1
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Tomato (Moneymaker) - Fruit damage

Tomato    Wellington, South Africa

As per my previous question on the Moneymaker cultivar - these are now photos as requested on the fruit harvested this week. A total of 1,5kg. As can be seen some fruit has no damage - although there may be marks and some deformity (Image 3 and 8) while others obviously has sting marks and were rotten inside. In some fruit the damage to the skin are limited to the skin and the inside of the fruit has not been affected. Image 10-11 show the rot in onw of the and small maggot-like creatures inside. I have just now sprayed with a mixture of Efekto Malasol and Efekto Virikop.

What insect causes this damage to the tomato fruit and do you have any suggestions as to pesticide application - remembering that I'm trying to stay as close to natural solutions as possible.

There are a sizeable number of fruit on the plants currently and I would like to spray before these are effected as well.


Posted by: Chris (2 points) Chris
Posted: December 29, 2016


Juan Tizcareño Iracheta commented,
What insecticide do you must spray? I think you must spray an insecticide of wide spectre: Belt (Flubendiamide) and Muralla (Imidacloprid +Betacifluthrin) both from Bayer. They are very efective to control many kind of larves; please make sure to follow and respect the instructions of label.
about 7 years ago.

C. Elena Bita commented,
oh sorry Chris , thought you would post the fruit pics in the other post re leaf curling ! I am amazed on how different the answers are, must be very confusing for you :). One thing is for sure, you do need to spray regularly, as Money Maker is not a very tough cultivar. All together the fruits indeed have little jelly and malformed seeds, and are very small compared to regular size of MoneyMaker, so all that is a sign if heat stress..and a little pat could be from additional drought/water stress, see below. Generally lack of jelly and bad seeds indicate abiotic stress, as the plant goes into survival mode and fruit set is aborted regardless the stage of the fuits already growing on the plant. I would say those symptoms on your fruit are sunburn ( image 4, 8 ) and some fungus growing as well ( 7, 17), and maybe water stress after a period of drought ( i.e irregular watering) , see 2, 3. Possibly nose-rot in 9 ( its not pathogenic, but physiological disorder, also due to water issues) and antrachnose ( thats fungal) in 11, 19, 17,18, due to high humidity in the air, if the plants are growing near the soil and there is no proper ventilation around leaves/fruits. I would go for sunburn/sunscald and antrachnose though. The perforations could be due to worm / activity but only one hole and no faeces, am thinking maybe fruit fly , as a worm would have made a bigger whole.also since you mention maggots sounds more like fruit fly ..may be early still, if the fly just bored into the fruit to lay eggs and the eggs just hatched ( the maggot like creatures) , although it is possible that the maggots are a secondary infestation , on top of the damage caused by the fungal infection or fruit rot, as the fruit flies are attracted by rotting tissues. I dont think its any viral disease on pic 1 as you already posted pics of the leaves / plants and I didnt see any viral infection sign but then again, if you havent sprayed at all, anything is possible. So definitely the plants need sprayed regularly from a young age, and maybe regulate watering ..perhaps that bed you use is not draining properly?. With regards to which natural pesticides you could use, there are many ideas out there , including growing other plant species in between the tomato rows ( e. g. Tagetes) but my advice still remains for you to select a number of cultivars from all over the world but particularly from your area and just let them in the field or on your experimental patch , with as little treatment/even watering as possible, and just keep the ones that look best ( in parallel you can keep the Money Maker but again, its not a cultivar fitted for the climate in your area..) ...so its very easy to get seeds online, I can order some for you if you want but I would need to know abour seed import regulations from Europe as the seeds will be sent from Germany , I would try maybe 30 cultivars, some of them maybe with higher fruit nutritional value i.e blue/black fruits ..that would be a fun experiment. Sorry for replying so late !! Let me know how the project is going !
about 7 years ago.



Answers

1
point
I think this might be the dreaded Tomato Leaf Miner, Tuta absoluta.

Do you see any mines on the leaves

https://www.plantvillage.org/en/topic...



Posted by: David Hughes (66 points) David Hughes
Posted: January 4, 2017




0
points
The pictures show various types of insect damage. Holes in a tomato are caused by the bollworm (a caterpillar)



Posted by: elawad (1 point) elawad
Posted: January 8, 2017




0
points
Imege 1: Virotic disease.
Image 2: Abiotic disease (catface)
Images 10, 11, 19 and maybe 18: Tomato fruitworm (Heliothis zea)


Posted by: Juan Tizcareño Iracheta (4 points) Juan Tizcareño Iracheta
Posted: February 6, 2017




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