Homercles nobodyhere.edu wrote:

[Tomatoes] just wilt and die after they get about 2 1/2 to 3 feet tall.

Have a look at:

http://www.avrdc.org/pdf/tomato/bacterial_wilt.pdf [1]

The pic there of brown, wilted plants is just what ours look like this
year. We've planted tomatoes there for a decade. Last year there was
some of this. This year the plants grew vigorously and 3' tall,
blossomed and set fruit, then began to wilt just before the first
tomatoes began to ripen. Doesn't effect the fruit directly so we're
getting lots of tomatoes but not as many as we would had the plants
continued to flourish. We've had a damper that usual summer with more
night fogs and our potatoes were hit with a very similar wilt, as
well. The PDF (above) says:

Soil is the primary source of the disease. The bacterium can
survive in soil for extended periods without a host plant. This
bacterium exists as a group of variants or races, each of which
attack certain plant groups. Major host plants include potato,
tobacco, eggplant, banana and plantain; secondary hosts include
pepper, peanut (groundnut), sweet potato, and many weeds.


Another patch, 20' away, is showing none of the wilt. So next year,
we're moving the tomatoes to the present sweet corn patch and
starting a new potato patch on ground I've cleared of brambles and
goldenrod. I'm also going to replace all my wooden tomato stakes next
year lest they carry the infectious agent.

We do have a walnut tree but it's 100' away and only 4' high -- very
unlikely to be relevant.


[1] Use this URL to see a list of files on tomato diseases:

http://www.avrdc.org/pdf/tomato/

--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada