Pat Kiewicz wrote:
Paul M. Cook said:

So I added calcium to the soil, I used fish emulsion fertilizer and I
sprayed the leaves with calcium water. And BER set in anyway. No water
stress such as dry roots. I water every day as it is quite warm and the
pots dry fast. This is maddening because I lost so many tomatoes last year
to BER. Just how much more can one do?


Use *much* larger pots.

I have a friend growing tomatoes in 10" to 12" pots. I know the tomato
has a huge root system and I usually see them in 5 gallon paint buckets.
Is she on a fools errand?


If you have a layer of gravel at the bottom of the pots "for drainage" stop
doing that.

Why is that?

Shade the pots by setting them in a wooden box (no bottom needed)
or, use large foam or double-walled pots.

Set up a drip irrigation system so the pots stay evenly moist.

Some varieties are more prone to BER than others. Sadly, this is not
something that is discussed in catalog descriptions and it's rarely brought
up anywhere else. That's too bad, really. It would be useful information.

I've hear that some packages have BER on them to signify resistance.

'Green Zebra' is a variety that has proven to be consistantly prone to
BER in my garden. Liked the tomato, but stopped growing it because
of this fault. It would suffer BER when no other variety did.

Long, pointed varieties (plum tomatoes, for example) are prone to BER.

'Early Girl' may be very popular but (in my experience) it is slightly more
prone to BER than other small, round, quick maturing varieties.

Found this uber technical bit on BER:

http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/95/4/571

Any comments on eggshells? I've got a lot ground up in my soil. It
would seem the calcium release would be slow, probably too slow.

Jeff