Physiological disorders caused by low temperatures Low temperatures injury only occurs with fruit that are in storage (either in transit or in storage rooms). Small circular pits each 3-9mm in diameter and up to 1 mm deep appear. They can coalesce to form large irregular sunken areas. The minimum temperature that cucumber fruits should be [...]

Growth cracks symptoms There are two types of cracking found on tomato fruit. Concentric cracking are cracks that vary in depth and size found in circles around the stem and radial cracking which are cracks running from the stem to the blossom end of the fruit. Concentric growth cracks on tomatoes Cause of [...]

Hollow fruit description Hollow fruit, also called puffy fruit or boxy fruit are angular in shape instead of round, however one should be careful since some tomato fruit are genetically more hollow or angular than other. The first signs inside the fruit are the lack of “gel” surrounding the seed, leaving a gap between the placental [...]

Severe zippering with secondary scarring of the tomato skin. Zippering symptoms Zippering are thin scars running from the top of the shoulder of the fruit down the length to the blossom end. These longitudinal scars have small transverse scars along it, which resemble a “zip” (thus the name). More than one of these [...]

Blossom drop Symptoms Blossom drop (flower buds abscise) occurs prior to anthesis under stress conditions. The early indications of blossom drop are the yellowing of the swollen area which joins the flower to its stem. After the flower has fallen or abscised, a small dried out stub is left over. Which is quite disheartening since there [...]

Sunscald or sunburn causes Sunscald may appear on foliage and fruits. The disorder is caused when the temperature of the fruit exceeds 40°C. An imbalance of various chemicals takes place which causes the destruction of the tissue. Heat injury expresses itself through a narrowing of the base of the stem, at the soil line. However, with [...]

At some stage a grower will see thin spindly pale plants growing somewhere in the greenhouse. Although not a physiological disorder of fruit, it is a disorder of the plant as a whole. Quite often plants grow to become long and stretched out. The leaves may even be smaller than usual and the colour of [...]

Getting small fruit (peppers or tomatoes) is better than getting no fruit at all. However it can be frustrating when growing to achieve 140 g fruit and harvesting 60-80 g instead. Small pepper fruit can be the result of various factors such as: Poor pollination: the temperature may be too high during the critical period [...]