Help am living in Panama on an island and trying to grow tomatoes. Have gotten over the heat, sun and salt issues but have just been hit with the want to die blues. The plant starts growing strong then all of a sudden the leaves turn yellow and then the whole plant just wilts up and molds away. As though something is eating it from the root. I have moved down here and want my heirloom tomatoes so bad. Please help. Thanks for your time Ritzie
Ritzie, you might have to grow them indoors or at the very least in pots, in sterilized soils (IE bake your soil in the oven for 30 minutes or so). Being in Panama, almost all of your soils are infected with Fusarium Wilt fungus, to which tomatoes are quite susceptible, and it certainly sounds like that's what's getting them. I had this exact problem when I lived in Ecuador's banana coast area - Fusarium Wilt lingers in the soils for 20+ years, so the only real way around it is to sterilize and plant in pots.
There are newer, hybrid varieties of tomatoes that have been bred for resistance to Fusarium; but I doubt that any heirloom varieties have such resistance. If you don't mind trying non-heirloom varieties, you could experiment with hybrids. Resistance to Fusarium is usually indicated with an "F" in the name, such as "Ultra Girl VFN".
