My monney maker tomato plants seem to be dieing from the top any ideas?

Question

plants are about 4 ft high and all have fruit and the top 5" on each plant has gone brown and dusty. can i cut the top of or will they die anyway. many thanks.

Answer 1

Not sure about the cause of that but I just keep removing the dead branches and the tomato's are still doing fine.

Answer 2

Your plants unfortunately have potato blight (yes they are related to the potato).

The tell tale signs are the stems, leaves and fruit going brown and dusty. It will quickly work its way down the whole plant and will kill it. If you have more than one plant it will kill them also. Do any of your neighbours have tomatoes and if so, have theirs got blight. I do not believe there are any safe chemicals that will kill the blight but your local garden centre will know.

The plant catches the disease because the spores of the blight are wind borne and will have come from someone in your area who has got blight. In a reasonably heavy wind they blow for several miles, so finding the source would be impossible.

You could try again next year, but in a different part of your garden or better still a greenhouse if you have got one. There is still no guarantee that they won't become infected, particularly if you just grow them in a different position in you garden, but you will stand  a better chance if you have a greenhouse. If you do get it again I would honestly give up growing tomatoes.

When you finally dig the tomato plants up, don't put them on your compost heap as they will happily live there ever over winter. Either burn them or take them to you Council Rubbish Tip.

Hope this helps. Good Luck.

Answer 3

No problem.

Chop off the top, water with diluted tomato feed (Tomorite or similar) to encourage the fruits to develop and enjoy the fruits of your labours.

It's likely the tops got scorched by the sun (if you are lucky enough to have see any sunshine this summer) and that's why they've gone brown. The rest of the plant will be OK until the frosts arrive. If you have any unripe tomatoes at the end of the season, you can pick them off and put them in a paper bag with a banana. They'll then ripen themselves very quickly.

Answer 4

cut back to healthy stem.

side shoots will grow in leaf axils .keep one or more side shoots.

hope this helps