Is This Sunscald?

[Setec Astronomy]

I have a bunch that look like this on my Taste Patio plant--if they are getting sunscald should I be picking them earlier and letting them ripen inside? Because these are all hard and scaly on the top and I'm not sure if they are going to ripen properly after this, they seem to be staying yellow on top.

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[wxcrawler]

Sure looks like it to me.

Lee

[Paulf]

And to me as well.

[Setec Astronomy]

So what do I do?

This is my first year growing anything but cherry tomatoes, so I guess this is only something that happens to larger tomatoes that stay on the vine longer? I also have a pepper that seems to have a bit of this.

[ddsack]

I have never figured out why some plants have it, and others with tomatoes exposed to full sun with even less leaf cover are just fine. Same row, no difference in conditions. I harvest the tomato as usual, and cut out the offending area. If it tastes fine, no problem. If the flavor is less than good, I toss the rest of the tomato.

[kath]

Usually in my 6b location, sun scald doesn't usually happen unless leaves that were there, shading the fruits while they were developing, are somehow lost- leaving the fruits suddenly with greater sun exposure. If I remove diseased leaves, rearrange the plant, etc., I will put up some kind of shade cloth/row cover to protect the fruits. It seems that if the plant is normally just sparsely leaved, pruned to a single stem from the beginning, etc., no matter how exposed the fruits are, they aren't affected. It might be different in hotter areas I guess where the sun is more intense than in Upper Bucks Co. No experience with what to do with ones that have gotten hit- I toss them to the deer, who don't seem to mind one bit!

[Setec Astronomy]

Usually in my 6b location, sun scald doesn't usually happen unless leaves that were there, shading the fruits while they were developing, are somehow lost- leaving the fruits suddenly with greater sun exposure. It seems that if the plant is normally just sparsely leaved, pruned to a single stem from the beginning, etc., no matter how exposed the fruits are, they aren't affected.

This plant is in a container with a conical cage, and kind of flopped over when the fruit got heavy, so I have it leaning against the deck railing...I think that probably exposed fruit that was shaded, so that might explain it.

[worth1]

I grew a tomato called New Yorker or some such thing a few years ago.
The thing was not fit for Texas that is for sure sun scald so bad I didn't even get to taste it.
Other tomatoes I have grown in full sun with the fruit exposed all the time never once got sun scald.
These tomatoes were of all sizes, shapes and colors too.
Another option for a sun scald prone tomato is to put a sock on it.
This does not effect the growth of the fruit or the ripening, I have done it many times with fruit I simply could not afford to lose to animals or sun scald.

[Setec Astronomy]

Well, I wound up taking about half the "scalded" fruit off yesterday because it was going bad. I was waiting for the tops to ripen because I didn't understand what was going on...I guess I'm also not so used to these determinate plants after growing mostly cherries.

[encore]

tomatoes ripen most quickly when temps are between 68 and 77 degrees, high temps also cause fruit with yellow shoulders and white cores. excessive heat prevents the production of lycopene, the red pigment in tomatoes resulting in yellow shoulders,. just read that about yellow shoulders on tomatoes, can also be from diseased seeds that are prone to yellow shoulders, had that happen last year to one plant, all tomatoes had yellow shoulders, didn't matter if exposed to the sun or hiding in the plant covered by leaves. if left on plant longer seemed to start look more like sun scald. just a thought.---tom

[Growing Coastal]

I've got pieces of sheer curtains shielding some exposed tomatoes from the sun. I don't know if this variety is prone to scalding or not so I'm not taking any chances while it is hot out. One year I got sunscald on Carbon tomatoes that were exposed but it was a hot summer, for here. Sometimes I have used pieces of paper or cardboard from light packaging clothes-pinned to a leaf stem to shade fruit.