San Marzano.no,no, no, NO!

Never, ever, ever again will these supposedly great tasting toms be seen in my garden!
First try maybe I did stress the plants once or twice (inconsistant watering) which led to BER.. Virtually the entire crop firkled....
So this time they have been MOTHERED ! Downright mollicoddled from day 1. The best compost, blood fish and bone, dried cow muck, concentrated seaweed feed, powdered eggshell and obviously watered everyday without fail so today when I go to water something catches my eye on one of the immature tom's... Yes BER! On closer inspection I picked 15 toms from the 12 plants with BER.
Tomorrow they are coming OUT! no mercy.....

 

What's BER. ?

 

Blossom End Rot? Just Googled it, so could be wrong!

 

Hi John,
Started the San Marzano's off indoors mid March and put them in their final pots in early May.
Now they stand more than a metre tall with a minimum 3 tom bearing trusses on each, so you can imagine how qissed off I am to find blossom end rot
Yeah maybe they do better outside in the full ground but that's not an option for me due to the soil conditions.
Got 8 spare late crop plants to take the place of the San Marzano's so all is not lost, have a nice day!

 

I'll have to keep an eye out for this....most of mine are red cherry or san mazarno...all growing in pots in the greenhouse.

 

Probably talking rubbish, But I get the feeling San marzano is one of the Italian types, they usually grow them out doors in Italy where it is a bit warmer.

I've tried one or two of the Italian types over the years but have always been a bit disappointed, we dont get enough heat.

A good plum outdoor variety I find is "Incas" F1.
its early, but a bush type.

 

I just drop out the seeds from fruits and veg as I eat them, and see what comes...

 

I am sorry for your lost. In the past week, watering once per day for potted tomato plants is probably not enough. It is just too hot and sunny.

 

San Marzano are a complete prima donna and an over rated Italian diva of a tom. The blossom end rot is caused by lack of calcium but given you've chucked blood, fish, bone, eggshells and Christ knows what at them I don't know what else to suggest. Maybe just turn your back on the blighters and give your love to Roma or Gardeners' Delight next year - they have a great flavour and will appreciate your attention.

 

There`s a chance you can turn them around even though you wont save the fruit thats already affected. Transpiration is the driving force for calcium uptake so under/over watering, heat stress etc will affect the calcium uptake. Calcium cant be translocated from older leaves etc because its fixed (non mobile) once its in the plant. I would remove all the affected fruit and water the plants regularly with calcium nitrate at 0.7g per litre.

 

Three years or so ago, I planted small San Marzanos in well-drained buckets i.e. several 10mm holes drilled in the bottom, then filled with grow bag compost. They were grown from seeds propogated care of a punnet of Tesco toms; a scenario that was probably asking for trouble and needed a lot of watering

Those that didn't keel over during post-windowsill hardening turned "well ard" and despite an infestation of catepillars that decimated much of the upper foliage of most plants, they did surpisingly well... eventually. The crop was seriously late but worth the wait. Maybe it was one of those years where you get lucky at some point.

Each year springs new challenges, no matter what variety you grow and here are few tommys that can match the taste of SM's and IMO have got to be worth another shot

 

My SMs were doing so well...remembered this post and checked the big toms growing....BLOSSOM END ROT.....grrrrr. A few toms saved but no doubt they will get it too. V annoyed.