Ink painting/drawing of tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV) symptoms.

This painting took far, far longer to research and paint than I was expecting! TSWV can exhibit a wide range of possible symptoms, which vary strongly between cultivars, and that can appear very similar to other pathogens or causes.

Despite accidentally smudging the paint in two places near the end of the painting, I am pleased with the final outcome.

The painting shows a tomato stem, with one cluster of tomatoes and two compound leaves. The red tomatoes are covered in concentric yellow and orange ringspots.

The leaf symptoms are varied, including darker concentric rings, brown flecks/blotches, leaf purpling (depicted here as a light brown-green colour), normal (green) sections on some of the leaves, and dark brown necrotised tissue.

Both the  tomato fruit and leaves  have spots with ‘normal-'looking’ centres, which  strongly suggests that a virus is the cause of the spots. . Bacterial and fungal spots seldom  have  healthy centres, as the infection typically starts in the centre and spreads outward.

Top: scanned image

Bottom: photograph