Should I remove these leaves on my seedlings?

[swadloony]

My tomato seedlings are doing much better thanks to some advice I received on this forum a few weeks ago. However, what someone there told me might be a fungal infection is still affecting most of the plants to varying degrees, like you can see in the picture. I've been spraying them periodically with neem oil but I'm not sure that's meant to fix the problem or just slow the spread of whatever is affecting them.

So my question is, should I pinch off these leaves? And if so, how aggressive should I be about it? I have a few plants that are much smaller than this one and most of their few leaves have signs of this, but they're still putting out new leaves and growing, and I don't want to kill the plant in my process of trying to help it.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[Chuck]

View attachment 89860

My tomato seedlings are doing much better thanks to some advice I received on this forum a few weeks ago. However, what someone there told me might be a fungal infection is still affecting most of the plants to varying degrees, like you can see in the picture. I've been spraying them periodically with neem oil but I'm not sure that's meant to fix the problem or just slow the spread of whatever is affecting them.

So my question is, should I pinch off these leaves? And if so, how aggressive should I be about it? I have a few plants that are much smaller than this one and most of their few leaves have signs of this, but they're still putting out new leaves and growing, and I don't want to kill the plant in my process of trying to help it.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Purple leaf veins and stems on tomatoes is a sure sign of a phosphorus deficiency. You can remove the entire limb those two leaves are on if you want as those leaves are not adding much if any growth to the plant. You can add phosphorus by adding manure, bone meal or rock phosphate.

 

[Mike Allen]

Adding to what Chuck has said. Affected leaves/growth not only give warning of condition and at times problems, they can also use up energy etc wastefully. My advice would be to remove the offender.

 

[swadloony]

Purple leaf veins and stems on tomatoes is a sure sign of a phosphorus deficiency. You can remove the entire limb those two leaves are on if you want as those leaves are not adding much if any growth to the plant. You can add phosphorus by adding manure, bone meal or rock phosphate.

So that's the exact issue that I've been working on correcting over the last couple weeks (in fact I think you were the one who helped me out before haha). I transferred the seedlings into better soil which includes dairy cow compost, and also bought some fertilizer that has a higher phosphorous level than what I was using. The undersides of the leaves used to be dark purple but that has gone away entirely since transplanting, they're fully green now, and I assume the stems/veins will continue to improve as well. It's just these crusty brown patches on the leaves that are still causing me problems. But I'll remove the leaves, so hopefully that will help.

 

[swadloony]

Adding to what Chuck has said. Affected leaves/growth not only give warning of condition and at times problems, they can also use up energy etc wastefully. My advice would be to remove the offender.

I'll do that, thanks for your help!

 

[Chuck]

So that's the exact issue that I've been working on correcting over the last couple weeks (in fact I think you were the one who helped me out before haha). I transferred the seedlings into better soil which includes dairy cow compost, and also bought some fertilizer that has a higher phosphorous level than what I was using. The undersides of the leaves used to be dark purple but that has gone away entirely since transplanting, they're fully green now, and I assume the stems/veins will continue to improve as well. It's just these crusty brown patches on the leaves that are still causing me problems. But I'll remove the leaves, so hopefully that will help.

Those brown leaf tips and margins are caused by a watering issue. At some point in the past they either stayed too wet or too dry.

 

[YumYum]

When I grow tomatoes, I cut off anything that touches the ground, good leaves or not.

 

[headfullofbees]

So that's the exact issue that I've been working on correcting over the last couple weeks (in fact I think you were the one who helped me out before haha). I transferred the seedlings into better soil which includes dairy cow compost, and also bought some fertilizer that has a higher phosphorous level than what I was using. The undersides of the leaves used to be dark purple but that has gone away entirely since transplanting, they're fully green now, and I assume the stems/veins will continue to improve as well. It's just these crusty brown patches on the leaves that are still causing me problems. But I'll remove the leaves, so hopefully that will help.

You have to remember that, especially when dealing with a deficiency, & especially when that deficiency is phosphate, which can easily become locked in the soil, numbers are not as important as availability.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Those brown leaf tips and margins are caused by a watering issue. At some point in the past they either stayed too wet or too dry.

Looking at the pot I wonder if it is a peat pot, they can dry out quite quickly because you are losing water all round. The other indication that might have happened is the slight gap between the pot and the soil. The bigger the pot the better on the whole, the ratio of surface area to mass changes exponentially and it is surface area that loses warmth and moisture, too big won't hurt, too small will.