Funcicide Spray -- what do you use and why?

[Greatgardens]

I'm going to spray, so "I don't spray" is not really an answer to the question.

The candidates seem to be Daconil, Copper-based, Bleach, Green Cure, and Neem Oil. In no particular order. I want to spray as little as possible and as safely as possible. Bleach sounds enticing because it is a very known quantity and dirt cheap. But that is just an off the top observation. What do you think?

I'm also particularly interested in those who might have used Green Cure or something similar, since it is primarily for mildew, I've read.

-GG

[wildcat62]

I use Copper & Daconil but haven't had a lot of success. The EB eventually gets me every year. But if I didn't spray I'm sure it would be much worse. Lots of good info on here.

[ContainerTed]

I spray as little as possible. When I do spray, my first choice is "Garden Safe". It is a good fungicide, a "hornworm killing" insecticide, and a miticide. I always concentrate on the undersides of the leaves and that makes each event of spraying last as long as possible when the rain comes.

Garden Safe comes in concentrate and in premix. I even use it on my fruit trees. Now, I keep other garden chemicals around and will not hesitate to use them. But my 32 oz container of Malathion concentrate is more than 6 years old and is still over 3/4 full. Here at the Muddy Bucket Farm, I have problems with Colorado Potato Beetles and Japanese Beetles. Although I have the occasional hornworm, I don't see cut worms and some of those other maladies that kill plants. The various wilts are rare except for when I buy commercial plants. Garden Safe usually helps with those.

No, I don't have stock in the company. I just think I found the right thing for this location.

[Greatgardens]

It is Neem Oil, isn't it? Seems to be lots of proponents for Neem Oil, so you have plenty of company. Pretty sure that is the product that Lowes and Amazon sell.

-GG

[Dark Rumor]

I have had success with Daconil one year and the next year Daconil did not help against leaf disease. Daconil will stop the spread of some leaf diseases, it will not kill the pathogens, but it does stop the disease from spreading. So against some diseases daconil will work, it is trial and error process.

I had some success with hydrogen peroxide last year using a 50/50 mix with water. I plan on using hydrogen peroxide again this year. I think hydrogen peroxide does kill some fungal diseases, but requires frequent applications, maybe once every week or two.

[ContainerTed]

I usually get Garden Safe at Walmart. It will even kill stink bugs and Japanese Beetles if you spray them directly. It's slow on those two, but effective in the long run.

[adewilliams]

I used Green Cure this year to help with powdery mildew on my seedlings. It worked great! The problem cleared up after a couple of days. I also sprayed my tomato plants with it about once a week early in the season to keep them healthy and it seemed to work. Of course, we didn't have a lot of rain this year, so that might have been why they stayed healthy for so long. It's not a huge investment and I found it helpful. It's definitely worth a try.

[ContainerTed]

Ade, I actually started using this product when I lived in Buford, GA. I know it works in that climate. Anyhow, my main point is that this product is so many things in one and it has been rated as organic. No need to have lots of bottles of things that only do one thing.

Take care.

[carolyn137]

I have used Daconil for many years and will continue to do so, the concentrate (95 % active ingredient,chlorothalinol)),not the already diluted stuff,dilute it yourself when needed.

It's best used as a protective for only Early Blight and Septoria Leafspot, the two most common fungal foliage diseases. It has no activity at all for the two most common bacterial foliage diseases of Bacterial Speck and Spot.

So you need to know which disease(s) you are dealing with before you decide what's best to use.

And is not that effective for Late Blight, P.infestans unless the symptoms of that fungal disease are detected early and affected foliage removed and destroyed. Early Blight and Late Blight are very different fungal diseases and both can appear early or late in the season.It all depends when the spores are in the air,which way the wind is blowing, rain, and other variables.
But P.infestans can ,and often is lethal,not so much with Early Blight,Alternaria solani.

Discussions/arguments abound at many sites about possible toxicity but Daconil is THE most widely used antifungal worldwide and has been for many decades,and when compared to some organic products, some organic cpds have greater toxicity.

Best to go to the Organic Forum here to capture some of that data,not here in this thread.What I'm essentially saying is that I don't want to spend time grabbing links from my faves,especially from the Extoxnet site.

OK,I decided to fetch that Extoxnet site anyway.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Exto..._AUIBygA&dpr=1

Carolyn

[Greatgardens]

I guess that I should also include Serenade. Any proponents for it here?

-GG

[ginger2778]

My go to for preventive and also for treatment is liquid copper fungicide (Southern Ag). It is antifungal for both early and late blight, and other fungi, and it is antibacterial for speck and spot, as well as other bacteria. I have tried Daconil, but I admit I tend to start treating AFTER I get a problem started, and Daconil is best used as a preventive, as Carolyn said above. Additionally, it will clump and clog the sprayer if mixed with some things, such as liquid copper. Guess how I learned that?

I do use Neem, I buy 100% online, it also does insects, and fungi, not sure if it is bactericidal, but if you get mites, aphids, whiteflies, tomato suck bugs (horrible), thrips, etc, Neem is great stuff. You should be more disciplined than me, and immediately rinse out and flush your sprayer, or the neem will gunk it up with a gummy residue. Guess how I learned that? I use 1 Tablespoon per gallon, with a squeeze of soap, and I keep agitating to remix it, it is strongly hydrophobic.

I have been using liquid copper from Southern Ag at rate of 1/2 tablespoon per gallon, which works great and still won't cause the new leafs to curl like stronger spray will, and I can mix that with 1/2 tablespoon per gallon of Permethrin 10% if I have stink bugs or Tomato Suck Bugs, or just add a squeeze of liquid dish soap if I have a soft bodied insect such as whiteflies, aphids thrips, soap ruptures the insects waxy bodies, and also clogs their spiracles so they cant breathe.
You can harvest the best day with all these.
If you use Permethrin you should wait until dusk so as not to harm bees, but it is the synthetic of pyrethrin which is derived from chrysanthemums. It also can be used for flea control in dogs and cats.

[Gardeneer]

I have used Daconil , Neem Oil , Liquid Cop and bleach spray.
Neem is a good pesticide. It is ssold by different manufacturers under different name. Read the label !
Bleach spray is effective on mold. ( ~ 7 oz per gallon of water). It is cheap and works. JMO

[carolyn137]

Marsha posted:

(I have tried Daconil, but I admit I tend to start treating AFTER I get a problem started, and Daconil is best used as a preventive, as Carolyn said above. Additionally, it will clump and clog the sprayer if mixed with some things, such as liquid copper. Guess how I learned that? )

I wanted to spray two things at the same time, didn't know if that was OK, called the number on the Daconil bottle and I'm glad I did. Here's what I learned from the man I spoke with.

I learned that if you add anything else to the sprayer that it can interact with the Daconil and that reduces the # of active D molecules.

And the instructions for use have been titrated so that the D covers almost all the specific attachment sites on the upper leaf surface where the fungal spores attach,thus preventing infection.

So there you go.

Carolyn

[bower]

FYI the information for neem is available at Carolyn's extoxnet link under "azadirachtin". Here's another link about azadirachtin and clarified neem extract:
http://www.gpnmag.com/article/explai...htin-and-neem/

Great tip from Marsha about cleaning the sprayer! I definitely ruined a few of those cheap misters from Dollarama with a neem oil product....

[Cole_Robbie]

No one has mentioned Sulphur yet. Does Copper work better for tomatoes?