Some of my tomato plants have stopped growing tall, look bushy with crowded small mottled leaves showing light and dark green patches, and the fruit is small and uneven. Aphids were around earlier. Is this a mosaic virus and what should I do?
Stunted bushy plants with crowded small leaves showing a light and dark green mottle, plus small uneven fruit, are signs of a mosaic virus, several of which infect tomato and some are spread by aphids while others spread by touch and on hands and tools. There is no cure for an infected plant. Remove and destroy clearly infected plants early so they do not act as a source. Manage aphid vectors with the steps for sucking pests, yellow sticky traps and neem or a recommended insecticide rotated by mode of action. Very important for the contact spread types, wash hands and disinfect tools, do not use tobacco while handling plants, and do not work on healthy plants right after touching infected ones. For the next crop use clean certified seed and resistant varieties, and control weeds that harbour virus and aphids. Take a leaf to your KVK to identify which virus it is, since that guides the prevention.
Tool hygiene actually matters. Once I started cleaning my hands and knife between plants the spread slowed down.
Rogue the bad plants early. I left a few hoping they would recover and they just infected more.
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