Anyone know what's wrong with this tomato?

Im referring to the small scabs on the skin, not the injury. Any help will be appreciated.

The small scabs look like they COULD be from bacteria or stink bug damage.

3',
Have you considered human or animal—more likely—damage? Red birds, mocking birds, blue jays , crows, and the list goes on.

Adam, how would birds cause the tiny scab-like spots?

I think those spots might be caused by hail. Not big hailstones, just enough to scar the epidermis while the tomato was developing. Your Texas location makes hail a real possibility, also.

I have had a similar problem, and closest match i could find on Google was "Climbing Cutworms.", caterpillar stage of a four winged moth.

Most of the damage was done before i pruned out the bottom leaves of my plants. I bought some tanglefoot to try to catch the cutworms, but since i have cleaned out the lower leaves, either the Towhees are finding and eating the worms or whatever, i have not found any recent damage.

Google Climbing Cutworms for more info.

Ernie

‘3,

I apologize. I didn’t read your query closely enough. I was tunneled in on the black spot and the heavy, scabbed-over damage. I can’t explain how birds could make the small white scabs because I don’t believe they did. Not concentrating on the question surly makes arriving at the correct answer more difficult.

It does look as if three things, at least, are in play: the black spot, the heavy damage, and the spots to which you refer. Did you note in what order they, the three things, appeared?

1lisac,
Peaches can get freckles, but they are caused by a fungus, I think–fungus damage?

Ernie’,
I will Google the Climbing Cutworm. I’ve known a cutworm for many years, but I don’t think the one I know climbs high. How your damage disappeared is interesting.


This message was edited Jul 3, 2013 6:13 PM

Adam,

I am not ready to say yet that pruning the tomatoes solved the problem. Just that today i only found one tomato with any damage and it was old, scar tissued over damage that had been inflicted some time ago.

I do have a lot of birds here, including towhees that pretty much live on garden bugs, but these "Climbing Cutworms", if they only come out at night, would be hard for the birds to catch.

It was the first i had heard of Climbing Cutworms, as the others i have known work at ground level.

So, we all learn as we go along, and I am not sure at this point what caused the damage, nor what stopped it.

Ernie

I can clearly see where the fruit has been "stung" numerous times by stinkbugs. Those are the small light-colored spots.The larger blemish could be caused by any number of things including birds. I don't know about your area but here in San Marcos the stinkbugs are worse than I can recall seeing in many years. Touching a tomato or pepper plant will cause a group of 4 or 5 of them to buzz away. I'm told that Sevin works well to get them under control. But being an organic gardener, I haven't tried it. Instead I take a mason jar with about a half-inch of rubbing alcohol in it and tap them into it and quickly cover it with the cap. Death comes pretty quickly. By the time you're ready to tap the next one into the jar, the previous bug is dead. There are traps available but they cost more than I'm willing to spend to get rid of them.

Steady’,
You might want to consider Bacterial Canker.

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/publications/pm1266.pdf

Why would a stinkbug want to sting a tomato?

I have no idea why they do it but they do and there is a lot of information on the Internet about it. Everything I've read about those scabby spots point to a bacteria or stinkbugs.

The term "sting" is slang for the insertion of the proboscis they use to suck juice from the tomato or whatever they're after.They have no stinger or any means to bite. Their only defense is an awful smell emitted when disturbed and camouflage.

In my opinion is is not any fungal or bacterial disease and it is not from hail. Bacterial spot is more round and dark in the center.

It is either from some sort of piercing sucking type insect like a stink bug, physical injury by wind or something rubbing it, or herbicide drift.

Ok, I'll take a Sherlock at it...

NOT stinkbug damage. You can see the spots they poke and most of their damage is on the inside from the enzymes they exude when they suck the tomato juice. Also, that tomato would've had to have been fairly COVERED with stinkbugs to poke that many holes, that uniformly...those aren't holes...

NOT any other pokey insect. See above...

NOT physical injury by wind or something rubbing...too many scabs, and we haven't had strong winds here for a good many weeks...again, the uniformity of the scabs is a clue...

DRIFT from something else is my first guess. Those scabs fairly cover the entire tomato from the top all the way to the underside, and, in a fairly uniform pattern. Just like how something sprayed would settle onto the surface and dribble down.

An INTERNAL malady manifesting itself on the outside of the fruit is my second guess. Sort of like when we get a fever and we sweat to cool our bodies down. The fact of the uniformity of the scabs over the entire outside surface leads me to believe it might be something that started inside the tomato...

That's my Sherlock....

Wasps do that to my fruit and tomatoes , if it's not blight , it's that .. my opinion . oops Hornets I meant to say .

This message was edited Aug 8, 2013 1:59 AM

Thanks to steadycam3 for posting my picture of the tomato and for all the responses.. Guess we can say it's inconclusive. Yes, we have stinkbugs and wasps. No we didn't spray anything at that point (that was earlier in the growing season).

Last year they all bloated and split, this year they were all speckled and poked. would bird feet puncture the tomato?

i have definitely been having the stink bug woes with my toms also, and i have been seeing them in all stages of growth, so the tiny punctures could have very well been made by the smaller immature stink bugs, while the larger adults may have been responsible for the large scar. And they are definitely attracted to any cracks that may be in tomatoes!

Does anyone net their tomato plants?

I will be netting next season, for the first time. The birds did a number on my BEST tomato crop ever!

Check out ldsprepper on YouTube. He conducted several experiments on various items to discourage the birds, and not many of the suggestions of shiny object, moving objects, etc., worked. He ended up ordering a soft netting material (NOT from the big box stores) online. It's worked on his amazing veggie garden, so far.

He posts the link on the video site.

Mittleider Garden Update August 16, 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMz3oV0Z3es

DIY Greenhouse Fabric & Film Fastener Video:
http://youtu.be/yXPdRs1vd1g

caraboof - birds can do terrible damage to tomatoes.

The combination of deer attacking along with crows and other birds, led my husband, Jack, to creating his tomato room, made with copper pipes and a copper pipe door, all enclosed with bird mesh. It worked for many years. Then along came a heavy wet snow in February 2012, which weighted down the mesh and that bent the pipes so he took the entire thing apart. In the meantime we had put up 8' tall deer mesh around the perimeter of the vegetable garden so deer were no longer a threat.

The crows feasted last year and, between them and the four heat waves, Jack gave up his garden, but the bird mesh did work while we used it.

Nobody's posted on this for a while... Spider-mites might be responsible for the tiny scabs. I've seen the scabs when I know I have mites. The larger blemish, in my opinion, is a bird-peck that has a secondary bacteria or fungus.

David