okay, the next affliction: bluish or purple leaves

actually, my tomatoes are doing smashingly this year but i do have this strange condition on one plant. ( it is a purple cherokee.) this plant is in a 5-gal bucket, treated identically to other nearby plants. the leaf perimeters are bluish or purple. the leaves seem to be folding or turning over slightly. otherwise the plant looks great: growing nicely, blossoming, a few good-sized tomatoes.

the last photo definitely looks like a deficiency to me, but i am not sure what of. i generally feed a flowering fertilizer (higher middle number).

I get this on occasion as well. Only when I grow a very large plant in a container. It does look to be a nutrient problem. Many will think a phosphorus deficiency, which it might be, but I think it has to do more with being root bound. Your flowering food is exactly what you should try. If you don't get high humidity, you can try to foliar feed them as well as soil drench.

When I see a plant that shows the same as yours, I give it a nice dose of P & K to see how it reacts. Generally it doesn't fix the problem, which is why I think being root bound might cause this. It's never caused any problems with fruit set or harvest. They do just as well as the ones that aren't showing purple margins on the leaves.

http://plantdiagnostics.umd.edu/level3.cfm

6aseeder - I'm wondering if the purple hue on your leaves might be due to cold weather? It might also be natural for this particular plant because the tomatoes are purple in color. It might also be a nutrient problem.

I'm growing a tomato called "OSU Blue" and the leaves are supposed to be purple because the tomatoes will be bluish in color.

we had some cool temps - 60 +/- - last week (7-10 days ago) but are now around 95!!

i don't think purple cherokee leaves are purple but i will give them an extra shot soon.

http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=757&bih=403&q=osu+blue+tomato&gbv=2&oq=OSU+Blue&aq=0&aqi=g2g-S3&aql=&gs_l=img.1.0.0l2j0i24l3.2859.11812.0.20187.14.10.2.2.2.1.344.1890.0j6j2j1.9.0...0.0.ADdwaAVCtDk

Honey, the above from Google Images, put your mose pointer over a picture to ID what you're looking at, and you can see that the foliage is normal green for OSU Blue as it is for OSU P20 a selection of it that many have grown.

There are some varieties that have been bred by Tom Wagner and others that indeed do have purple tinted foliage but not the original OSU Blue or the popular P20 one.

Well I remember the person who came here to DG and was giving out free seeds of OSU BLue. She worked in Dr. Myer's lab at Oregon State U and I knew that OSU Blue was given only to breeders who signed a paper saying they wouldn't share seeds.

I asked her about that and she simply said that no one told her she couldn't which I interpreted as she never asked.

I tasted OSU Blue, a fruit sent to me, and consider the whole bluey think as a novelty and Dr. Myers just released the first from his breeding project, called Indigo Rose, and not much feedback about that one yet.

Carolyn

drthor isn't impressed with Indigo Blue- it's in her tomato season log post

drthor isn't impressed with Indigo Blue- it's in her tomato season log post

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I think someone meant to say Indigo Rose, not Indigo Blue, the former being released by Dr. Myers at OSU.

There is no Indigo Blue that I know of.

Carolyn

Ugh, I just remember the Indigo part, sorry, drthors comment not quoted proper

the plant greened after the addition of flowering plant fertilizer. the fruits are going gang-busters.

So it was a case of low phosphorus? The addition of that fertilizer should help with flowering, fruit set, and root structure. Along with making the foliage the right color. Which will now help in photosynthesis. Thanks for keeping us posted.