Home » Growing Food » Tomato Leaves Curl Up on Tomato Plant – 5 Reasons & How to Fix It

Tomato Leaves Curl Up on Tomato Plant – 5 Reasons & How to Fix It

Tomato Leaves Curling Up. If the leaves of your tomato plants bend or curl, the problem may be due to biological, chemical, or physical factors. Sometimes all the leaves curl, sometimes only the young leaves curl. In today’s article, we are going to look at the 5 reasons why leaves curl up on a tomato plant and how to fix it.

Tomato Leaves Curl Up on Tomato Plant Due to Environmental Damage

Tomato Leaves Curl Up on Tomato Plant Due to Environmental Damage. This is one of the main causes of tomato leaves curling up on tomato plants and also one of the most common and easy to treat.

Strong wind and low humidity can damage the leaves of tomato plants. Heat causes them to dry out and subsequently fold and curl.

Hot and dry weather can cause physiological curling which is the plant’s self-defense to prevent further water loss. This physiopathology does not decrease crop yields if it is isolated unless it is severe, in which case it would affect production. Plant health will improve when climatic conditions improve.

Tomato Leaves Curling Up Due To Herbicide Drift Damage

Tomato Leaves Curling Up Due To Herbicide Drift Damage. Many of you do not apply herbicides to your crops because this is a website where everything we use is organic, but herbicide drift can occur. And what is drift? Well, a neighbor or crops next to yours use chemicals to treat weeds or pests and the wind moves them to your garden damaging the tomato and causing tomato leaves to curl up on the tomato plant.

A light wind of 3 mph (5 km/h) can be enough to move the herbicide up to 0.6 mi (1 km) away, causing enormous potential damage.

To know if you have been affected by this, we must observe the plant if it corrects or not the rolled leaves because if they dry and die it may have been caused by the drift.

leaves curl up on tomato plant herbicide
Tomato Leaves Curl Up on Tomato Plant Due to Environmental Damage. Tomato Leaves Curling Up Due To Herbicide Drift Damage.

Tomato Leaves Curling Up on Tomato Plant Due to  Herbicide Residues in Mulch and Manure

Tomato Leaves Curling Up on Tomato Plant Due to  Herbicide Residues in Mulch and Manure. Even when buying mulch such as straw or hay, we should find out if it has been treated with herbicides during its cultivation, since they remain in the plants for up to 18 months and can cause damage to the vegetables in the garden.

The seller should inform us if the crops have been treated with aminopyralid and if he does not inform us, we should ask. Moreover, the herbicide may even remain in the compost because the animals have ingested the contaminated fertilizer.

A solution to eliminate this herbicide can be to spread the plants or the compost on the ground so that the sun shines on it and to water it so that the process is faster.

White Mites Causing Tomato Leaves Curling Up

White Mites Causing Tomato Leaves Curling Up. These mites affect a lot of the Solanaceae family such as tomatoes, bell peppers, and potatoes. They avoid light and feed on the flowers and leaves of plants, when they bite them, they transmit toxins that bend and curl the leaves.

These are hard to see but are on the underside of leaves and their eggs look like oval-shaped Christmas ornaments. They are treated with any ecological acaricide or sulfur.

We recommend this organic product that we already used with our plants and had excellent results (Order it here).

Sale
Bonide Sulfur Plant Fungicide, 4 lb. Ready-to-Use Micronized Spray or Dust for Organic Gardening, Controls Common Diseases
  • Control and prevent common garden diseases with Sulfur Plant Fungicide Micronized Spray or Dust from Bonide!
  • This fungicide controls diseases including rust, leaf spot, mildew and more. Sulfur Plant Fungicide can be applied to fruits, vegetables and ornamentals in your garden to prevent disease.
  • Sulfur Plant Fungicide also works as a pesticide! Apply to animals to help control fleas, ticks and mites! This product can be applied directly to dogs, horses, cattle, swine, game birds and more.
white mites on tomato plants
White Mites Causing Tomato Leaves Curling Up

Tomato Leaves Curl Up on Tomato Plants Due to Virus

Tomato Leaves Curl Up on Tomato Plants Due to Virus. They can be confused with those described above but the disease progresses and the symptoms gradually spread throughout the plant, yellow leaves and then dry, rolling, dwarfing, and finally death.

There are many viruses such as mosaic virus, spoon virus, and tomato yellow curl virus (TYLCV), but they all have in common that they stop the growth of the plant.

They have no solution so the best thing to do is to carefully pull the plant and put it in a bag and dispose of it to prevent the virus from spreading to the rest of the garden.

We hope you have found our article on the Tomato Leaves Curling Up tomato plants useful. Learn more about yellow leaves on tomato plants.

About Henry Morgan

Henry Morgan is an agronomist horticulture founder of The Garden Style Company and The Garden Style Website. He previously worked for Mondelēz International as an Agronomist Engineer specializing in agricultural products management in highly populated areas. In 2000, Henry started working with farmer-producers in agricultural businesses selling wholesale fresh produce and retail plants in Van Buren, Arkansas. Nowadays, Henry lives in California, where he offers expert consulting services for organic vegetable gardening. As a science writer working with his wife, Julia, Henry shares his passion for gardening and farming, trying to reach and teach as many folks as possible.

Leave a Comment