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Old June 26, 2010   #1
rxkeith
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Default bought Daconil, the battle is on

i have been watching the taters, and maters like a hawk this year, after having late blight go through the garden last year. i noticed some brown lesions on some of the potato leaves, a little leaf curling and a few shoots that shriveled, and dried up. i yanked 3 of the worst ones, and disposed of them, and am reconciled to spraying every 5 days to salvage the rest of them. the taters were looking pretty good up until now. the ones from tom have some pretty nice blossoms. the tomato plants are still small, but are at the ready to take off stage. they all look ok at this point. i bought some serenade to use as a preventative, but not sure weather using it now would help, or maybe alternate using the two on the tomatoes. i dislike having to spray anything, but i know whats going to happen if i don't.

i thought after gardening in the U.P. for 10 years, it was going to be a piece of cake coming back down to lower michigan. its been anything but. no blight of any kind up north, just deer, potato beetles, and a bear once that knocked down part of the fence around the garden, and hope you don't get an early or late frost.
we will see what happens.


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Old June 26, 2010   #2
Talon1189
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I pray that it is not late blight. I live near Detroit and am a first time tomato planter. I have only 5 plants and I just started spraying last week with Daconil as a preventative. Everything looks great so far. Good luck with your plants >>>>>>>>>>>>>>Talon
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Old June 27, 2010   #3
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Keith, fyi. ran across this article yesterday from MSU.

Potato late blight confirmed in Michigan


posted on June 25, 2010 09:34
Willie Kirk, Plant Pathology
Potato late blight was reported and has been confirmed in St. Joseph county in one field near Nottowa on Monday, June 21. With the thunder storms and heavy rains that have occurred in the state in recent days, it is important to be extra vigilant when scouting fields for late blight. Particular attention should be paid to pivot tracks and other such lanes created by farm machinery.
For further information on measures that should be taken when late blight is observed, refer to the Late Blight Extension bulletin. This bulletin is also available as a high quality downloadable .pdf file from http://lateblight.org. You can also get updates as texts sent to your mobile phone if you subscribe to Twitter, sign up link available also on the web site.
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Old June 27, 2010   #4
rxkeith
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thanks for the info steve,

last year, none of the potato tubers seemed to be affected by blight. there was some foliage issues, small brown dots on the leaves, but the plants didn't self destruct like the tomatoes did. the tubers all stored ok for several months. i will be staying on top of this.
here i am surrounded by acres of corn, soy beans, sugar beets, and wheat, trying to grow a few tomatoes, and potatoes. just doesn't seem like it should be that hard to do, eh.

life is still good


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Old June 27, 2010   #5
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i hope you're ok keith. this totally sucks.

i have actually heard on the radio this past week talk about late blight in ct. i predicted this, not that i'm a genius, but i've commented on this a few times over the past few months sighting potatoes left in the ground. this is a nightmare.

i googled daconil the other day. i just refuse to spray that stuff on anything i am going to eat. my garden is and always has been organic and i don't want to use it for that reason alone but when i was reading the precautions they have for just handling this stuff i can't imagine why anyone would eat tomatoes that have been sprayed with this!

i am at a crossroads. if i get hit with late blight again this summer then the writing is on the wall. it says "hi, i'm late blight. i'm here and i ain't going nowhere. expect me every year until the weather changes and i die out. trust me, i'm here for some time." with that in mind, if i get hit again this year then i am done growing tomatoes.

i have commented many times here over the past years that i have little to no use for summer. i dislike just about everything about summer except for growing my own food. if i can't grow tomatoes then there really is no use for summer imo. i considered giving up gardening but the organic produce i grow that feeds me a substantial amount of the year would cost a fortune. so i probably would continue to grow what i grow and drop tomatoes.

tomatoes are my favorite garden crop. i could live on them all summer. if i could grow just 1 thing it would be tomatoes. if i can't grow tomatoes then it's going to be a tough choice whether continue to garden or give up. but one thing is for sure, i don't want to spend the money, time and effort to have tomatoes just to have them destroyed by something i have no control over. sorry to highjack your thread but i am just about at wit's end with this crap. every day i look at my plants which are beautiful and healthy growing like weeds wondering if this crap will wipe me out for a second summer, something that i never even heard of much less dealt with gardening for 20 years until last year.

maybe i'm getting too old, i am sick and tired of a lot of things. without tomatoes does life really have any meaning during summer? not to me. i could move to a climate that is cooler but i have lived here my whole life and don't want to leave. i have a really great place and i just paid off my mortgage 2 weeks ago over the past 5 months (23 years early) so i planned on staying here until i died. i'm really pi$$ed off at this point waiting for this other shoe to drop, not knowing what to expect. just plain tired of this crap.
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Old June 28, 2010   #6
Timmah!
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So order some Exel-LG and some Actinovate and spray the plants. Throw some MycoGrow in for a soil drench for good measure.
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Old June 28, 2010   #7
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I have been told Serenade is also effective to prevent late blight and is accepted as organic.
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Old June 28, 2010   #8
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The problem with Late Blight remedies is the only time you can positively prove how effective they are is when they fail. If you don't get Blight, it doesn't mean they worked. It could just mean the disease didn't find it's way to your garden. None of the remedies, even those that are supposedly organic, are without problems. They are all toxic in one way or another. Neem kills beneficial insects, copper kills earthworms etc. Organic doesn't mean non-poisonous. I personally would prefer to use nothing. I'm even willing to surrender part of my garden to the local rodents and bugs. They were here first and I'm willing to share. In the case of a disease that is as destructive as Late Blight, however, I have only two options, use non-organic remedies or stop eating tomatoes. (the ones you find in the supermarket are sure to have been treated with chlorothalonil so by resorting to store bought, you've accomplished nothing). Last year I used Serenade and Copper with limited success. This year I'm going to use Daconil. My State Extension Service and the USDA say it's safe and effective, so I'm going to give it a shot. I found this to be an interesting link. Check it and you can see what your risk of getting Late Blight is. You can zoom in to street level. http://uspest.org/risk/tom_pot_map

Last edited by duckfan; June 28, 2010 at 06:08 PM.
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Old June 29, 2010   #9
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Duckfan, I would also love not having to use products to prevent disease and pests from destroying my garden; but that is not an option because I love my home grown tomatoes.
I also cannot see the advantage to buying my produce from the supermarket over growing it myself and using the things necessary for production. At the very least I know what has been applied to my plants and what has been used to feed them.
If going totally organic was an option for me I would do it; but I tried for an extended period with disastrous results in my tomato patch. While the organic methods for soil building and fertilizing have shown terrific results, most of the organic pest and disease controls have been much less effective on tomatoes with the exceptions of bt, pyrethrins and neem oil.
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Old June 29, 2010   #10
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b54red, I completely agree. I guess my point would be that Organic isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's still poison. (The obvious exception is BT. That's totally innocuous and I use it regularly.) I don't completely trust the people who claim to be Environmentalists either.They routinely make unsubstantiated allegations that spread like wildfire and before you know it, they're accepted as fact. They never bother to correct those statements either. As long as someone who is in a position of authority and is more educated than me says it's safe and effective, I will use it if I need to. The operative word here is 'need'. The website I posted will give you a localized forecast for the probability of Late Blight infection several days in advance. I have the Daconil but I will not use it until that forecast says it's necessary.
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Old June 29, 2010   #11
rxkeith
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tom,

i understand how you feel having being there myself. consider using some of the organic methods mentioned to prevent an outbreak. for myself, i already have to deal the problem. i will continue to grow organic in every other way except for using daconil to control late blight. i want it out of my garden, and i am going to kill it. i am not willing to sacrifice my plants another year. its a compromise i am willing to make. i am not a certified organic farmer paying hundreds of dollars for that certification. like you, i'm just growing for the household. you have to look at the benefit/ risk ratio. take the drug prednisone, or steroids as a class. look at the side effect profile. there are dozens of possible side effects that could happen. heck, who would want to take a drug that could do that to you?
and yet, steroids are one of the most commonly prescribed drugs today in every shape and form possible to treat a broad spectrum of disease, and illness. i will use the daconil only as long as i need to do so. the benefit of using it is much greater than any risk of doing so.....for me.

now, i just need to do something about all these wabbits.



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Old June 29, 2010   #12
Timmah!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by duckfan View Post
None of the remedies, even those that are supposedly organic, are without problems. They are all toxic in one way or another. this to be an interesting link.
Nothing dangerous or toxic about using Serenade (B Subtilis) or Actinovate (Streptomyces lydicus) or MycoGrow. They are beneficial bateria, fungi, & Trichoderma that protect & feed the plants via a symbiotic relationship. Completely natural.

More than 90% of plants have a relationship with some form of Mycorrhizae; fossil records indicate this relationship existing at least as far back as 400 million years. Mycorrhizae are beneficial to the environment in that they reduce the need for fertilizers. They help protect the plants from water stress, too. They can also protect plants rooted in soils with high metal concentrations.

Another safe thing you can do is mix a finely crushed aspirin into a gallon of water & foliar spray you plants with it. This will induce an immune response in your plants, helping protect themselves from pathogens. It also increases growth rate & flower set. It's called the SAR response.
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Old June 29, 2010   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by duckfan View Post
The problem with Late Blight remedies is the only time you can positively prove how effective they are is when they fail. ]
*********
Late blight hit my area last season so I started alternating actinovate and agris fos every week with much success...until late September. I never had late blight before, and therefore wasn't familiar what an infected plant looked like, so I didn't pull them right away, and it took about a 3 weeks before it was obvious and realized what it was ~ which leads me to assume, not conclude, that the actinovate/agris fos helped control it. Yes, I pulled them the second I realized what it was! The reports are confirming LB in PA already this season and since we are so early in the season I am still using actinovate and agris fos along with daconil for the first time...with tears. I sprayed daconil (although it's not sold under that name anymore, it's called Ortho Max Garden Disease Control). I felt sooooo guilty spraying as I have always prided myself on being as organic as possible. I really felt like a terd when a bumble bee came flying around the flowers, I actually stopped spraying for a few minutes. If I wasn't so ridiculously passionate about my maters, I would not spray at all, but I feel it's my only defense. So I guess I'll have to wait and see with my fingers crossed!
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Old June 29, 2010   #14
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Nothing dangerous or toxic about using Serenade
I won't quibble the point, even though there is some indication that Serenade can cause allergic reactions and eye and skin irritation in some people. The damage is apparently not permanent. I am aware that for every substance on earth, there are a few of us who are going to have a bad reaction to it. The rest of us won't be affected at all. My biggest problem with Serenade is that it simply doesn't work on Late Blight. The experts at my local Cooperative Extension said it wouldn't work. I wanted to stay organic and ignored them. I really wanted it to work. I followed the directions to a T but they were right. Late Blight won. I might as well have sprayed my plants with sugar water. That's totally safe (unless you're a diabetic) and it doesn't work either. The effect would have been the same.
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Old June 29, 2010   #15
Timmah!
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In addition to Serenade, use Actinovate & Exel-LG. I've also added MycoGrow as a soil drench. Alternating sprays is probably gonna provide more protection than just one alone.
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