Non-finicky varieties?

[Cranraspberry]

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Here it is this morning

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And this was a little over a week ago

The plant behind it is the BHN and it’s looking a little suspicious too. :/

[Seven Bends]

Are you thinking this is more fusarium, or something else? The abrupt wilting and the lack of yellowing could suggest bacterial wilt as a possibility also.

Is the base of the stem okay? When I zoomed in, it looked a little off, but the resolution of the photo isn't sufficient to be sure. Also, it looks like you may have mulch right up to the base of the stem (can't really tell). If so, it might be better to keep it an inch or two away on all your tomato plants. Not sure that's relevant for this problem, though.

I keep going back to what you said about how the previous owner of your plot got so frustrated with the disease/poor results that they gave up the plot and got back on the waiting list to get a new one. Maybe there's something really wrong with that particular plot. It's clear you know what you're doing, so this must be very frustrating for you.

[Cranraspberry]

@Seven Bends fortunately this isn’t my personal plot, this is the donation plot that didn’t show any fusarium issues last year. The tomatoes were MUCH happier in it last year, even though this year I have technically much sturdier varieties planted, so I am a little confused. We did a little “rotation” and moved the tomatoes to a different corner this year, but in such a small space I can’t imagine the soil/water table/etc would be much different? That being said the soil there is definitely a very tough clay which tends to clump pretty tightly even when damp. I have a feeling that could have something to do with it? It’s just odd that the plants on that edge are affected by something while the others are seemingly fine (not great, but not terrible either).

You’re right, the mulch is all the way to the stems, I’ll move that away next time I’m there. It’s shredded leaves, so I wasn’t super careful with application and I think stuff got moved around with watering.
I haven’t looked too closely at the stems but definitely will now. Nothing stood out to me as immediately concerning.

Is BW in tomatoes the same as in cucurbits? Does it also ooze a sticky substance if you break a stem off? I haven’t encountered it in tomatoes before, but it has been brutal on my personal cucumbers and squash this year.

[Cranraspberry]

It’s so odd - last year I stuck my leftover starts in that plot (I believe it was Brandy Boy and Carbon), and they went crazy and grew and produced with basically no supervision and minimal care. This year I have all these hybrids that are supposed to be disease resistant and productive, and they are all significantly smaller and less healthy even though I’m giving them more attention. I’d blame it on the weather, but the tomatoes in my personal plot aren’t having any issues (apart from early fusarium).

[Seven Bends]

Bacterial wilt in tomatoes is caused by a different organism than in cucurbits, but it's a similar disease. A cut stem will ooze a whitish slime when suspended in water. https://www.clemson.edu/public/regulato ... omato.html

Is it possible someone could have over-watered because of the drought/heat, and the roots in that particular spot have rotted due to saturated clay? Normally in this kind of weather (hot drought), clay is a good thing to have, but I guess it could be possible to water too much if there's nowhere for the water to go. Was the soil really wet this morning even before the rain started? Everything has been desert-dry at my garden for ages, so it's hard to imagine "too wet" as the source of a problem right now.

Were the plants fertilized recently? Any recent soil amendments or sprays? Has the leaf mulch been on there a long time or was it recently added?

[Cranraspberry]

@Seven Bends thanks for brainstorming!

It is possible that someone could have overwatered. There are a few people keeping an eye on that plot, and not necessarily coordinating. Every time I dug down I was surprised by just how hard yet damp the soil there is. It’s not light colored crumbly clay, but dark yet very hard to dig into. Yet the peppers and even cucumbers next to the tomatoes are fine.

Yes, I recently added a bit of alfalfa meal (maybe 2 Tbsp per plant or so) and watered in with Neptune’s Harvest Tomato. Peppers and eggplant got the same amendments. The eggplant looks moderately unhappy (not loving the color of the leaves - a little yellowish/purplish for my taste and heavy flea beetle damage, but lots of flowers and we just harvested the first fruit), peppers are doing great (the one that was stunted because of early fruit set has really picked up growth). No sprays. Leaf mulch in place for a little over a month. I’ve also noticed a lot of leaf curl on all tomato plants mid-day, even though the soil doesn’t appear dry. I’m starting to doubt myself - maybe I was misreading the moisture level because I’m not as familiar with clay, but then again the first time I noticed Celebrity wilting was after that brief rain a couple of days ago, and today’s picture was taken after it had been raining for a while (unfortunately didn’t make it to the garden before the rain started).

[Seven Bends]

Hmm, it's a mystery. If everything was fine until you added the alfalfa meal and Neptune's Harvest, I guess I'd look at whether that could have caused the problem. I've never used either of those products. Some googling tells me that a few people have reported problems with alfalfa meal, saying various things like: it gets hot in the soil, it gets really hot when it gets wet, it burned the roots on my potted plant, it pulls nitrogen at first as it starts to decay, it bound up with my clay soil to form cement, you should mix it into the soil long before you're going to plant. But lots of other people seem to use it as an amendment or top dressing successfully, so who knows? And 2 Tbsp per plant doesn't seem like enough to make the whole plant wilt.

Maybe get a soil moisture meter and check that area vs. other places in the garden to rule out water issues?

Is the dark, hard soil only in that one spot, or all over the plot? Maybe a previous owner of the plot filled that spot with something weird. One of my neighbor gardeners really stunted her tomato plants a few years ago by adding too much wood ash.

Sometimes the best thing to do is wait a week to see what happens. Maybe today's gentle rain and moderated temperatures will help. Good luck!

[Cranraspberry]

@Seven Bends looks like it might be southern blight, which is way worse than I thought. Now keeping my fingers crossed that I didn’t bring it back to my plot from the tools I used there, ugh.

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[Seven Bends]

Yes, that's what it looks like for sure! Conditions have been absolutely perfect for it. It's not a common disease around here. I swear, you could hire your plots out as demonstration gardens for all the interesting problems you're encountering.

If you haven't already, I'd remove the plant immediately and put it in a plastic bag right at that spot. Don't pull it out; dig it out, taking some of the soil with you. I'd remove all the soil and mulch down to a depth of two inches, in a circle around the stem of about 8" in diameter (4" away from the stem all around) and bag it/throw it away. Then wash your tools, your gloves, your hands. This worked for me with fusarium when I only had it on one plant. With Southern Blight, it should be even easier, because it's usually confined to the top couple inches of soil and can't survive deeper.

Check the base of the stems of all the other plants, too. Keep mulch away from the stems, and let the top few inches of soil dry out in between waterings.

Check your pH and apply some lime if your soil is very acidic. Southern blight loves acidic soil and can't survive well in soil with pH above about 7.

Apologies if you know all this already, but maybe it will be useful to others also.

[Cranraspberry]

@Seven Bends right?? It’s just ridiculous - I don’t think I had even heard of Southern blight before.

Your advice is incredibly helpful, thank you, going to do all that tomorrow morning once I drop my daughter off at camp. I was thinking to spray things down (including around the bases and stems of the remaining plants) with some diluted hydrogen peroxide as well - shouldn’t hurt. The remaining three plants aren’t showing symptoms yet, so we’ll see.