Common Tomato Diseases

Whether you consider the tomato a fruit or a vegetable, you must agree that it is a versatile food. You can cook them into a mash to use in salsa, or you can chop them for a stew or chili. You can slice them fresh out of the garden to top a hamburger, or you can chill them and fill them with tuna salad. They preserve extremely well, whether you freeze them, can them, or dry them. While you can buy them from the grocery store, there's nothing like growing your own tomatoes and using them fresh from the vine. While it is relatively easy to grow tomatoes, they can contract certain diseases. Here are some common tomato diseases and their symptoms:

• If you see dark spots on the leaves of new plants, then your plants have early blight. Some leaves may turn yellow and die. Always make sure that your planting area is clean from the previous fall, and avoid over watering.
• Later in the growing season, tomato leaves may develop greasy spots, eventually turning papery gray and dry. The same spots develop on the fruit of the plant, with a surrounding ring of mold. A sure sign of late blight, it spreads rapidly throughout your entire garden if you don't stop it as soon as you discover it.
• Only affecting the leaves of tomatoes, and not the fruit, gray leaf spot creates small, dark spots on both sides of the leaf, and eventually inhibit growth of the fruit.
• A virulent fungus that causes tomatoes to rot, anthracnose manifests itself as round, sunken spots on the fruit. The spots increase in size and darken, merging with adjoining spots, rendering the fruit entirely inedible.
• Located at the blossom of the plant, blossom end rot has dark brown and black spots that cause the entire tomato to rot.
• More a ripening problem than a fungus, gray wall makes green fruit look gray, and may even cause gray spots to appear. Fully ripened tomatoes will have gray wall on the inside of the fruit, showing as green or brown areas.

In all instances, tomato diseases can be avoided by controlling moisture levels and applying fungicides when warranted. Always make sure that your garden bed is free of standing water before planting, and never allow tomato vines to trail into water. If your area experiences high humidity, apply fungicides, leave plenty of space between your tomato plants to improve air circulation, and ensure leaf health to provide an adequate canopy to protect fruit from sun scald.