White flies are tough, I'm having a big problem growing tomatoes because of them, they transmit the leaf curl virus to the tomato plants which cause them to be permanently stunted and stop producing, the only thing left to do is pull the plant. Neem oil sprayed under the leaves seem to get rid of them, but they seem to stick around as long as the weather is rainy and damp which is normal in Florida, so its best to keep the plants in full sun. While they like to stick under pepper leaves as well the pepper plants are less susceptible it seems. So I'm trying to leave my soil surface to dry out before watering and grow companion plants that pests don't like. Leaf hoppers are supposed to be carry this virus too.
As for bottom end rot (BER) on your tomato and pepper fruits, this is due to calcium deficiency. However, in the soil, I'm told that this may not be due to lack of calcium, but uneven watering or dryness. When I first had some BER, I bought some Espoma's Garden Gypsum which is a slow release mineral, but I mixed it in water to get going faster and watered the plant with it just once and it fixed the issue. You can also use the powdered agricultural gypsum. Lime can also add calcium, but it also raises the soil pH if applied too much. This season I'm not even going to apply gypsum because I'm confident of the nutrients provided by my compost, but maybe it's a good idea to put in some gypsum around the tomato/pepper roots when transplanting to prevent BER later on.
As for hydroponic, it's more difficult to fix imo. When I first tried growing tomato hydroponically, the fertilizer had to much nitrogen for tomato/pepper which caused too much leaves growth and not much flowering. You need to use the fertilizer with the right NPK value designed for tomatoes and peppers. Despite the mix having adequate calcium, I wasn't able to keep a consistent pH, it got too low so effect the way the plants picked up nutrients like calcium, resulting in the BER.
This Truog pH chart shows the nutrients availability at different soil pH:
http://www.pda.org.uk/leaflets/24/download/Truog-pH-chart.jpg
Also this one shows the nutrients availability for hydroponic growing:
http://www.royalqueenseeds.com/img/cms/Blog/PH%20and%20cannabis.jpg
(apparently its from a website of people into cannabis growing, but it should apply to plants in general)
The damages on top looks more like from hornworms. If birds are pecking your tomatoes, they just want water, so leave a some water for them, they are more attracted when the tomatoes ripen though.
I would reduce the rate of watering, especially if the soil is already holding adequate moisture for the plants. Also too much watering when the plants are producing will reduce the flavor of the fruits. For the white flies, you can try applying a spray of neem oil + soap for under the leaves, or even bt spray. Watch out for the dreaded leaf curl virus.
This message was edited Jul 1, 2015 10:57 AM
