True that I didnt hold out two pastes which I didnt lime but there are
plants in the same bed, on either side of the pastes which I didnt lime
(they arent pastes). They had some BER as well but to a far lesser
extent. They still have BER at approximately the same rate while the
pastes are showing little to none at this point. Of course rain/weather
change regularly so they surely could have played a part. The only real
changes seem to be the lime and perhaps rains have been slightly more
even though still erratic. Temps have been all over the place.

Mark


TQ wrote:
"Mark & Shauna" wrote in message
k.net...
| I & H wrote:
|
| I'm trying to save my plum tomatoes which I think are indeed suffering
from
| blossom end rot. Can I pick them green and plump, but before the rot is
| evident, and ripen them in brown paper bags or on my windowsill? Will
the
| rot still come out?
| Or, shall I let them ripen on the vine and then cut off the bottoms and
use
| them anyways for cooking. I'm hoping to salvage a massive batch of sauce
I
| have planned. There is a lot of advice about preventing the rot for
future
| years, but I still don't know if the crop is completely lost or if I
will be
| able to use the fruit.
| Thanks for iding the problem!
| -Holly
|
|
|
| In our experience its kind of a hard one to call as not all of the fruit
| will suffer from the rot. You may be picking many that will ripen just
| fine. Also, it seems the rot causes the fruit to prematurely ripen so if
| you pick them before the rot is apparent you may be picking fruit that
| are so premature they will never ripen.
|
| Depending on where you are and how much season you have left I would
| suggest picking up a foliar spray for the BER and or putting some
| dolamitic lime around the base of the plants. Many times the BER is
| caused by weather/water but often times it can be due to calcium
| deficiency. Fine ground dolamitic lime can be taken up by the plants in
| 2 weeks and from what I hear the foliar spray can be even faster. We had
| pretty serious BER on our italian paste's and I hit them with the lime a
| couple weeks ago and the yield is up markedly already.
|

Unless you maintained a few control plants that received no treatment, you
have no way of knowing whether the lime cured the problem or whether the
problem went away on its own.