A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum The Tomato Forum Bacterial problem?

I have over 50 tomato plants all showing the same problem. Came home from vacation to find spotted yellow and dead leaves all over the place. From what I can tell from other sites I'm looking at a bacterial speck problem. (Feel free to correct me on that!) It sounds like plowing under last years bad crop was a very bad idea, but what can I do now? Mostly the problem leaves and branches are the lower ones. The only advice I've seen is to water only at the base and in the morning - which will be a problem. Any help at all would be greatly appreciated!

If you could post a photo, that would be helpful.

Meanwhile, my first thought-- and I'm NOT a tomato expert, they will be along shortly-- would be to clean things up as best you can as soon as you can. Get rid of the yellow/dead stuff. Do not compost the debris.

Without a photo, one other thing comes to mind. If you have 50 plants, my guess is that they are spaced closely, and that the lower stems and leaves are shaded by the growing plant. Without a lot of light, these stems are naturally going to wither & die. The dying tissue is susceptible to a number of nasty things that dying tissue can't "fight off." Identifying the secondary problem is only useful if the entire plant is in ill-health (so to speak). If you are seeing new growth on the plant, and if the fruit that's set is in good shape, you might be just seeing the normal growth of a tomato.

Clean up the dead stuff. Can't hurt.

yepper. clean up the dead/yellow stuff and look for new growth. I guess you know now not to ever plow a bad crop into the soil your planning on growing in again. but what is done is done.
where are you? in some zones you can take cuttings from your spring/summer tomatoes and try for some fall tomatoes? that way your starting with a fresh plant in a different spot.