What causes tomato bottom rott?
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Tomato "Blossom End Rot" (BER) isn't a disease, its a physiological disorder that is caused by a deficiency of Calcium that generally results from fluctuations in water supply to the plant, over watering, under watering, highly acidic soil, or root damage due either to improper cultivation or sever root pruning. Adding too much fertilizer at one time can also induce BER.
Ideally your soil should be 6.0 to 6.5 pH. ONLY IF LOWER THAN 6.0 SHOULD YOU ADD LIME, AND DO IT 2-4 MONTHS BEFORE PLANTING! If you have high pH soil and you add lime, you will only raise the pH and make it worse!.
Keep the plant moist, but not too wet. Use mulches to conserve moisture. Use pine straw, straw, decomposed sawdust, plastic or newspapers. Mulches conserve soil moisture and reduce incidence of BER. The mulch also helps prevent dirt from splashing up onto the leaves and causing them to turn brown.
Give plants adequate water. Tomato plants need about 1.5 inches of water a week during fruiting. Extreme fluctuations in soil moisture can result in a greater incidence of BER.
Remove affected fruit to prevent bacteria and fungus from growing in them.
If the condition is quite severe, you can apply a foliar form of calcium, but it can get a bit pricy over time. Spray them with a calcium solution at the rate of 4 level tablespoons per gallon of water. Be careful with calcium chloride. If day temperatures are greater than 85 to 90 F, calcium chloride can burn plants. Under high temperatures, use calcium nitrate. Spray two or three times each week, beginning when the second fruit clusters are blooming. Spraying calcium is not a substitute for proper irrigation and fertility management.
the ground is to wet under it. Pick them before they do that and set them in a sunny place to finish ripening.
calcium deficiency
better known as "blossom end rot"
keep your plants watered.
sounds like you have very heavy clay soil
add organic matter like grass clippings or leaves for mulch
and till in some organic matter like manure or compost at seasons end.
have your soil tested and amend it
I know that you are not gonna but that IS the correct way to do it
That is called Blossom-end rot and is caused by a calcium deficiency coupled with dry soil conditions. The dry conditions do not allow the plant to take up the calcium. Pick off the bad fruit so the rest can develop normally, and then make sure the plants are well watered and have good drainage. Mulching helps to conserve moisture. Do not hoe close to the plant to avoid damaging the roots. Using a fertilizer high in phosphorus and low in nitrogen is something to consider.
i use "hay"... as a mulch. it helps against the above problems and it also keeps water from splashing up on the bottom of the plant when it rains or when i water em!
A number of mentions of the calcium defficiency have been posted, but no methods to correct this have been mentioned. The addition of garden lime (apply to soil and water in) and periodic waterings are the best way to keep this from happening. Fruit with the rot should be picked off to allow the plant to generate new fruit- likely without the rot on them.
To add to all of this. I have found some varieties are much more suspectible to blossom end rot than others. I often grow many varieties at the same time and under the same conditions, and this seems to hit harder on the some of the heirloom varieties.
Note there are special "blossom end rot" calcium sprays as well.
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