Blossom end rot (irrigation, growing, fertilizer, tomatoes)
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I have tomatoes and gypsy peppers growing right next to each other. Almost all of the peppers are getting blossom end rot. None of the tomatoes are. Our summer long drought has been followed by quite a bit of rain the last couple of weeks. But I've watered all of the plants the same prior to that, and the soil should be pretty much the same for all of the plants, so I don't understand it.
Blossom-end rot is a calcium deficiency. It's probably too late for your plants this year, but next year side-dress each plant with bone meal, eggshells, or a combination. They both take awhile to break down, so use them early in the growing season.
Look for fertilizers that have calcium in them, but don't over-fertilize. There are calcium sprays you can use on the foliage, but the reviews are mixed.
Did you plant these plants in the same spot last year? Rotating crops helps with this. Plants in the same family (peppers tomatoes eggplant) tend to pass along issues like this from year to year if not rotated with other vegetables.
Did you plant these plants in the same spot last year? Rotating crops helps with this. Plants in the same family (peppers tomatoes eggplant) tend to pass along issues like this from year to year if not rotated with other vegetables.
Rotating helps minimize fungus and other soil diseases, but the best way to avoid blossom end rot is to add calcium to the soil.
First make sure you really have blossom end rot, there are other problems that can be similar looking.
If you are sure it is blossom end rot there are still many reason that one set of plants do well next to another that doesn't do well and it can be simply a matter of something as simple as the difference between the plants themsellves. The actual "rot" is a fungal infection but fungicides are of little help. Rotating crops and not planting crops with the same disease problems (tomato and eggplant being the other two common home garden plants) will help a little but the fungal disease only happens when physiological changes have occurred and is not the cause. While I will recommend rotating, as well, many farms plant the same crop (usually peppers or tomatoes) in the same place for years and still manage to avoid the problems in most years.
Ohiogirl81 has been the closest to the answers you are looking for. The changes causing the symptoms are actually much more complicated and the 2 plants are different in their water and fertilizer requirements so one could be less prone than the other with the same conditions.
I really don't want to write a long essay on all the factors because there is a lot more to it than irrigation and calcium levels. There is little you can do now to make a difference, after the fact, but you can prepare for next year and have a soil test done early in the spring. If possible go through your local cooperative extension or aggie school if one is close by. Specify vegetable garden in the soil test and, if you can, specify tomato and pepper as the crop if they allow "comments" or specifics. Find out not only the calcium levels but the nitrogen levels (and what the source of the nitrogen is) in the soil before you plant or amend the soil with anything. The following is a simplification of what is going on; part of the problem is not only amounts of calcium available to the plants but how fast and what parts of the plants are taking it up. Even with more than adequate calcium present when too much fertilizer/ or the wrong type is used for soil conditions there is too much nitrogen (or the wrong kind of nitrogen) which in turn cause rapid leaf growth which starves the "fruit" of calcium that the roots are absorbing and the rot get a foot hold. Without getting into all the plant physiology and chemistry too deeply it looks like the tomatoes were just better adapted to the combination of soil conditions and watering in your garden this time out. It could easily have been the other way around with a different set of weather and soil conditions. It's what makes gardening such a challenge at times!
Thanks for all the answers! I used a tomato-specific fertilizer on the tomatoes, but a nonspecific one on the peppers,so that may be the difference. I will def. do a soil test next spring. I don't have much room to rotate unfortunately, but I move things around as much as I can. When I bought the pepper plants, there were already two tiny babies on one of them. Those grew unblemished and they were delicious! The rest of the peppers started far behind them, and pretty much all had the rot. I hope I can grow them successfully next year.
The bottom of all my tomato plants have yellowing and dying leaves on them. Ugh
I hope it does not take over the whole plant!! I had a bottle of some kind of spray fro them last year that I didn't use so I sprayed all of them but of course it rained the next day!! Ugh
I did not rotate these plants from last year so I guess that is a problem too........yikes!!
I also wanted to add that take your egg shells and put them in your food processor and grind them up as best you can and that helps for the calcium to be absorbed by the plant also . grind them up almost to a powder and bury them next to the plant . Before I was doing this I had the worst cases of BER now nothing . this year blight got me and I cant do anything about that really but at least I conquered the BER .
The bottom of all my tomato plants have yellowing and dying leaves on them. Ugh
I hope it does not take over the whole plant!! I had a bottle of some kind of spray fro them last year that I didn't use so I sprayed all of them but of course it rained the next day!! Ugh
I did not rotate these plants from last year so I guess that is a problem too........yikes!!
this is ^^^^^blight you will have to pull the plant and get rid of any of them that have it . The plants will die anyways sorry but it hit me too this year I have one plant that was not hit and has not been so far thank god and knock wood and it is doing fairly well I hope it continues to do so .
The bottom of all my tomato plants have yellowing and dying leaves on them. Ugh
I hope it does not take over the whole plant!! I had a bottle of some kind of spray fro them last year that I didn't use so I sprayed all of them but of course it rained the next day!! Ugh
I did not rotate these plants from last year so I guess that is a problem too........yikes!!
You are talking about the leaves on the bottom of the plant, correct?? Are the plants wilted? Do they have brown spots on leaves? How has the watering, or rain been?? How big are your plants?
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