fusarium wilt

[sfmathews]

Pulled two Red and Black Boar last night. First ones to go down to Fusarium. Guess that variety won't be back, since it has no resistance.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by sfmathews

Pulled two Red and Black Boar last night. First ones to go down to Fusarium. Guess that variety won't be back, since it has no resistance.

I don't think any variety is totally resistant but there do seem to be some that do much better year in and year out. You can't give up on a variety from just one incidence of fusarium. If I did that I couldn't plant a single tomato. Over the years I have run across a few that no matter how many I start scattered all over the garden they just never make it and some never can even get to the fruit set stage. Coustralee, Costoluto Genovese, Brad's Black Heart, Momotaro, Golden Ponderosa and Earl's Faux are particularly suceptible to fusarium in my garden. I have actually only found a few of the hybrids that show really good resistance and they are not much better than some of the hardier heirlooms.

[sfmathews]

Thanks Bill. I may give it another shot then in the fall or next spring.
I can say that I can't grow Green Zebra or Pearson, as they are always the first to wilt. And I miss growing GZ, loved that tomato before fusarium hit the garden.

[b54red]

I forgot to put Green Zebra on my list. It was very fusarium prone and another green that has always died from fusarium before producing is Cherokee Green. I have had better luck with Grubs Mystery Green. Some of them make it long enough to give me a good crop of GWR tomatoes and I think they are better tasting and they are larger than GZ.

[b54red]

It is amazing how I can always plant some of my heaviest fruiting varieties where they get fusarium the worst. I had out 4 Tarasenko-6 plants in different beds and all but one has come down with bad fusarium wilt. The one that isn't showing symptoms is the one that didn't set much fruit.

We had a couple of good rains and instead of going out and finding the sick plants looking better they were much worse today so I pulled four and will pull more tomorrow. I always know this is coming but hope springs eternal that one year it won't be so bad. It looks like my infection rate may be a bit less or at least it hasn't shown up as much as usual in the two treated beds. It has still whacked several plants and I am sure many more will show symptoms over the next couple of weeks; but it is not showing up as early as in past years in the treated beds. If my camera battery hadn't failed on me last week I could have gotten some pretty good pictures of what would have looked like very healthy plants and now it is too late.

[b54red]

I think I can safely say that at the very least the treating of the planting hole with a mild bleach solution does increase the number of plants that don't get fusarium early. The untreated bed only has one plant with no symptoms and only two more still alive while the rest have died. The beds that have been treated have still lost a lot of plants but at this point in the year I have never had this many healthy looking plants. Most of my plants are still getting fusarium but for the most part they are showing symptoms a good bit later in the growth cycle and as a result are going to make more tomatoes before they die. The increase in survivability of the seedlings that I am setting out now in this heat is remarkable and makes using the bleach solution in the planting hole well worth the trouble.

[Dewayne mater]

Are you still using the 8 ounces to a gallon of water to treat the holes? Do you drench it or just spray it in? What do you think this does to beneficials in the soil such as Mycos?

Dewayne mater

[b54red]

I use between 6 and 8 ounces to the gallon and drench the spot then wait a day or two to plant. I am pretty sure it kills most soil organisms but since it doesn't take too long for the worms to come back in the spot I'm sure the other organisms return. Fusarium always does eventually; but it is the best thing I have found so far to give some of my plants a fighting chance, especially later in the season.

[b54red]

This is turning out to be a banner year for fusarium wilt after the extremely mild winter we had. After pulling 11 plants yesterday I tallied up the number that have been killed by fusarium wilt and bacterial wilt and was horrified. So far I have had to remove 37 plants because of the wilts with the vast majority being from fusarium. Add that to the 23 plants that have been killed by TSWV, Gray Mold, worms and wind and that is a lot of plants to replace. It seems that I am putting out about a half dozen new seedlings a week right now. I hope this slows down soon because I am running out of seedlings to replace the dying plants with. I am not replacing all of them so that I can allow more stems on some of the really healthy looking ones.

[tippy]

b54red do u still spray bleach when your tomato plants r small????,,,,Like when your tomato plants r a foot tall,,,,,Thanks.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by tippy

b54red do u still spray bleach when your tomato plants r small????,,,,Like when your tomato plants r a foot tall,,,,,Thanks.

Every time I spray the bleach solution I try to hit everything in the garden and I also will spray my seedlings that are hardening off. Just make sure you do it very late in the day and with a fine misting spray not a drenching spray. The bleach spray has no effect on fusarium once a plant gets it but many plants with fusarium also get other things like Early Blight or Gray Mold.

On another note I am up to 48 plants pulled due to fusarium and I am sure I will pull more this week. If I planted a normal amount of tomato plants I would get almost no tomatoes.

[nctomatoman]

b54red, very interested in comparing the ones you report as being very F susceptible and comparing to my list. Two of the very, very worst for me - Green Zebra and Yellow Pear. Just awful - they often go down with barely any fruit production (plenty of greenies set, but they don't ripen prior to plant death). Agree also with Colstoluto Genovese. Surprised at Cherokee Green - I've rarely lost one to F wilt. Of the three Cherokees, Purple seem the most tolerant, then Chocolate/Green very similar, but also more tolerant than many others. Cuostralee is very iffy - as is Brandywine. And the early Russian types - Southern Night, Blue Fruit, Black Sea Man, even Black from Tula, Azoychka - all quite prone to coming down with F fairly quickly. Frustrating, that's for sure....going to all bleached pots and fresh potting mix is helping me considerably (with plant health and yield, but it does hit the wallet).

[Crandrew]

My green zebra is the worst as well it seems susceptible to some disease.

[Crandrew]

Originally Posted by b54red

On another note I am up to 48 plants pulled due to fusarium and I am sure I will pull more this week. If I planted a normal amount of tomato plants I would get almost no tomatoes.

Wait this season?
b54 your commitment is very impressive. Wow, serious props to you.

[b54red]

Crandrew, almost all of my tomatoes will eventually get fusarium wilt. It does not kill all of them quickly and each year I usually have a couple that never seem to be affected by it. I usually get anywhere from a couple to a dozen off the approximate 40% of my plants that live long enough to produce before dying. So far I have picked 300 tomatoes this year. Many are much smaller than I would like because they came off of dying plants that did not allow them to grow to their full size before ripening.

I used to grow only Celebrity, Big Beef and a few other fusarium hardy hybrids but the lack of variety in them was boring after the first week or so of eating them. Even the so called fusarium resistant hybrids would frequently die from fusarium before producing any fruit. So I went from planting between 30 and 40 plants a year to planting continuously from March til late August with nearly every plant being replaced at least once and some as many as 5 or 6 times. The good side of having to deal with the fusarium is that doing all that replacement planting taught me that I can grow tomatoes nearly the whole year even with our oppressive heat and humidity. Despite all that I have read to the contrary I have had quite a few varieties set fruit with the temps hovering around 100 and with humidity to match. They don't set as many nor will the fruit be as big but it is sure nice having those fresh tomatoes right through the worst of the summer heat and on til the first hard freeze.

I would say that I have to put out 3 or 4 times as many plants with heirlooms to get the same amount of fruit as with the more fusarium resistant hybrids but it is so much more enjoyable. I still plant a few Big Beefs for insurance because after many years I have found it to be more resistant than any other hybrid that I have tried and it is a good tasting nice sized tomato. Luckily for me the last few years I have managed to have production of heirlooms greater than my wife and I can use so we spread the wealth by letting others around here in on the great qualities of heirloom tomatoes. I have already given away over 100 tomatoes this season but that should slow down with the intense heat now settling in here.

nctomatoman, I gave Cherokee Green nearly a dozen tries and have never gotten a fruit from one of them while Cherokee Purple is one of the most consistent for me. I have never been able to get Cuostralee or Earl Faux to make for me at all. The list of failures due to fusarium is just too long to put down. It is much easier to name the ones that have had good seasons because it is such a short list. I have found that many of the quickly producing blacks like CP, Spudakee, DDR and Indian Stripe will usually give me decent or great numbers before dying while many of the slower to make varieties just can't hang on long enough make ripe fruit.