I hope someone can help me, my tomatoes look like they are rotting from the bottom. This is occuring on red and green fruit. The plants otherwise are thriving, and producing much fruit.

-- Daniel Gray (danielgray@peoplepc.com), July 11, 2001

Answers

Your tomatoes have blossom end rot which is usually due to a lack of calcium in the soil but can also be caused by weather conditions. If you used a high nitrogen fertilizer, that can prevent the plants from taking up calcium. Cold soil can also cause the problem. It also can happen when the tomatoes had good growing conditions early in the season with adequate or more than normal rainfall when the fruit started developing and then low rainfall later in the season. The lack of rain causes shrinkage and breakdown of cells at the blossom end. It can also happen if there's too much rain and the tomatoes are heavily mulched; the feeder roots are killed by lack of oxygen which causes rot on the fruit. I'm seeing it on some of my tomatoes this year, and I think it's because we had a really dry spell when the tomatoes were getting red. It might also be on a couple of new varieties I'm trying which may be more susceptible to it. I don't think there's much you can do at this point other than remove mulch if the plants are too wet, or water them if drought is the problem. I've been able to cut off the affected area and still use the top part.

-- Katherine (KyKatherine@Yahoo.com), July 11, 2001.

Daniel, The response regarding blossom end-rot is right on the mark. I have had problems in the past as well. We have a tremendous number of snails and slugs in our area (S. CA). They just mow down my transplants in the Spring. So I began making a ring of ammonium sulfate around each plant and re-doing it for the first week, to deter the snails (they won't cross a line of salt). But as Katherine says, a high nitrogen fertilizer will tie up the Ca and make it unavailable. I had blossom end rot occur each year I practiced this technique. So now I wait abit longer to set out the transplants and hand pick snails for the first few weeks each evening.

-- Dwight (summit1762@aol.com), July 11, 2001.

Blossom end rot also occurs for no good reason on plants that are just starting to fruit. Speculation is that the plants haven't quite got their act together yet. It may clear up when the plants get a little older, all by itself. If not, dig a handful of generic Tums (check to make sure that they are calcium, based)into the soil beside the plants.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), July 11, 2001.

Hey Dwight, have you ever tried to wrap a thin strip of newspaper around the young transplant stem, when setting them out? I do this on my tomato plants for cutworms. Don't know if it will deter snails or not, but might be worth the trouble. About half the newspaper strip is below ground and half above. The newspaper breaks down and is gone by the time the plants get big enough to fend for themselves. Might be an alternative than going on a snail hunting expedition!

-- Annie (mistletoe@kconline.com), July 12, 2001.

hello there! nobody mentioned acid soil not letting the plant take up calcium. the county ag. extension service will test your soil for free or near free. get a nice mulch on those tomatoes to regulate water intake,lime takes 3ish mths. to lower the acidity of the soil, crushed eggshells are an organic way to increase calcium.

-- bj pepper (pepper.pepper@excite.com), July 17, 2001.