Hi all,

Been doing some research on this. Plants looked fine until the other day, and now I am noticing varying degrees of twisting on the new growth of my tomatoes. They are in a new raised bed with other plants. My mom has the exact same plants, and sees nothing so far with hers. My neighbors have not done any spraying as far as I have seen, just the occasional mowing. My backyard backs up to a vacant field, and believe me no spraying has happened there. They really need to mow it down. We have had a lot of very windy days (like today for example) and temperature fluctuations (e.g. yesterday 85F, today 60F, lows have fluctuated from high 30s to 60) this month. I still have leftover seedlings in the GH, and they show none of this either. So I am fairly sure it is related to the new raised bed, although then it has to be something that only affects tomatoes. I have cucumbers, cilantro, basil, and peppers in there too and they are all fine. Any thoughts on what I can do here? I added a picture to show the plant with the worst twisting. Older growth is fine, no yellowing or curling at all. Plants are setting blossoms as well.

Thanks, Kim

Just wondering if anyone has ideas on this. I have sprayed the plants with insecticidal soap in case that is an issue, but I do not see anything on them.

wow i have no idea. how long have they been in the beds?

Posible herbicide damage. Any one been treating lawns for weeds in the vicinity? Tomatoes are very susceptible to 2-4D.

I agree with farmerdill. When we had a community garden our tomatoes did the same thing. No one spraying, or so we thought.

Or too much fertilizer?

Most likely it is chemical drift, but in Texas there may be another problem. Curly top virus vectored by a leaf hopper beetle can cause tomatoes to appear like yours. There is no cure for curly top and it could spread to other plants. The best way to find out for sure is to water well your affected plant. If it is chemical drift the tomato should recover even though it will be set back a bit. If it is curly top, the plant is doomed. After a few days it will start to die. Then you should remove the tomato plant from your garden, put all parts in a plastic bag and discard in the trash, not in a compost pile or in the garden area. At this point you should be able to see if it will live or die.

Thanks all. There is no crop field anywhere near where I live, so I am not sure how I would get the herbicidal drift. I have also not seen my neighbors doing much in their yards. However, this does seem to be the most plausible cause at this point. The plants are otherwise doing very well, no yellow growth, still flowering. I will leave them for now and hope they grow out of it. Thanks!

what are they mulches with, if anything?

Did you use compost from the city? Sometimes herbicide residue is still in the compost.

The compost mix I got is from Maldonado's nursery here in town. The growth is still coming out twisted, still no discoloration of the leaves and I am seeing some fruit set. I have potted up some backup plants, from the exact same flat and no twisted growth is seen on these. So either something drifted to them while they were planted in the raised beds, or there is something in the soil of the raised beds causing the issue. I would have expected herbicidal drift to have worked itself out by now, so I am inclined to think it is something in the soil mix I got. I plan to ask them the next time I am at the nursery. At least the backup plants are flowering now so hopefully I'll still get tomatoes this year. Everything else in the raised beds is growing and producing like gangbusters.

blueeyes said:The compost mix I got is from Maldonado's nursery here in town. The growth is still coming out twisted, still no discoloration of the leaves and I am seeing some fruit set. I have potted up some backup plants, from the exact same flat and no twisted growth is seen on these. So either something drifted to them while they were planted in the raised beds, or there is something in the soil of the raised beds causing the issue. I would have expected herbicidal drift to have worked itself out by now, so I am inclined to think it is something in the soil mix I got. I plan to ask them the next time I am at the nursery. At least the backup plants are flowering now so hopefully I'll still get tomatoes this year. Everything else in the raised beds is growing and producing like gangbusters.

Still a mystery.