Wertheim speaks to BDN about tomatoes rotting on the vine
Frank Wertheim, agriculture and horticulture educator with University of Maine Cooperative Extension, was interviewed by the Bangor Daily News for an article about why tomatoes are experiencing blossom end rot in Maine’s gardens. Wertheim said that blossom end rot is a result of calcium deficiency in the plant. “It happens in the development of the fruit in the flowering stage. It’s a problem when the soil is going through an extreme wet-dry cycle, which we all know it has been this summer…There is often adequate calcium in the soil, but in a dry cycle the flower is not getting that soluble calcium because the water is cut off just when the plant needs it the most because the calcium is there, but it can’t get to the plant,” Wertheim said.