It's been less than a month since I diagnosed my tomatoes with fusarium wilt. In that time they've continued to ripen, I've gotten about two dozen rouge de marmandes (minus a few more with blossom end rot) and several cereal bowls worth of Tommy Toes. But the plants went from this on January 17th:
![http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden10/tomatoesjan.JPG](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vnRIwsFzfD57e-7LEJrW4mX8juDXodQfihGwSl6qIUQk5lP53PoaSWYsU11Cr84qo1cZDdCpyO7aUrRyOex8V1uMKQaJ5NHretEPCoeRYjrYx0xKpcEu8=s0-d)
To this on February 6th:
![http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden10/fusarium1.JPG](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tkRN_Mbkn_3ge02QX914NnQzchLULI3dgunyIJz95jM8oO0c0_FOp7jXTiSAwbS7rsW96kqUf5elks7442wWKEAID8oooPkBddHi6l7sWNjWUVpb5Fhw=s0-d)
The poor things hung on for a while but once they started downhill they went down fast. On Wednesday I picked another set of ripening Tommy Toes but the seeds inside were black. That's when I decided they had to go, despite a few more fruit desperately clinging on.
But when I went to complete my diagnosis I was in for a surprise. This is what the inside of the stem looked like:
![http://www.alexareynolds.com/garden10/fusarium3.JPG](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_vsoL-RDb-jgK1eHHrRFcf8JaHEI90KP-G4gjouv7azwgW5yZ1W8iX7FRTXFLGHTTVufpBZoBuIcEZWZBho0yAjSR4RVgLY706drRbppsSilkWLoaBi=s0-d)
Those white bits are perfectly healthy tissue. With fusarium wilt they're meant to be discoloured brown, like this. So now I'm confused and frustrated. Did they really have wilt? Should I have pulled up the plants or left them longer? If it wasn't wilt what else could have made them cark it so quickly? And how do I keep this from happening next year?
![](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_suBcfxHjiG7fKY2J0iA3r_N9_xMSaq9neC9b0xon3xokEfqOXC-aw1N3mxIxCXKwFDraj_0uSuRrN6wKy308oW3jI7VUWpoK5TvLAY0pzSqsi34q4HGI_3SCSdZ2PH2uJXSODPSECzbFWROsE=s0-d)
But when I went to complete my diagnosis I was in for a surprise. This is what the inside of the stem looked like:
0 comments:
Post a Comment