Why Are My Tomato Leaves Turning Purple?

Some tomatoes varieties have naturally purplish foliage, akin to ‘Indigo Rose,’ which produces cherry-sized purple fruits excessive in antioxidants. Nonetheless, the most typical cause for tomato leaves turning purple is potassium deficiency.

Different nutrient issues, as properly viral and pest infestations, can also trigger this concern. Learn on to study these varied causes, potential remedies, and technique of prevention.

Potassium Deficiency

Potassium performs an necessary position in encouraging photosynthesis (the method of vegetation harnessing power from the solar).

Younger tomatoes can not take up potassium as simply from chilly soil as they will from heat soil. That is why, when planted in chilly soil, their leaves could flip purple or yellow for a time. Because the soil warms, leaves may flip to their pure inexperienced.

Nonetheless, vegetation will doubtless be stunted for the remainder of the rising season, producing few to no flowers and consequently, few to no fruit.

Remedy

To treatment potassium deficiency, feed tomato vegetation with fertilizer that’s excessive in potassium. Search for fertilizers that particularly point out tomatoes. To stop this concern within the first place, keep away from transplanting or planting tomatoes open air till evening temperatures are persistently above 50 levels.

Phosphorous Deficiency

Tomato vegetation can also battle to soak up phosphorous from cool and moist soil. Whereas tomato leaves poor in potassium could flip purple or yellow, phosphorus deficiency causes leaves to show both purple or darkish inexperienced.

Vegetation poor in phosphorous can also expertise stunted development, necrotic spots on the leaves, and leaf cupping. All these signs usually tend to come up on older leaves. This concern could cause delayed blooming and delayed maturity.

Remedy

Feed phosphorous poor vegetation with a phosphorus-heavy fertilizer, akin to bone meal.

Viral An infection

Some viral infections trigger tomato leaves or veins to vary shade:

• Yellow leaf curl virus causes leaves to turn into cupped or pale inexperienced in shade. Leaves can also have yellow edges or purplish veins on the underside. Leaves can also have yellow edges or purplish veins on the underside. Consequently, flower and fruit manufacturing can turn into stunted. Transmitted through whiteflies.
• Curly prime virus is transmitted by beet leafhoppers. Vegetation which are contaminated by this virus flip yellow and cease rising. Higher leaflets roll and switch purplish alongside the veins. Leaves and stems turn into stiff. Fruit ripens early.
• Tomato noticed wilt and that impatiens necrotic spot virus are each topoviruses, carried by western flower thrips. Signs can embody darkish, purplish spots on the leaves and stems. Leaf tissue but in addition turn into inflexible, and yellow rings could current on fruit.

Remedy

Use row covers to guard tomato vegetation, since these viruses are largely transmitted by bugs.

Within the occasion of tomato noticed wilt, take away and destroy the affected vegetation. The western flower thrips that transmit this illness are nearly not possible to manage even with soaps, oils, and sulfur mud.

Insect Infestation

The purple you’re seeing in your tomato vegetation may very well be purple bugs. Backyard springtails, that are fairly small and purple, prey on seedlings. These bugs have a forked appendage that they use to challenge themselves into the air as a substitute of wings.

Luckily, this is not a demise sentence to your tomato vegetation. To attenuate this downside, all the time plant tomatoes in well-draining soil and supply good air circulation. You possibly can sprinkle diatomaceous earth across the vegetation to kill springtails.