Tomato mosaic?

Last year was my first year of heirloom tomato seeds. And I am quite sure I had tomato mosaic on most of the heirloom plants, so much so that I am not planting ANYTHING in that patch of garden this year. Almost no fruit, deformed leaves, I thought it was the drought.

This year I didn't have time to order seeds on time, so I started a few saved seeds in little pots back in March for Juliette's, a very hard to find tomato that did well for my neighbor last year,

and I bought 3 Early Girl and 3 Cherokee Purple from the feed store. Both were from "Baby's" according to the stick. I kept them separate in the greenhouse as Early Girl looked buggy, something had been eating the surface of its leaves, and I sprayed it with dishsoap water after a pond dunk to wash off loose insects. Did the same with the Cherokee. The Early Girl started larger and have been in the garden a couple of weeks. The Cherokee got a bit of sunburn during harden off this past week, and got moved to a less direct sun spot. Started to up pot them today since a freeze is coming. Actually did all 3. Waste of dirt, I think I see Tobacco Mosaic in these skinny twisted leaves. What do you think?

I don't think it's TMV. I see none of the typical symptoms that one usually sees with TMV:

https://www.google.com/#q=tomato+mosaic+virus+pictures

Alternating yellow and green on the leaves, cupped leaves, too early for you to see that fruit symptoms.

I think it might be helpful to look at the disease cycle for TMV and what transmits it and when, and if it's seedborne as well as addressing your comment about the virus overwintering,

https://www.google.com/#q=tomato+mosaic+virus+disease+cycle&revid=952563305

It's not unusual to see twisted leaves, sometimes upside down early in the season.

TMV affects both OP and hybrid varieties.

A general Google search will bring up many more links,

Carolyn

I threw away my cherokee tomatoes over their twisted leaves yesterday, they might still be alive in the trash, should I get them out?

ok, I got them out.

I planted heirlooms last year that had something wrong with them. big leathery leaves but not alternating yellow/green, sparse, almost no fruit, spotted fruit when there was any. We have a horrible drought and despite my best watering efforts and water bills bigger than my electric bill, the tomatoes in the northwest corner bed did horribly. bell peppers along the edge did ok. I am not sure whether they had mosaic but my daughter and son in law both smoke and they did help me plant that bed, so for this year, I threw a chunk of pond liner over it, am not planting in it and am acting as IF there was mosaic in that bed.

(there definitely were sweet potato beetles with larva inside my sweet potatoes at the edge so that bed sitting fallow is appropriate this year)

I think I posted photos of the tomatoes last year, but can't find them now

I know plenty of gardeners and tomato breeders who smoke who have never had a problem with TMV, and unfortunately I'm one of them. So again, I don't think you have TMV b'c the sypltoms are not what they should be.

TMV has almost disappeared from the US since the tobacco grown here is TMV tolerant. However Turkish tobacco is still a problem. As far as I can remember the last outbreak of TMV was over 20 years ago.

You mentioned spotted fruits, so have you considered Spotted Wilt Virus? You might want to do that.

Here's a general Google search;

https://www.google.com/#q=spotted+wilt+virus

The leaves are thick and often bronzy in color.

And here's a link to some IMAGES:

https://www.google.com/search?q=spotted+wilt+virus&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=xltMU_u8BbPLsQSXvIKYAw&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1474&bih=523

When looking at Google IMAGES be sure to put your mouse pointer over a particular picture since sometimes photos of other diseases are mixed in, but the first few rows should be all about Spotted Wilt Virus,

Lastly, almost all disease websites that I know of list ALL possible diseases to be complete, but that doesn't mean those diseases are found everywhere, rather, just in particular regions,

Carolyn

Thank you very much Carolyn. I smoked for 30 years, quit a couple of years ago, and no, I never had a mosaic disease on my tomatoes. I just NEVER had a year like last year for tomatoes and was researching to discover why.

I also tend to be rather proactive about stuff not spreading, but I did make sure I put the tomatoes in the trash can right side up, in case I changed my mind.