lakelady]

So I am not the only one. I found BER on a few tomatoes and was disappointed; a Cuneo Giant Pear and Russo Togetta. I pulled them off the plant. I have been watering extra due to the heat, but maybe not enough. I'm trying not to overwater but it takes me about 1-1/2 hours daily if I water every day , so I'm trying to do every other day. ugh.

[rsg2001]

So far, I've had a bit of BER in my container plants; around five each for Orange Minsk and Dr. Wyche's Yellow. I believe the latter occurred because it's a super gigantic plant that was loaded with tomatoes -- it still has 20 or so in various stages of growth -- and it went dry when I was away for 4 days. Prior to the heat wave it wasn't using that much water, but then presto. Orange Minsk is also a big plant but not as big as the Dr. Wyche.

[Keger]

Welcome to Houston guys... I get it