Trouble in tomato town

I never have good luck with beefsteak tomatoes, but decided to give it another try. The Cherokee purple was growing very well, and has a bunch of the largest tomatoes I have ever grown. I was so Happy 😁
Can you hear the sound of doom? 7 to 10 days ago I noticed some leaves were wilting. It has been quite hot, so no big deal I watered. As time goes by and it progressively gets worse I decided maybe I over watered? I stop watering ( the soil feels moist, for a lot longer than normal, but it doesn't feel soggy, and everything around it is doing well.)  It kinda matches some of the symptoms of the diseases that causes wilting, but not all. I haven't dealt with this before, so I just don't know.  All my other tomatoes are doing well, even the other Cherokee purple. There are other tomatoes close by, but not touching, and not in the same bed. I'm going to keep watching. I hope it recovers, but don't really think that's going to happen , I think it is to far gone. I was hoping the tomatoes would start to get ripe so I can pick them and let them get ripe in the house.
It's very strange. The bed it's in is a raise bed hugel beet made last spring. I'm keeping an eye on it. I will clean anything I use on it, and will not compost it if I end up removing it.

I didn't think those pictures really showed how bad it is. Sorry about the color, it's getting dark, and I don't have a great camera The leaves are a nice dark green, even on the dieing one on the leaves that aren't wilting that is.

Hmmm, I'm not sure what is going on with your tomato, maybe it's fusarium or verticillium. But maybe something munched on its roots? (Although that is unlikely in tomatoes) Check out this link and see what matches your symptoms:

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/tomato/wilting-tomato-plants.htm

If the plant is too far gone to recover, I would probably remove it ASAP and check out the root system carefully. I would not compost the plant. Like you said, I would also harvest the fruit and ripen it indoors in a paper bag or box. When fall comes, I would plant fava beans in that spot to cleanse the soil and maybe avoid Nightshade family plants in that spot for 2 years.

If you think it's verticillium or fusarium, you might want to try some "VF resistant" tomatoes next year. Keep us updated, cause it would be interesting to see what is going on.

Thanks. I thought the tomatoes had to be at least starting to ripen, to get the process started?
I had a gopher in one of my other beds. I have hardwire cloth at ground level, but it slipped out from under the cement blocks and left enough room for the little buggers to get in. As much as I don't want it to be disease, I also really don't want to have to redo this bed again this year. But now I'm wondering, so I will definitely check it out.

Do you get stalk borers in your part of the States?
I think I would cull the plant sooner rather than later, just in case it is a nasty infection, and autopsy it.

Tomatoes can ripen from even quite green fruit. They won't get any bigger, but should change colour and improve in flavour, although I don't think they ever are as good as ones that ripened on the plant.

Thanks Nancy.
I used to get them on my roses, so we must have something like that. It never occurred to me. I will post a picture of a spot that caught my eye. You may be right???

I went out to remove the tomato from the garden, really that was the plan. I just couldn't do it. I just had to give it one more try. I removed all the severely wilted leaves, and a couple of stems where are the leaves on the stem was wilted. I also removed a volunteer pumpkin that wasn't looking great in the same bed. I put  it all in a garbage bag and threw it away just in case. The soil is finally drying out, I will probably water tomorrow.
I apologize for not taking your advice. It's rude to ask what to do, and not take the advice given. When I started to remove it I noticed next to the wilted dieing leaves were small new leaves that look healthy. That just doesn't line up with a dieing plant. So I thought I would give it a little more time. I may be sorry, I realize it could spread to my other tomatoes  that would make me pretty sad, and you can say we told you so.
I removed a couple stems, I also removed a couple stems from two different tomatoes (had a little bleach water that I used to clean my pruners before I used it on each plant) the infected tomato are the two large stems.  They look pretty much the same to me.
Maybe I did just over water, maybe I'm fooling myself and it will continue to waist away. We will just have to wait and see.

Well it doesn't look like a stem borer then. I wonder if it could be sunstroke? But then you'd expect more tomatoes to have been affected.

Hopefully permaculture resilience will heal anything nasty in the soil for you. I suggest you keep an eye out on the remains and remaining plants though.

When only a small part of the roots are damaged, the corresponding shoot will wilt since the vascular system is connected. Other shoots maybe fine for the time being but if the rotting spread underground, eventually whole plant will be affected. I see this in tomato and potato too. Once one out of four shoots of the potato suddenly wilted and I pulled that shoot up. One attached tuber got a crack and rotted away and the fungal infection followed up to the base of the crown. The rest of the plant kept on growing.  I don't think you can do a surgery to tomato the same way. Hopefully if you remove just that shoot, it is still healthy (but dehydrated). Ripe tomatoes on the vine or even pot up to regrow the roots.

Oops, I just see that you trimmed the shoot already. The cross section seemed healthy. Maybe it just localized infection underground and the wound will heal.

The plant continues to die off, except for two small side shoots that are attached to the main stem at ground level. They are growing and look healthy. It's very strange.

I finally removed the tomato. There was a little side shoot that was very healthy looking, and I was going to save that, but then I discovered my husband the main tomato eater in the family thinks they are to ugly to eat.( I have all kinds of opinions for this, but I have to be nice, even to my husband, so I'll keep them to myself) my daughter said they taste good to her and she likes the meaty texture. So we will be cooking with the 2, or maybe 3 I have left.
I still have no idea why this tomato died. I did see a few ball like things attached to the roots, but if it was root knot nematodes it just seems like it would have been a lot more. When looking it up nothing fit just right.
I will probably plant marigolds and mustard there just in case, it couldn't hurt.
If anyone has an idea, I wish I knew why. Thankfully I have a lot of other tomatoes that are doing well, so it's not a huge loss, just a really strange one.

It could be the root knot nematodes.

I just don't know, I would think there would be a lot more bumpy roots. I know I didn't get all the roots, but with the exception of those 3 ball like things, the roots look healthy to me???

It is strange. It looks like one of the wilts to me. Can never remember which.

One thing I noticed is that it is not mulched and lots of foliage near the soil. I understood that the soil splashing up onto the foliage is where it starts and then spreads from there. This has also been my experience in the past. I have better luck when I trim the lower foliage up a ways and get some mulch down to keep soil splash less likely.

I also noticed that another photo shows a healthy plant that looks like maybe the soil is covered with landscape fabric? Maybe it is the soil splash innoculation. Either way, rotate to different area next year!

edited...forget to mention that when it is about to freeze around here we cut the whole plant and hang inside somewhere that won't freeze and the remaining tomatoes will ripen on the vine over time.