Had the best production of tomatoes ever..I thought. Many have blossom end rot. I know this has several causes but, is there a "cure" this season? I was sure I had enough calcium but I was sure I could sink that 7 ball too...LOL.. Any help will be grateful for.
"Closer to God with every seed"
Posts: 121 | Location: Zone 7.. Central Va..God's country. | Registered: June 27, 2005
Usually with BER, it only affects the earlier tomatoes. Most likely later tomatoes will not have BER. And find your balance between too dry and over watered. Drought and too much water both affect calcium uptake.
Posts: 1235 | Location: Northern New Mexico-Zone 5/6 | Registered: February 17, 2005
Try adding milk, either powdered or nonfat in with your watering for the next few days. Sometimes with those mineral additives like bone meal, gypsum, etc., it can take 6 months before the roots can actually uptake them. And give them an extra couple of shovels full of compost on top.
============= Love your soil.....feed your worms... (Used to be Sweetpea, contributing here since 2002)
Posts: 973 | Location: California Mediterranean climate (no summer rain) | Registered: March 30, 2010
I had the same problem last year, early in the season. I read about too dry being a cause, and we were having a dry spell. I watered them once a week for a couple of weeks and the problem went away. I noticed that some varieties had much more severe problems than others. I never found an oxheart tomato with BER, even though they were treated the same as my other plants.
Posts: 290 | Location: N. Illinois, Zone 5 | Registered: April 22, 2011
The cause of B;ossom End Rot, BER, is lack of Calcium at fruit set. This can have many causes starting with lack of soil Calcium or an imbalance between available Calcium and Magnesium, or the plants are not moving the Ca and/or Mg up the plant because of a lack of soil moisture, or maybe a sudden growth spurt. The problem is we do not see BER on the fruit until too late to help that fruit. The best defense against BER is a soil with well balanced nutrient supplies that is evenly moist but well drained, ie a good, healthy soil.
The sign of a good gardener is not a green thumb, it is brown knees.
Posts: 5087 | Location: Central Michigan along the Lakeshore | Registered: August 28, 2004
@ BiodivsityGal..Use "Mumsey's Mix" in each & every planting hole..with added lime, wood ashes & now, green sand. Been gosh-darn hot here , but tomatoes still doing well. Did have wind damage from storms..blew over cages & broke many limbs that had grown out-side of cages..All in all..a very good year for tomatoes. Thanks for your reply.
"Closer to God with every seed"
Posts: 121 | Location: Zone 7.. Central Va..God's country. | Registered: June 27, 2005
Yes, I think we all adore Mumsey's mix. I think it's a maintenance kind of mix, and if this is your first year growing tomatoes there then it maybe the extra milk may help. Or there are just some tomatoes that are vulnerable to BER, just as some are to cracking. I can't grow any tomatoes that are considered "black" or have "black" relatives, they all split for me.
============= Love your soil.....feed your worms... (Used to be Sweetpea, contributing here since 2002)
Posts: 973 | Location: California Mediterranean climate (no summer rain) | Registered: March 30, 2010
milk will not help since the calcium is not accessible to the plant. there is an additive you can add to compost but it is very hard to find and is hard to do on your own. You need to use a compost that contains pulverized crustacean shells.
Grid, not only does milk provide a quick source of calcium to the root system, you can spray a diluted mixture onto the leaves.
And crustaceans are oyster shells, which is one of the easily available sources, and that works the same way as bone meal, it can take 6 months or more for it to break down, even longer if the conditions are not right, and be available to roots.
So if you have a citation that says that milk does not provide calcium to tomatoes, I'd like to see it
============= Love your soil.....feed your worms... (Used to be Sweetpea, contributing here since 2002)
Posts: 973 | Location: California Mediterranean climate (no summer rain) | Registered: March 30, 2010
Certain varieties are also very prone to BER (One I grew last season called Golden Fresh Salsa Hybrid got BER on EVERY tomato!), and some of my varieties get BER on the first ripe fruit, then not again the whole season! I pulled a couple of those today, yet there are many on the same plants that are OK. And there are other varieties that didn't get a single one with BER.
Dave
Posts: 1594 | Location: Zone 6b Woodbury, NJ | Registered: December 10, 2003
Blossom End Rot is caused by a Ca defficiency, and as others have pointed out there is usually plenty of Ca in the soil, the problem is the availiability to the plant, and then the subsequent movement in the plant. Calcium does not move via the phloem, but via the xylem. Movement in the xylem depends on bulk flow of water from the soil, into the roots, into the xylem, and then up into the aerial plant parts. Transpiration generally drives bulk flow....so the Ca goes to the organ transpiring...mostly leaves. Fruit has xylem tissue, but doesn't transpire very much thus movement into the fruit is mostly through the phloem...but remember, Ca isn't phloem loaded. The end of the fruit is the most distant part of the plant from the source of Ca....the soil. Factors effecting Ca include soil pH, temperature, soil moisture, as well as other nutrient levels to an extent. So, keep your soil fertile and within a good pH range...but be careful with amendments without careful consideration of your pH and soil analysis as you could be making your problem worse (Ca/Mg antagonism etc....)
Luckily, Ca can be absorbed through the plant cuticle into the apoplast (basically cell wall) and help alleviate symptoms. If you catch it early, when you first notice a small brown spot, spraying CaCl (Calcium chloride) at a rate of 1 tsp per gall or so on the plants can quickly turn around the problem and "rescue" younger fruit which has not started to show symptoms. I do not know of CaCl is OMRI approved...but maybe someone else has a more "organic" solution. Jim
Hang on a second, calcium chloride is NOT organic. It is a compound chemical, something that is not allowed in an organic/healthy soil.
"Calcium chloride would be classified as a mined substance of high solubility as mentioned in §205.203(d)(3), and as such its use is subject to the conditions established on the National List of non-synthetic materials prohibited for crop production"
1.sorry but you incorrect oysters are bivalves and not crustaceans. 2.composted crustaceans shell break down faster then oysters. 3. the product in question was called Chesapeake blue but I do not believe it is made any more but similar products are. when i used it i never got BER even under other susceptible conditions including BER prone varieties.
