As I often do when I am perplexed by a gardening problem, I went to Google to find out if I was alone about having BER only on my San Marzano tomatoes (which, by the way, are considered to be heirloom tomatoes), and to find out what, if anything, I am doing wrong.
I discovered that I am not alone. Even more surpisingly, I discovered that there has been a scientific study that found that resistance to BER is controlled by a pair of dominant genes. In fact, a new tomato gene has been designated as BER. Wow! You could have knocked me over with a feather.
The BER problem does affect other vegetables such as bell peppers, squash, and other fruiting types of veggies. But, my checking out a GardenWeb Forum on the issue indicated that many people are having a BER problem mainly with the sauce and paste varieties of tomatoes. San Marzanos are the classic Italian paste tomato. As noted above, all of these tomato varieties seem to tilt toward having BER imbedded within their genes and no matter what you do or the weather conditions, you are probably going to get some BER.
When I first planted San Marzanos a few years ago, I had a bumper crop and not one hint of BER. We put up so much sauce in our small chest freezer that we almost had no room for anything else. The next year the BER showed up and I was completely speechless because i did not know what was happening. I did some quick research and I instituted a regular watering program and this helped to rescue the season for me. I could not believe that I did not have enough calcium in my soil. This year I added plenty of bone meal and compost to the planting holes and I thought I was doing OK on the watering. But the BER showed up again in force. The shocking thing is that not all of the green tomatoes on the same plant are getting it. I just do not get it.
One commenter on GardenWeb stated that we should not be too attached to the idea that we must plant paste varieties to get good sauce. There are lots of other tomatoes that will make good sauce for you and are not susceptible to BER. Finally, many of the comments I saw seemed to indicate that people may be abandoning paste tomatoes altogether because of the BER problem in favor of finding others that are not so prone to this issue.
I am ready to jump ship myself and I will not be buying or planting any San Marzanos next year.
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