Wilting/Curling leaves

We don't have very many tomato plants but some of them are really puzzling me. They were so healthy and growing well until a couple weeks ago. The leaves on the top 3 or 4 branches began to curl and look a bit wilted. Kris and I have checked for insects but couldn't find anything. They are in a raised bed about 8" deep and the medium is mostly totally rotted leaves and 3 year old totally rotted-read dirt-from the stable up the road. Other plants in the bed look ok. One basil plant wilted for a couple days then perked up and looks fine now. We've had rain and I've watered so they aren't dry. But they aren't too wet either. I used some 13-13-13 mixed with just a tad of 6-24-24 a few days before planting. It was mixed in well so there shouldn't have been any clumps to cause problems. It doesn't look like any disease I've ever seen either. It all has me completely bewildered.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I've never seen anything quite like this before.

Are the ones that have curling foliage the ones with the most fruit? Sometimes heavy fruit set can cause leaf curl.Sometimes certian varieties just tend to do this.

Check for pests.Inside,under and around the leaves too.

I think the plants may have gotten tiny dose of weed killer when they were young. I have seen pictures of tomatoes that looked just like my Roma that I got from my Mom(Leaflady)& those tomatoes had been sprayed with wind-carryed herbicide.
I only had a problem with the one Roma, even though it was right next to several other plants. I thought at first that it might have been aphid damage, but I killed most of the aphids(I check daily) & all the new leaves are also tightly twisted & deformed.
I finally pulled it out & replaced it with a Mule Team.

Kris, who also got the Mule Team from her mom, but it doesn't have the twisted leaves.

Kris, good to hear from you. I think I'll take a piece of one of the plants and put it under a microscope to see what we can see. I sure hate to lose those plants tho.

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/tomatoproblemsolver/index.html
This a web site i just came arcoss it look interesting and just may help you if you weren't using raised beeds i say they were to wet

Thanks, Dave. I went to the sight and found something that may be it. Cucumber Mosaic virus. But only the top few branches are affected so it makes me wonder about that one. We did have cukes in one end of that bed last year and they were affected by something and died. That is why I went to some other family this year. The onions and brussel sprouts in that bed seem fine. So do some of the tomato plants. I do see some small tomatoes forming on the affected plants. Guess I'll just wait and see what happens. I'm tempted to just remove the wilted top portion of the plants and see if they recover from that. Thanks again.

If you cut the central leader out of your tomatoes,they might not recover.If the wilt isn't spreading,I'd leave it be until it looks like you have no other choice.

Hi leaflady,
I had the exact same thing (i think) happen to one of my tomatoe plants. I too dx it as viral...possibly cucumber mosaic virus. The new growth on the top of one of plants had very disfigured "stunted" leaves that were rolled. I read that the virus could be transmitted by aphids to other plants so (gulp) I made the decision to rip up the one plant and plant one of the many other nontomatoe plants vying for dirt (he he ) I think this where gardeing becomes more an art than an exact science...have to go with your gut. So far my other maters haven't shown any other similar signs. The infected tomato was one that I had allowed to get big that grew from store bought composted horse manure. Best of luck to you!!

leaflady,
I think I'm having the same problem.
I'm wondering if you removed the wilted top portion of the plants and how are they?

This message was edited Friday, Jun 20th 10:18 AM

So far I haven't taken any action except to water them well. We haven't had any rain for a while so I thought they might be really dry even tho only the top of the plants wilted. I also noticed that one of the really nice looking volunteers close to the wilted top ones is beginning to show the same symptoms. The afflicted plants seem to be making a LOT of baby tomatoes on the top branches while the lower ones are making some nice big ones. I'm not overly inclinded to kill off these plants or even risk stunting them as we don't have anything to replace them for some time. The one basil plant comes and goes periodically.
GOD bless each of you.

Read farmergray's post about curly top virus, it sounds like it might be the same thing.

Leaflady,

A few of my tomato plants have the same type of problem as you have described. I've read much online, but nothing seems to fit my problem exactly. Here is one link I found useful :

http://gardenline.usask.ca/pests/tomato.html

I'm considering sending in a sample to Cornell to see if they can figure it out. It costs $25 for the basic analysis.

http://plantclinic.cornell.edu/Default.htm

Good luck. Also please let us know what happens to your plants.

ThatGuyBry

leaflady
I too grow in raised beds and use a lot of compost and composted manure in the beds. I live in Topeka, Ks.maybe not to far away. My tomatoes, hybrid and heirloom all have the curled top branches, but the bottom growth is lush and leaves look normal. All plants have set tomatoes healthy big the first to set at the bottom and new towards the top. I have read that using high compost amounts ties up the copper which the plants need, so this week have watered in some Bordeau around the bottom of 2 plants to see if this helps. I would not destroy if plants look healthy other than the top and they are setting.

Thanks, dcr, I'll have to try the copper for the tomatoes. Maybe a few pennies per plant?

Leaflady- Just wanted to let you know that my wilted top leaves have came out of their wilting about 95% from what they were, due to the Bordeau treatment. I added about 2 Tbl. of powder Bordeau around the plants and watered in, for my problem this seems to be working, plants are looking better now. Good Luck

dcr

I have 4 tomatoe plants and only one is wilting, it wilts throughout the day and early morning it appears looking just like the others, it has numerous flowers and is smaller than other plants. This is puzzling, I read dcr statement re: Bordeau trmt. Where do you purchase this powder?

I forgot to add the whole tomatoe plant withers throughout the day

tomden- I purchased a cannister of the Bordeau powder from a local Garden supply center. If none available you could buy the liquid, read the label for strenghts and mix with water and apply to the soil. Again I use raised beds and high compost rates in the raised bed. The Bordeau in my case is used mainly for Fruit tree spray, but since it is made of copper sulfate I tried it in case the copper was tied up in my raised bed, with good response.
Good luck dcr

There are so many reasons why plants can show wilting but the two most common reasons are too much water and too hot.

Too much water will cause wilting of the leaves and they'll stay that way until the soil dries out if they don't turn brown and die in the meantime.

Hot weather can cause wilting in the day and recovery at night. Due to increased transpiration (loss of water thru the foliage) during the day as the plant tries to compensate for the heat to stay cool. No change in foliage color with this kind of wilting.

If just part of the branches wilt then one has to consider a systemic disease such as Fusarium or Verticillium or Root Know Nematodes or Bacterial Wilt, etc. And those systemic diseases are not found in all parts of the country.

Sometimes plants will grow out of Verticillium spontaneously, and occasionally with Fusarium, but Bacterial Wilt and RKNematodes don't self cure, nor does Fusarium most of the time.

But wilting with the systemoc diseases usually is accompanied with change in color of foliage.

Foliage diseases are not the same as systemic diseases. Products used to combat foliage diseases don't work as systemics and can't prevent or cure tomato systemic diseases.

So if your tomatoes have a systemic disease there's nothing that can help, including Bordeaux Mixture, for which I share a good link to same as:http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Bordeaux+Mixture&btnG=Google+Search

Foliage diseases of the fungal type, which are usually the most serious, can be treated with Daconil, as in Ortho Garden Disease Control. Daconil is less toxic that Rotenone which is approved by all Organic Certifying agencies that I know of. Copper based products can also be used but they aren't as effective as Daconil which prevents fungal spores from penetrating the leaf surface.

Personally I'm more concerned with toxicity than I am if something is organic or inorganic in origin.

Curling leaves:

Very common and usually not a problem. leaves curl when it's too hot, too cold, too wet or too dry. Leaves curl when there's a heavy fruit burden and most modern hybrids have leaves that curl normally.

Curling leaves can also indicate a possible (usually) virus infection but if there are no other symptoms other than curling leaves I and many others just ignore them.

If the leaves curl over into a tube like structure then check for aphids.

There is a separate syndrome called Leaf Roll which occurs early in the season when roots and above ground mass are out of proportion. This self cures with time as the plants mature.

Hope the above helps someone, somewhere.

Carolyn

THANKYOU FOR ALL THE INFO.

Thanks, Carolyn. I did the copper treatment Friday morning so now I'm waiting to see what happens. The plants are loaded with tomatoes. Since we only have 3 or 4 Roma plants I have been very hesitant to pull & destroy them. I have noticed a couple other plants in other beds doing a tiny bit of the same thing so I'm watching them closely.