Is there a way to stop blight??

[madddawg]

I don't have time to sit here and look though all the threads. I am sure my answer is there some where. Between 10+ hours dedicated to work a a day and 2 or 3 in the garden, pc time is one thing I don't have much of. So straight up, Is there a good way to stop blight. Almost all of my 300 plants have it to some degree, Better boys, Celebrity, Cherry , Cherokee purple, and Kentucky Yellow Beefstake. Better boys and Celbrity are the worst. Some almost entire plant!. Is there any hope? I can not put anything toxic on becouse I am harvesting. Intrigued by the bleach idea but what little I had time to read it sounds like more of a preventive. And toxicity? I fear I may have lost a lot of my plants. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

[KarenO]

First, many people call any foliar disease of tomatoes "blight" which it may not be <<<This is late blight

If it is late blight that you have there is no cure, only prevention and trying to salvage infected plants in my opinion only spreads the problem to the rest of your plants and all your neighbors besides. For actual LATE BLIGHT, It is my opinion that the correct response is to remove the entire plant at once and bag it up to take away and burn. Plants with late blight cannot be salvaged and leaving them in the ground spreads the disease by airborne spores. I sure would appreciate any upwind neighbor of mine to immediately remove and properly dispose of late blight infected plants. Unfortunately, folks don't and that is how and why it spreads like wildfire.
KarenO

[KarenO]

http://www.agriculture.gov.sk.ca/Def...f-7e3da663f585
lots of good information and some photos
KarenO

[madddawg]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I am the only one close growin mators. I am sure its my fault for planting rows too far close together. 4 ft. I got greedy. I guess I will let it play out unless someone has a magical cure. Its been a problem since I started growing mators 5 yrs ago. Yeah Iam just a cub at this. And new ground for for me aint happening. I have lots Of big good looking green ones. hope I dont lose them. More research over the winter is recommended I guess.

[bcday]

From your previous posts, it looks to me like the major problems have been Early Blight and Septoria. The Hi-Yield is supposed to help slow these down but at this point you can't use it because of the 5-day harvest interval. Ortho and Bonide have products containing chlorothalonil, which works well and can be used up to the day of harvest if you wish, but that also are largely preventative. About all you can do is keep spraying the foliage that looks healthy and removing as many of the spotty leaves as possible. It's tough to get ahead of these two diseases once they get a good start, and frustrating to see those **** spots keep showing up.

Keep sending to the landfill all the diseased foliage that you remove. If leftover diseased plant stems and foliage stay in the garden, they can infect next year's crop. Late Blight can't overwinter in that way because it can only spread from living plant tissue, not dead leaves and stems.

[b54red]

I have used the bleach spray with some success twice with Late Blight but it must be applied immediately upon spotting the disease and you must spray everything including surrounding plants to kill the spores. It is particularly necessary to spray the undersides of the leaves of infected plants and also the seemingly unaffected plants. Late Blight is so infectious and spreads so fast that I was most successful the last time I had it because I sprayed every day for three days and pulled all the really badly infected plants after spraying them. I then applied Daconil as a preventative and kept watch for any new infections. Found a couple more and sprayed again. I ended up losing only about 25% of my plants that time so I was really happy with the results. The first time I tried the bleach spray I was not aggressive enough nor early enough so I ended up losing nearly 3/4 of my plants; but that was still better than the first time when I lost all of them.

If what you are dealing with is Early Blight or Septoria then I would still spray with the bleach spray and then follow up with a preventative fungicide like Daconil or a copper spray.

The bleach spray will basically kill and wither any really badly infected leaves though it will not stop Late Blight on a plant once it gets inside the plant and becomes systemic; but it can kill the spores before they spread and infect more plants. The extent to which a disease has spread is apparent the next day after the bleach spray has been applied and at that point you can decide whether it is worth continuing the treatment. The bleach spray will not affect the harvesting of the tomatoes.

Bill

[macbettz]

If you have nice looking green tomatoes without any black as coal spots than you most likely do not have the dreaded Late Blight.
I would spray with the bleach spray since you have 300 plants thats going to take a lot of product and bleach is the cheapest.

[VC Scott]

This is a link to B54's thread on bleach spray. Very informative. Props to B54.

http://http://www.tomatoville.com/sh...ad.php?t=28509

[ArthurDent004]

I'm seeing Downy mildew and Septoria on an Early Wonder that I put out about two weeks ago. I've started spraying with GreenCure fungicide. I was surprised at the speed of the Septoria. I sprayed to plant on Monday and everything looked good and then I looked again Tuesday evening and noticed the leaves on one limb all had black spots on the underside. I snipped that limb and looked again today and found the leaves on another limb with tiny black spots so I snipped that one also.

I'm trying to decide at what point or should I say how many limbs can I lose before I write the plant off entirely and started again from seed. I see many flower buds forming at the moment and none of the limbs I've lost had any buds on them.

[madddawg]

Thanks for the advice. I think that its to late for anything.



sorry about the fuzzy pictures
Almost all the leaves showing some kind of infection on some of the plants

Could it be the mulch and manure I Put down that I got from Purina Farms?

[Doug9345]

How recently did you mulch and and manure. If it was recent then you could have herbicide damage.

[b54red]

Have you checked for spider mites?

Bill

[SilverSpringGdn]

I have spider mites and the leaves have tiny yellow spots all over them. This does not look like spider mite damage to me but would need close up shots to tell.

[Salsacharley]

How fresh was the manure? If the manure was "hot" the manure could cook the plants.

How about overwatering?

I'm trying to be optimistic. Sorry to see your damage.

[b54red]

At this point it seems that the bleach spray might be in order but it may be too late if it is a foliage disease that has progressed so far; but I don't see that you have anything to lose. It looks like the tops and bottoms are somewhat healthy which is why I was thinking of mites. I have had them devastate the mid portion of the plants first before I realized I had them. Get a magnifying glass and check the undersides of the leaves just above the brown portion of the plant where the leaves are still somewhat green.

Bill