I looked up the pictures and those stem rots seem to be more dry and limited, not killing the whole plant immediately. Maybe because these two plants were young (7 weeks) and the tissues were softer.
I put a stake by the tomato on Monday morning, 6 inches away from the stem. Maybe some
roots were injured and the pathogens infected the wounds. Anyway, hours later in the afternoon the plant started to wilt. I cut off the top 6" hoping it wasn't infected up there yet. And it wasn't, two days later, the cutting perked back up and there was no stem rot. The rest of plant turned mushy gradually on Tuesday. When I pulled it this morning, the
root ball looked normal.
I was quite astonished by how quickly the symptoms developed, if the infection was indeed initiated by the root injury. I had no idea what happened to the first plant died last week, maybe because of a
chicken scratching the ground?