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Re: Pale Leaves

Hi Diana,

> I planted five Early Bush tomatoes last Saturday and some baby basil
> near each other.  The basil is about 1.5 inches tall.  All were started
> in the house from seed and lived in sunny windows.  Our day temps here
> (Albuquerque) are fluctuating from 68 to 80 degrees during the day and
> 40 to 52 at night.  I noticed on Monday that the Basil is starting to
> get pale and some of the leaves (lover ones) on two of the tomato plants
> (close to the Basil) are turning white, not yellow, but white.  The
> discoloration seems to be moving from the outer edge of the leaves
> towards the center.  I'm sorry for the long note, but I wanted to be
> very specific in the hopes that someone could help.  Oh yes, there are
> three San Remo tomato plants that are 2.5 feet tall and looking good in
> the space behind the newly planted ones.  I planted the San Remo in late
> March and protected them with  Reemay covers and milk cartons.  So I
> don't think its the soil (???).
> Thanks,
> Diana

It sounds like sun scald.  Sunscalded leaves look white.   Basil is particularly
sensitive to this, I've seen whole basil plantings wiped out by sun scald (or
sunburn if you prefer).  Get your reemay back out over the effected plants and
gradually get them used to the full sun.  Give them increasing long exposures of
direct morning sunlight each day until you don't need the reemay any more.  It
takes a period of about a week.  It is blazingly brilliant out now and indoor or
greenhouse grown plants that aren't fully hardened off to the sun before
planting out are going to suffer.  Glass filters out the UV radiation that is
causing the scalding so plants that have been in a sunny window are still "soft"
(sensitive) to the full sun.

Good luck,

   ____________________
  |                    |
  |     Bob Carter     | Kootenay Bay, BC, Canada
  |  bcarter@awinc.com | Zone 6b
  |____________________|


.. IMPOSSIBLE:  Nailing Jello to a tree.

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