I started to check the status of the plants who were transplanted in weed infested areas. I noticed that these plants had more leaf damage but still managed to bear fruit.
Most of the insects that made the plant their home settled on the leaves of the plant typically under the leaf and if the leaf was shriveled they settled inside the leaf.
This leaf was folded by an aphid.
An aphid on top of a green tomato fruit. There are also insect bites on the stem of the plant (dark spots)
Leaf underside is covered with web like structures that suggesting that some insect has lived here.
There are also a healthy number of white flies in the plants both in the controlled environment and the weed infested location.
The fruits from the tomato plants that where transplanted to the weed infested location didn't seem to have developed problems but only a sample of the ripe fruits will tell us if they are going to be healthy.
Some of the plants in the controlled environment have developed a virus called Leaf Curl Virus this is seen on the picture of the lower right set of leaves are all curled up. This virus is most probably carried by the whitefly.
Some of the tomatoes fruits in the controlled environment have developed a problem called blossom end rot. The picture below shows us the affected fruit.
According to the literature blossom end rot is common problem of tomato fruits it stems from calcium deficiency in the soil or with irregular moisture levels. I can remember that during the previous weeks it was raining quite often so the moisture level could be the cause.
I took one of the affected fruits and cut it in half and saw this image.
I started to see that the portions of the fruit in-charge of distributing the nutrients seem to be more affected by the problem. I decided to check out if there was an effect on the healthly looking immature seeds, so I cut up one see and took a photo and found that it seemed to be quite healthy.
No comments:
Post a Comment