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 Post subject: Curled up leaves
PostPosted: Mon May 11, 2009 2:16 pm 
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Joined: Mon May 11, 2009 1:48 pm
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Our tomatoes, okra, peppers & beans leaves curl up into tight balls and stems get hard and gnarley. In same bed, squash is flourishing, also onions, collards, red potatoes. We used sandy loam soil and compost we bought at Maldonado's, well mixed, in raised beds we built this year. Beds are made with concrete tiles, no chemicals were used, planted garden in Feb, protected from cool nights, been watered daily. What would cause only some plants to react like that? If it will load, here are pictures taken yesterday. http://adobe.kodakgallery.com/ShareLand ... leid=en_US


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 Post subject: Re: Curled up leaves
PostPosted: Tue May 12, 2009 9:06 am 
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Location: Dallas,TEXAS
How often are you watering? It could be that you just happened to take pictures just after a rain or something but if they are staying extremely wet, that could be one of your issues. Do you see any sign of spider mites, or other pests? Any spots on the leaves of your tomato plant?

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 Post subject: Re: Curled up leaves
PostPosted: Tue May 12, 2009 1:58 pm 
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sandih wrote:
How often are you watering? It could be that you just happened to take pictures just after a rain or something but if they are staying extremely wet, that could be one of your issues. Do you see any sign of spider mites, or other pests? Any spots on the leaves of your tomato plant?

Watering or rain is not the problem, soil is sandy loam so we water daily. No spider mites or worms, no spots, just drawn up leaves and hard stems. the roots system is full and looks healthy. We have now dug up the remaining okra & peppers, put them into pots or a flower bed with different soil and no compost. Have decided the compost is the problem.
Thanks,


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 Post subject: Re: Curled up leaves
PostPosted: Tue May 12, 2009 2:47 pm 
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Location: wilmington,nc
I have a similar situation with all my tomatoes and peppers. I think my problem is a plant virus that is spread by thrips or a similar insect. It started on random tomato plants but has now spread to all the tomato plants in the ground and the 30 plants that are in small pots that I have started from seed. The seedlings didn't start curling and growing distorted until about 8" tall. My peppers are curling and have very distorted growth also. I'm waiting to get a small crop of tomatoes that are almost done before I pull and burn them all, so I can start all over. I treated with beneficial nematodes last week and I will treat with spinosad when I replant from seed again. I did try and treat with hydrogen peroxide a couple weeks ago but have seen no improvement. I'm totally organic and have great success with everything else that i've planted. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know.
thx


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 Post subject: Re: Curled up leaves
PostPosted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 10:28 am 
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Take a few of the leaves to your local Ag Extension office. If they don't know what the cause is, they will take pictures of the leaves, send them online to some other experts and voila!! ...Answers follow:
What it is...What causes it... what to do about it.
Let us know


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 Post subject: Re: Curled up leaves
PostPosted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 1:03 pm 
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Thanks for the replies. I took some of the plants to the Ag Exten agent and they had not seen anything quite like it. They decided it was a virus or fungus that had been spread by a spider or some insect. I pulled the plants up and burned them. This year's garden is in the same soil, had a few tomatoe and pepper plants start to curl up so I pulled them up, treated the soil with nematodes. The rest of the plants were slow to grow but survived. Hope the "bug" is finally gone.


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 Post subject: Re: Curled up leaves
PostPosted: Wed Jun 30, 2010 4:38 pm 
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Location: Dallas,TEXAS
Could be 'curly top' of the tomato mosaic virus. Here's a picture and some info. Also at the top of this page, click on Learn, then Article Library the 'C' and scroll down to curly top for an organic approach.

http://wci.colostate.edu/Assets/pdf/curly.top.virus.pdf

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Sandi
Texas Certified Nursery Professional
Texas Master Naturalist
Organic gardener
Tree-Hugger
Native Texan


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