Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I have this roma tomato plant that I cut back and it regenerated and was growing beautifully producing lots of blooms and a handful of small romas. Just last week I noticed that some of the larger leaves were folding in half or growing a large ridge or hump right down the middle. It doesn't seem to killing the leaves or harming the plant....yet. I looked on the underside and didn't any aphids or mites or any bugs. It doesn't seem to be happening to my other tomato plants in the system, tust this roma.
Also I have 1 strawberry plant that is dying aound the edges of all leaves. The other 5 strawberries are green and healthy.
I do give it a splash of seasol every couple weeks and I had an iron deficiency a couple weeks ago and corrected that with chelated iron. I plan ton putting a cap full of each routinely. A dozen koi giving plenty waste, ph 7.0 amm 0 -rites 0 and -rates 40-80
Any ideas what going on with them?

Cory

Any salt in the system? I've heard strawberry plants don't like salt much.

As to the tomato leaves, I'm not sure there. I've had lost of plants with leaves like those, might be a leaf curl virus or might just be how they feel like growing, hasn't stopped production for me though. However, I can't say that my system has produced huge amounts of tomatoes though, it has still been enough for us and the chickens.

Interesting info here about rolled or curled tomato leaves : http://www2.dpi.qld.gov.au/health/4250.html

My strawberries do that and I have no salt in the system. I'd be interested to know why it happens too.

I haven't salted my system for over a month, and when I did it was only 1-2ppm, very light so I don't think its salt.
The strawberries and in a rain gutter that completely drains so the roots aren't sitting in water getting root rot.
The tomato leaves are interesting, you can flip them inwards and outwards, the spine just looks bigger than the fleshy part of the leaf...swollen waterlogged maybe?

Cory

My strawberry's suffered from the same brown ringed leaves. System was salted to 1ppt just before planting strawberrys. Had heard that strawberry's dont like salt but it did not affect the taste or production on fruit. The leaves would actually completely turn brown after a while and I have assumed it was just sun burn. I would just cut the brown leaves off.

Yeh, my strawbs do that too. But they also do that in the regular garden, so I figure I'm not doing too bad.

If other plants are showing similar signs - browning at the outer edges of the leaf of the older leaves - that could be a potassium deficiency.

My toms had a similar curl - I was told by a more experienced gardener that it's probably a fungal attack and that I should cut off all affected branches and "thin out" the tangled mess so that it had better circulation. I remain skeptical as to the actual cause though.

We have found that when young plant leaves appear dark green or blue with the leaf edges turning up - there is a possibility of a copper deficiency and when young leaves are scorched at the tips and margins there is a possible boron deficiency - as these are trace element deficiencies we treat the plants with a hydroponic foliar feed that contains these elements.
We have never had any problems with foliar feeding in the aquaponics, but you will have to try it and see in your environment.
Hope this helps.