Hello Katherine,

Before I work up a more detailed answer, were there any herbicides used in or around the greenhouse before this started to appear? It sounds like you are trying to grow organic so I would guess not, but I wanted to check first. This is pretty consistent with herbicide damage on tomatoes.

Hello Katie,

As soon as I saw your pictures, I immediately thought herbicide damage. After doing more research, I would say that your tomatoes are most consistent with herbicide damage or somewhat consistent with mosaic virus. Please see the pictures in this reference: https://extension.umd.edu/resource/key-common-problems-tomatoes/

Leaf rolling can result from nutrient imbalance, water insufficiency, cold temperatures and viral infection. However, this is an upwardly cupped rolling of the leaf. You did have some cold nights in late May this year. How efficient is your greenhouse? Did it keep the plants warm on the cold nights? Again, the cupped leaves from cold damage is not quite consistent with what your plants are exhibiting.

What you have is distorted growth. Generally, the only causative agents for that are herbicide and virus. The virus reacts with and modifies the DNA of the plant and causes general chaos with growth and fruiting. Are your tomatoes mosaic virus tolerant varieties? Herbicides are systemic growth regulators. In non-lethal doses, they disrupt the plant’s growth process. Here is another example of virus and herbicide damage: https://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheet/tomato-leaves-rolling/

I hate to keep going back to herbicide, but I think that is where you need to look. Dicamba and 2-4,D are well known to volatize (turn into a gas) and travel miles when the weather is hot. By looking at the weather data, Antrim county had high temperatures near 80 degrees between May 12 and May 26. It is also interesting that May 22 was fairly windy. Herbicide damage manifests in about 2 weeks. Is it out of the realm of possibility that one of your neighbors close to your greenhouse applied a weed killer that volatized and the gas blew through your greenhouse when it was vented? Or are you so far from any property that you do not control that this would not be possible at all?

Here are some articles on herbicide drift:

https://ipm-drift.cfaes.ohio-state.edu/dicamba-and-24-d-fact-sheet-series/overview-dicamba-and-24-d-drift-issues

https://extension.umn.edu/node/40266#and-dicamba-injury-2731810

If it is herbicide damage, the plant should resume normal growth in the weeks ahead. If it is viral, the plants will never recover and are best destroyed.

Positive identification of the cause of this damage is a very complicated process. I would suggest one of these two options:

(1)

Carefully capture a specimen of the distorted growth and send it to the MSU Diagnostic Labs for positive identification. The following website describes the services and the fee structure for analysis performed by the Diagnostic Lab.: https://www.canr.msu.edu/pestid/

This website provides directions and tips for taking a good sample:

https://www.canr.msu.edu/pestid/submit-samples/

If the problem is viral, they will verify what the virus is by DNA testing.

(2)

Send your pictures to the MSU Pest Diagnostic Email, <personal data hidden> Also include your description of the issue that you supplied with this question. The experts at MSU will give you another educated opinion as to the cause of the damage.

Hope this helps!

Hello Katie,

I think sending a sample to the diagnostic lab would be a great idea to rule out a virus.  But in the meantime, please send your photos and description (or link to this question) to the pestid email.  I learned from the people that will analyze your photos and I may have missed a clue.

Best wishes!