Problem Tomato’s

Gavin H

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Good morning all.
I have a question about tomato’s every year I grow them I get the leaves going yellow and dying off, is this a disease or just something that happens with Tomato’s? I thought it was a disease so I do crop rotation but hasn’t changed anything. Thanks
 

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Gavin H

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Another photo
 

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GKW

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Just part of the plant's life cycle. Same with mine.

Lets hear what Mark has to say about it.

 

Gavin H

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Cheers, what do you guys do with the dying leaves and stems? Can they go in the compost?
 

GKW

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I compost everything unless totally bug infested. I hot compost so that should be enough to kill off any fungus / small bugs still lurking around on the plant waste that goes into my compost pile. So yes, I compost my tomato's dying leaves and stems and through the root system and all into the compost too when it's finally gone to meet it's maker...same with all other veg plants in my patch.
 

Gavin H

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I’ve never been able to get my compost bins hot. I’m going to make bigger ones soon. Hopefully that will help
 

GKW

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I’ve never been able to get my compost bins hot. I’m going to make bigger ones soon. Hopefully that will help

If you layer greens and browns and wet down, the centre of the pile should heat up of it's own accord. Just turn the pile over every few weeks and add more green / brown / water as required.
 

ClissAT

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Gavin, add a handful of pelleted chicken manure or fresh chook poo or blood and bone to even one bucket of compost and see it get very hot overnight. Make sure it is damp.


re the tomato deficiency. The chlorosis is coming from the bottom of the leaf up the central vein and spreading out but not reaching the edges or top of each leaf. The vein is also yellow. Sometimes the vein will be green which is a molybdumen issue. If the yellow extends to the edge its a magnesium issue.
It looks like iron (Fe) or might be nitrogen but most likely just that the plants need more water.
Make sure the water is getting around the roots then draining away and that they don't have dry lumps of dirt around their root systems.

If all else fails I would grab a 500ml container of trace elements from the hardware which will last you years.

That's not normal leaf death. Tomato leaves don't usually die easily. If they do the plant has a trace element or mineral deficiency.
 

Gavin H

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It could of been that I wasn’t watering enough, I’m now doing deep watering every 2 days, I don’t think it would be a deficiency because I put a handful of garden mate by earth life in the hole when planted.
In regards to composting green is easy because I use grass cuttings I struggle to get enough brown material.
I do put the wood shavings when cleaning out the chicken coop in there
 

GKW

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It could of been that I wasn’t watering enough, I’m now doing deep watering every 2 days, I don’t think it would be a deficiency because I put a handful of garden mate by earth life in the hole when planted.
In regards to composting green is easy because I use grass cuttings I struggle to get enough brown material.
I do put the wood shavings when cleaning out the chicken coop in there

Same same re having enough natural brown waste around, thus I've taken to throwing in some of the sugar cane mulch I buy in the bale from Bunnings. Not the optimal cost solution (ie not free), but it works well and the those $15.00 sugar cane mulch bales do go a long way.
 

Jake Monteleone

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Good morning all.
I have a question about tomato’s every year I grow them I get the leaves going yellow and dying off, is this a disease or just something that happens with Tomato’s? I thought it was a disease so I do crop rotation but hasn’t changed anything. Thanks
Hi that has happend to me they just need a bit of feterlizer and white oil that you can home make
kind regards Jake
 

ClissAT

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Elin you intimated you added a photo yet I see none.
Could you elaborate regarding your question about using cow manure, please?
 

Elin

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Sorry no photo as I have recently had to completely Empty my garden beds. The cow manure that I used by the trailer load Over several years to make my compost was contaminated with a Herbacide called Grazon. I haven’t been able to grow a tomato for years aNd more than 50% of my veges failed. My fruit trees are very healthy but no fruit. There is a lot of info on line about the impact of this herbacide and sadly the farmers don’t know about it. I am in Australia but many others have been impacted in US and Canada.
 

ClissAT

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Have you had your soil tested or the manure? Or do you know for a fact that where you get your fresh cow manure from they use it on their pastures?
I ask all these questions because if you are simply going by plant signs and symptoms, it could be other things causing issues as well.

I'm not backing Grazon but it is part of our food stream now because almost every grazer uses it somewhere on their property.
Also, it is heavily used when crops are also grazed, which is becoming more common.
So it has been in our food for many years much like Roundup. I doubt we can point a finger at either as the absolute cause of contamination or lack of production or health in a given crop.
I worked for a spraying contractor when I was 16yo in north Qld spraying chiney apple and rubber vine among other things and got saturated in various chemicals every day. I'm still here, no cancer, just osteo from lack of estrogen unrelated to any chemical I was exposed to back then or since. I've never worn protective gear when working with chemicals.
I might prefer to have an organic garden but that doesn't mean I haven't worked with chemicals regularly throughout my working life.

When I was trying to work out what the problem was with my soil, I went through many iterations of possibilities until a local fellow who had been to uni to study mineral contamination in soils (mine is old gold bearing and very poor soil) was able to set me straight. Now I know, it's not such a scary thing, just inconvenient that I can't have the huge garden I'd like to have and sell organic produce on a much larger scale.

Pretty much every bag of manure or compost or garden soil etc purchased from a big box store or any nursery and made by any process that uses bulk ingredients such as fresh manures from sale yards, dairies, chicken farm, piggery or abattoir waste and similar will be polluted with various chemicals including grazon and roundup. Those two, as well as 24D, are endemic in our farmlands now. I have my own little personal store of them in my liver! Most likely from exposure as a young person. So I really don't think they are so terrible that they will prevent fruiting unless sprayed directly onto the plant by the person doing the gardening and I'm sure you aren't doing that.
If on the other hand, you watered your garden with the water from my dam, you would certainly affect your plants, they would cease to fruit and the leaves would certainly turn yellow. But it's iron that's the culprit.
 
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