Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi,
This is my first year growing in a greenhouse (infact my first post too) and I have a range of plants in the greenhouse. One of my tomato plants has grown about a foot taller than all the others and at the top the leaves are curling. What is this, should I pinch out the top main shoot?
Thanks in advance.

Hi cnunns! Welcome! (My predictive text was challenged with your signature)!

Are they scorched? Maybe you need to line the greenhouse with fleece or paint it with that chalk stuff to protect them. The light is magnified through glass so you have to shade it as best you can in summer. You can also just throw green wind shield fabric over the whole greenhouse & anchor it down which is probably more efficient as can roll it up & use again for next year!

Don't worry too much if it is only the tips & if you pinch them out they will grow more side shoots which will bear fruit as well. Certainly doesn't look like blight so lucky there at least!

Another welcome. It does look a bit odd, I'd be tempted to wait and see particularly if the rest of the plants are OK. A year or two ago we would probably be discussing weedkiller residue damage. Are they all in the same compost? Any chance of spray drift, perhaps the one nearest the ventilator?

Hello cnunns and welcome

Knowing your area location might be helpful in pinning down potential causes.

Do you water your tomatoes at the base avoiding leaves as much as possible or do you just water over all the plant.

Are those curled leaves a very dark green or are they black

I've one tomato with leaf curl out of 16 ,my mate two plots down has the same the rest are very healthy looking ,it could be lack of water or to much feed but I'm not sure with mine what it is

Like Geoff, I would suggest weedkiller damage from the compost if the plants are in individual pots and the other plants are ok. It looks very much like the damage we had on the allotment potatoes (after all, the same family as tomatoes) a few years ago when the manure was contaminated with aminopyralid weedkiller.

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome and the responses, it is just affecting one plant in a greenhouse of 10+ tomatoes, I water from the bottom, they are in growbags within compost filled cut off pots. The leaves are turning dark green rather than brown or black and no evidence of pests. I have been doing some online research and have come across tomato curly top virus, could this be it I wonder?

cnunns, just put 'aminopyralid' into Google and you will find photos of affected tomato plants (especially the RHS site). Perhaps your grow bags had a pocket of affected manure? I know the affected manure is no longer supposed to be around, but it might have been an old batch?

Anyone think a dose of Epsom salts will help I think I'll try it on my one this morning

Thanks Monica, that looks more likely, to be honest they were cheap growbags. Next year I'm going to buy better quality deeper growbags. At least it shouldn't spread to the rest of the crop.

The Epsom salts seems to be working I put a hand full around the curley one and one that had just started to curl both looking better today