Georgia farmers are watching the clock tick this weekend as their first harvest of the season closes out with boxes of tomatoes sitting unshipped because of the salmonella scare.

Tomato prices have plunged from about $17 to about $7 for a 25-pound box, according to the Georgia Fruit & Vegetable Growers Association.

"It's frustrating that the FDA has taken this long to find the source" of the salmonella outbreak, said Bill Brim, a tomato farmer and head of the Growers Association. "And it's even more frustrating they way the media has played this outbreak up."

Food and Drug Administration inspectors are searching tomato farms in Florida and Mexico to try to solve the two-month-old salmonella outbreak that has sickened more than 500 people nationwide and 10 in Georgia.

"The FDA did tell us Friday they had a trace back to farms in Florida and Mexico, but, as far as I know, they haven't gotten here yet," Florida Department of Agriculture public information director Liz Compton said Saturday.

Compton said the FDA said the source of the salmonella might not be a farm, but could instead "be somewhere in the supply" line of distributors or storage facilities connected to Florida and Mexican tomato farms.

Ten days ago, the FDA cleared farms in Georgia and other states as the source of the salmonella outbreak.

But Brim said that message hasn't gotten to consumers who are still wary of the fruit at grocery stores and restaurants.

"People like Kroger and Publix have brought them back, but that hasn't restored consumer confidence," said Brim.

Georgia tomato farmers need the FDA to find the source of the contamination in "three or four days" or much of the state's first tomato crop of the season will go bad on the vine or sitting in warehouses, he said.

Tomatoes are an estimated $90 million to $100 million annual crop in Georgia. Brim estimated the losses so far are "three or four hundred thousand dollars."