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Old February 28, 2014   #1
CharlieM
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Default Spray for tomatos

Hi,
Last year I used Ferti-Lome Triple Action Plus spray on my tomato plants to help with bugs and various diseases. It did a good job on insects but its performance on diseases was only fair. I would appreciate some advice on a better combo type spray. Don't know what diseases I had but had yellowing of leaves starting at the lowest branches and moving up the plant. I only plant 8 plants so I can't justify a big investment in sprays.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Charlie
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Old February 28, 2014   #2
b54red
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Sounds a little bit like you may have had some fusarium and no spray will help with it as it is a soil borne disease. Try planting a single plant that is resistant to all three races of fusarium and see if the same disease shows up.

For foliage diseases I use Daconil as a preventative. Once a plant has a foliage disease I use a dilute bleach spray to slow or stop the disease and then follow up with a copper fungicide or Daconil.

Bill
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Old February 28, 2014   #3
RootLoops
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biologically diverse soil will help stop soil borne diseases, i live in a sauna of a humidity zone and last year when all the others at the market were losing rows to blight it never even presented a problem for me. i inoculated some of them with tomato tone's formula and some with myco-grow. this year i've inoculated new dirt with myco-grow and actinovate. tomato tone and myco-grow both contain trichoderma which will eat and/or overtake other fungi related problems. air flow(pruning) and plant spacing will help eliminate fungi on the leaves, molds grow poorly in areas of high fresh air exchange. i've used neem oil as well to treat fungi on leaves.

with only 8 plants you should be able to manage pest problems by hand picking for the most part, make it a habit to go out there every day, morning and evening if possible, and rake any attackers into a bowl of soap water, follow this up by looking for eggs under leaves and checking for aphids(which can be easily killed with a weak soap water solution) at least every couple of days.

for tomato worms(both varieties) as well as any other caterpillar the best spray i used was a mix of molasses, habanero peppers, vegetable oil, sometimes neem, garlic and dish soap. it had to be applied every few days or after a rain but i went from picking 15-25 caterpillars per picking session to 4-5 within two days of application and the few i did find weren't eating anything when i found them.

removing the foliage a good foot and a half from the ground also helps keep disease from spreading, think of those bottom leaves as ramps for insects and afflictions to travel on.

just listing what worked for me, hope you get to the root of your problems!
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Old March 3, 2014   #4
b54red
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Having healthy soil will help with nematodes; but I have had fusarium in my soil since I started. Despite adding loads of compost, manures, mushroom compost and nearly every natural "cure" like myco-grow and many others my fusarium problems slowly but surely got worse over the years. I spent a small fortune on those cures with negligible results. The only thing that has really worked has been the use of highly resistant tomato rootstock and grafting. I prefer grafting because it allows me the freedom to grow heirlooms instead of the poor tasting commercial varieties that have built in resistance to all three races of fusarium. The build up of healthy soil did help considerably with nematodes.

Another thing that is a great help with foliage diseases down here besides removing all the low growing foliage is to keep the plants pruned enough to allow good air flow. No matter how careful you are and how well you maintain your plants you will usually have to contend with some foliage diseases down here in this steamy climate. Daconil is the best preventative I have found available to the home gardener and it is easy to apply with a sprayer.

Bill
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Old March 3, 2014   #5
RootLoops
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what do you recommend for a rootstock down here? i have been wanting to graft some heirlooms onto resistant stock and if price is fairly decent for seeds i should be able to get a good proven variety. i had my share of fungi based attackers last season they just didn't get any foothold.

on pruning, i found out the hard way to prune early and often especially with indeterminates. what i did toward the end was pick a main stem and just go up it with the pruners taking off every third shoot on both sides so that the plant was basically one long stem. i made the mistake of admiring all the thick green growth and putting off the pruning "til they get a little bigger"
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Old March 4, 2014   #6
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I am still experimenting with different rootstock for grafting. I had good luck with Floralina (which is no longer available) and Tasti-Lee last year because both have triple fusarium resistance but neither are resistant to nematodes so some of my plants had nematode problems late in the season. Since my nematode problem is not so severe as it used to be it doesn't usually affect my production til very late in the growing season if at all. I had some good and bad luck with Multifort which is a very vigorous rootstock but I didn't have any of them available til fall so they didn't get a fair shot. I did notice that they increased the plant vigor tremendously causing me to have to prune them far more than the straight heirloom. I am trying about 6 or 7 different rootstock this year and all of them are resistant to 3 races of fusarium since I have a problem with them all. These are the rootstock I am trying this year.

Multifort
Tasti-Lee
Charger
Crista
Red Mountain
BHN 640
Amelia

I may plant one each of all of them except Multifort to see which variety grows best and produces the most fruit. I have this strip along my garden fence that is terribly infected with fusarium, and it would be a good test spot to see which variety actually has the best resistance to both fusarium and nematodes. I rarely try to grow tomatoes along it since they always die from one or the other and the soil has not been heavily amended like in my raised beds.

Some of my seedlings are just now reaching the size where I can start grafting, so it will be a while before I have any of the grafted plants ready. The continuing cold weather has delayed everything this year. I was setting out plants around this time last year, but now I'm just trying to get my seedlings big enough to graft. I don't see any forecast below 40 degrees for the next 10 days, so hopefully winter is finally over, but I am not taking any chances this year. I will wait until my tulip poplar tree starts opening up before I set any tomatoes in the ground.

Bill
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Old March 4, 2014   #7
feldon30
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I wasn't aware that Fusarium was a problem in Louisiana unless Charlie lives in the northern part of the state.


Charlie, did your leaves look like this:



Fusarium


or this:

Early Blight


If it's the latter, then early application of Daconil or other fungal preventative, as well as a thick application of mulch (wheat straw or coastal hay), plus use of soaker hoses to water rather than sprinklers or a watering wand will all keep the problem under control.
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Old March 4, 2014   #8
CharlieM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by feldon30 View Post
I wasn't aware that Fusarium was a problem in Louisiana unless Charlie lives in the northern part of the state.


Charlie, did your leaves look like this:



Fusarium


or this:

Early Blight


If it's the latter, then early application of Daconil or other fungal preventative, as well as a thick application of mulch (wheat straw or coastal hay), plus use of soaker hoses to water rather than sprinklers or a watering wand will all keep the problem under control.
The leaves titled "Early Blight" resemble my leaves. Of course the later into the summer it gets, the leaves will loose all of the green color and will be yellow and brown like in the pic. The top pic is not close enough to see the leaves good but my stalks do not look like those in the pic.

By the way we live in north west Louisiana.

I appreciate you taking time to offer your advice.

Charlie
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Old March 4, 2014   #9
feldon30
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Yeah you should absolutely be able to control Early Blight with organic products or chemicals, and with best practices as far as watering, mulch, and avoiding cross-contamination. Even in the wettest years I've gotten a good harvest.

Grafting is unnecessary for this problem, as is growing special "resistant" varieties.
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Old March 5, 2014   #10
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Charlie that stem has been cut into to show the tell tale sign of fusarium visible inside the sick plant. Early Blight and the early stages of fusarium are so similar in appearance because the first yellowing leaves will sometimes have Early Blight as well. Early Blight is fairly easy to prevent or at least prevent it being a major problem.

Another sign of fusarium when it gets more advanced is the wilting of a whole stem. This wilting can happen with some yellowing leaves lower down or yellowing leaves way up the stem. Did you eventually have whole stems wilt?

I'm rather paranoid about fusarium since I have been battling its effects since I started gardening here many years ago. My first year of gardening tomatoes my county extention officer came out to look at my tomato problem and told me I would be unable to successfully grow tomatoes in my soil because of the severe fusarium problem I had. He was right in a way since my plants usually died from it within 3 months of being set out in the ground. Sometimes I would lose them all and sometimes a few would struggle on for a while longer. It wasn't until I started growing Celebrity and Big Beef that I was able to have a good crop of tomatoes most years. When I tired of the sameness of the hybrid tomatoes and went back to growing mostly heirlooms I coped by planting huge numbers and replanting as plants died right up until late August. Age and health problems have made that very difficult as the years have gone on and I started grafting last year and took the plunge by planting only grafted plants. I didn't have nearly as many plants to set out but they were far more productive and lived so much longer than usual. I still had to battle the usual foliage diseases like Early Blight, Septoria, Gray mold, Speck and or Spot. I also had a few cases of Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus but luckily last year I didn't have any Late Blight.

Just remember the old saying no matter how good your tomato plants are looking. "Tomatoes are just looking for an excuse to die."

Bill
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Old March 5, 2014   #11
ssi912
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I use thuricide, the kurstaki variety. I also use spinosad, which can be called conserve. I usually tank mix the two. I also use liquid sevin and pyrethrum. The dust form of sevin is a good product but very hard to get uniform complete coverage. I know some folks here use malathion. These are for insects. I will some times tank mix insecticide with fungicide. Ortho garden disease control, which is chlorothalonil, or Daconil. I tried the organic approach for a couple seasons. Too heavy insect pressure where I grow. If you use a pump sprayer, either a back pack or hand can, you can mix chemicals and get good control. A lot of folks knock these chemicals and would advise against their use. If you read the label and don't deviate from the mix rate, and mix and apply accurately, they are basically harmless when dry.
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Old March 6, 2014   #12
b54red
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I use thuricide, the kurstaki variety. I also use spinosad, which can be called conserve. I usually tank mix the two. I also use liquid sevin and pyrethrum. The dust form of sevin is a good product but very hard to get uniform complete coverage. I know some folks here use malathion. These are for insects. I will some times tank mix insecticide with fungicide. Ortho garden disease control, which is chlorothalonil, or Daconil. I tried the organic approach for a couple seasons. Too heavy insect pressure where I grow. If you use a pump sprayer, either a back pack or hand can, you can mix chemicals and get good control. A lot of folks knock these chemicals and would advise against their use. If you read the label and don't deviate from the mix rate, and mix and apply accurately, they are basically harmless when dry.
I also went totally organic for several years. Those were the years I had very few tomatoes and only for a short time. My squash, cucumbers and melons were a disaster during that time. I try very hard not to use too many chemicals but disease and insect pressure is just too high most years down here.

I would almost never get any squash if it wasn't for Sevin dust. When squash go out into the garden I immediately apply Sevin dust to the stem. I keep my duster filled and apply it after every rain along the main stem and especially heavy right near the base. Of course after a few weeks of production I slack off and forget to apply a new dusting after a heavy rain and within days the vine borers are doing their work. Every year or two we get a heavy infestation of some type of foliage eating worms that the Bt doesn't work very well on so I hit them with the Sevin and within hours all the worms are dead. Last year those worms got so bad that they nearly defoliated some of my peppers and even okra which I have never seen before.

I keep a bottle of insect growth regulator IGR ready for when the mites hit. It is the only thing I have found effective on them. I have used malathion on mites before and it is fairly effective but only at the higher concentrations that will sometimes burn tender tomato leaves. If I have to use a poison I prefer the milder Permethrin applied very late in the day so bees are not affected. Some people even use systemic poisons for mites but that means it would be in the tomatoes so for me that is going too far.

I will say though that the natural fertilizers keep the soil much healthier if my worm population is any indicator. The worms and the plants really seem to love liberal amounts of compost, cottonseed meal and alfalfa pellets. For side dressing I use Texas Tomato Food and sometimes the soluble Miracle Grow applied through a hose end sprayer.

Bill
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Old March 6, 2014   #13
ssi912
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Growing non native plants in the southeast requires heavy insecticide use to receive a respectable plant/crop. Fresh thuricide tank mixed with spinosad, rotated with liquid sevin and pyrethrin should keep most worm pests at bay. Keep the mix in the tank agitated. Walking while spraying should achieve this. Mix the chemicals right before you use the spray. Try to use all the spray that session. Most chemicals settle in the bottom of the tank after an hour of sitting still. Needs serious agitation to re suspend chemical, if it will even release from the bottom of the tank. I am going to add methylated seed oil at a .10% solution on a few plants to see if it helps prolong the insecticide activity. Finding the right spray nozzle for my back pack sprayer is where I turned the corner on controlling insects. I generally spray in the morning hours. I was using a large droplet spray nozzle with intermediate control. Switched to a nozzle that atomizes the spray into very small fine droplets. Much better control. I am sold on liquid fung./insectides because of the ability to tank mix. The two birds with one stone move. Spraying in the evening would probably allow myself to get better control. I just hate wetting the foliage any longer than it needs to be. Fungus is always the cause of death here with this humidity. I am on an island, so no escaping the moisture problem. Bayer advance has a systemic chemical labeled for most vegetables in the homeowners garden. The active ingredient is imidacloprid, which is the same chemical in bayer advantage for pets. It is applied through the root system. The harvest interval is 30 days for most veggies on the label. That tells me 30 day control of most insect pests. Cant decide if I will use this one or not, a tad bit intimidating/nerve racking.
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Old March 6, 2014   #14
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Here is a very good Foliar Fungicide Spray Guide for Tomatoes by NC State University. http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/fletcher/pro...o-spray-guide/
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Old March 6, 2014   #15
Ken4230
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ssi912 View Post
Bayer advance has a systemic chemical labeled for most vegetables in the homeowners garden. The active ingredient is imidacloprid, which is the same chemical in bayer advantage for pets. It is applied through the root system. The harvest interval is 30 days for most veggies on the label. That tells me 30 day control of most insect pests. Cant decide if I will use this one or not, a tad bit intimidating/nerve racking.
I used this two years ago to kill the thousands of white grubs that had taken over my garden. I used a soil drench ( 1 gal. per 20 sq. ft.) in Early April and a squirt on the roots of each plant when i planted.
I'm not sure what it did to my earthworms, but it stopped the grubs from eating all the roots off my plants and killed almost all of them. I did notice several grubs when i pulled up plants last fall, mostly in my containers. I'm hoping that i don't have to, but i may have to do this again this year. I will know in about a week if this snow ever goes away.

I'm not a big fan of Bayer, so i was and still am somewhat scared of using this on my garden. I have a close friend who runs a farm store. He recommended using this and cautioned me to not go overboard on applying it.

Ken
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