Quote:
Originally Posted by Bipetual
Bill, we have a shorter season here and I can't even imagine trying to keep a plant alive from April until October! Still, I always have problems with early blight and septoria. By the time I cut the dead branches out, I'm sure I'm spreading spores all over the place. This year I decided to prune all the bottom branches so that none of them touch the mulch. I felt so bad doing it, but I figure I would be doing it later anyway and at least this way I'm not spreading any disease yet. Your posts have given me hope for managing some of this junk!
|
Although I'm sure you don't have the disease pressure that I experience cutting off the lower limbs near the ground is just common sense. Even with a good mulch leaves touching the mulch tend to stay wet longer thus creating conditions more favorable to disease. Another benefit of removing the lower limbs is to allow air flow under the plant which is a plus in letting air move through the plant. I don't prune for some reason like making bigger fruit which is a side affect of pruning. People that grow for size are not keeping their plants foliage limited to one or two stems for nothing. I do it to keep my plants alive longer and that is all. I got so tired of going to all the trouble of planting tomatoes and the season ending basically 3 months after they were set out. I was always told you can't make tomatoes during our terrible summers and that was basically true til I started pruning and using the bleach solution to stop diseases along with preventive fungicides.
It would be much easier to just stick them in the ground, cage them, and spray occasionally to have a successful season. I envy people who live in that kind of climate but I don't envy the much shorter season they have. Just 100 miles north of me disease pressure on tomatoes is far less than what it is here. Part of that is due to all the commercial tomato growing that takes place around here which just allows for more diseases and pests to accumulate and move around spreading their joy to home gardens. All the commercial growers around here now have to grow the most disease resistant hybrids in order to make a crop. When I was a kid they could grow heirlooms and open pollinated varieties which were far tastier but with the accumulation of soil, air and pest borne diseases increasing with the years that is no longer possible. The soil problems they have in their fields have spread to most of the home gardens that have been planted for any length of time and we are left figuring out how to grow heirlooms in a very hostile environment.
If all I wanted was some tomatoes to freeze or can I could just plant a bunch of Amelias or some other nearly bullet proof variety and spray the heck out of them. Since I don't care for those rather same, bland, tasteless to me varieties I have worked to overcome the problems of growing heirlooms down here and I have succeeded for the most part. Sensible pruning has been a major factor in my success but if it were not helpful I sure wouldn't go to all the trouble.
You should do what works for the conditions you have to deal with and not what works in some other totally different climate with totally different problems. Just from my own experience with spot diseases I think you might have some success in keeping them at bay by starting with pruning the lowest limbs and spraying weekly with alternating Daconil and copper sprays. If you do get one of those diseases and the fungicide is not stopping it then you might want to try the diluted bleach spray but don't wait too late in using it. It is best used early when a disease pops up despite your fungicide and not once the plant is totally covered in it.
Good luck, Bill