Question for b54red

[shlacm]

About a week ago my Chocolate Stripe started getting mold spots on the undersides of its leaves. I removed all the leaves and disposed of them. Everything was okay until a couple days ago, when the mold came back (same plant) and started spreading. Now most of my plants have at least a few leaves with leaf mold.

SOOOOOOOOOOOO, last night I mixed up some of your dilute clorox spray and sprayed them all. Today, it seems to be doing something!!! My question is, should I give them another treatment to be sure I didn't miss any? How often should I spray?

Thanks!

[b54red]

Give it a few more days and I think you will see more evidence of it working. Usually in 3 to 4 days you will see the diseased leaves start drying up and dying. Be patient and don't think increasing the solution strength will speed it up. If the solution gets too strong you risk serious leaf burn. I have only applied it more frequently than weekly if there was rampant disease and daily rain. If you didn't spray the plant thoroughly getting the undersides of the leaves with a fine mist then by all means spray it again and be thorough. Don't spray in the bright sunlight but rather at the end of the day. The biggest danger with using the clorox mix is if you wait too long and the disease is all over the new growth then it will kill the plant. I've only seen this happen once, to a friend of mine who kept delaying the spray til his plant was beyond hopeless.
I usually don't have to use the clorox spray but 2 or 3 times a season on most plants and some only need it once. It works great on powdery mildew on squash and cucumbers and it is a big help with those leaf spots on roses. I wish someone would come up with a solution for fusarium wilt that worked and better yet was this cheap.

[shlacm]

Thanks for the response. I'm sure I got most of them VERY thoroughly! And today there were dry brown spots on some of the leaves - instead of yellow spots on top and mold spots on the bottom!

I may redo the last few plants I sprayed (I was getting low by then!).

I wonder why you're the only one who does this...??? Or, the only person who posts about it! I sure was glad to come across your directions!

[b54red]

It's probably because it is too easy, too cheap, no one can make a buck off it, and it's not organic.
Years ago I was spraying my eaves with a solution of Clorox and water to get rid of mildew which has to be removed almost every summer and accidentally sprayed it all over a climbing rose. I thought I had killed it because it got a good bit of leaf burn from the 20% solution but I noticed most of the leaves with the black bacterial spots all over them just dried up and fell off and a week later the rose looked better than it had in years. It got me to wondering if it would be effective in removing some of the fungus that develops on tomatoes because at the time I was spraying my tomatoes with Bravo in a losing battle with some bad foliage diseases. I called a chemist friend who heads an environmental lab and asked what he thought of using it. He said he couldn't see any harm in it if I could find a solution that didn't damage the healthy leaves but was still strong enough to do some good on the diseases. I also asked about how long I would have to wait after spraying and what about residues from the Clorox? He said a mild solution should oxidize in just a few minutes after using it and would not have a long residual effect. I have found this to be true because it works well on the diseases present but is gone rather quickly so if the diseases are popping up in a rainy spell you sometimes have to use it more often. I still use preventative sprays like Daconil but they seem to do little once you get diseases.
I was also told not to mix it with other chemicals or use an unlined metal tank because of its' strong oxidizing properties. It doesn't seem all that bad for insects because I have soaked plenty of pests with it in the process of applying it and it doesn't seem to bother them. If it did I wouldn't have a whitefly problem every year in late summer and early fall; but I still spray it late in the day to avoid possible injury to bees.
I experimented with it for several years until I settled on a 6 % solution of regular Clorox and water as being optimal. I found solutions below 5 % didn't seem to work well enough and that anything over 8 % risked damaging healthy leaves; but I have used stronger in rare cases when it was raining every day. I also found out spraying in the middle of the day would result in some leaf burn,especially with a slightly stronger solution.
Whether or not this is a good solution for the problems of foliage diseases for anyone else I can't say; but it has been very helpful for me. I had become so frustrated with trying to succeed with tomatoes that like many people I was thinking seriously of just giving up on tomatoes in my garden before I started using the Clorox and staggered plantings.

[shlacm]

Well, I am very grateful for your discovery and sharing! I would much rather use bleach/clorox than even many of the organic sprays out there (copper for example).

I did find this which mentions using 5% bleach mixture... not really the same, but interesting that the concentration is the same you honed in on!

[VORTREKER]

Bill--that was 7oz of Clorox to 1 gallon of water correct?

[b54red]

I use 8 ounces and add to a full gallon of water and add a couple of drops of dish washing liquid which gives almost exactly a 6% solution. If problems are mild or plants are suffering from the heat really badly I will use the 7 ounce to a gal. which is about 5 1/4 %. I would start out the first time using the milder solution and see the results. It can be alarming to see a bunch of leaves suddenly dry up and wither a few days after applying it; but it should only affect the diseased portions of the plant. Remember it does nothing for systemic diseases like fusarium which can mimic many foliage diseases in it's early stages.

[shlacm]

Sooooo, is this within the "normal" range for infected leaves that were sprayed a few days ago?

[b54red]

That looks about right but you didn't include a picture showing the whole plant. Is the new growth looking good after the spraying? If it is then everything is fine.
I haven't sprayed in two weeks because of cleaning up the fusarium casualties and the temps are near 100 so I may have to wait a few more days. We are in the prime foliage disease period with the high temps and high humidity making it more difficult to get out and do anything in the garden.

[shlacm]

Yay! Thanks again! Yes, they all have some healthy leaves left, even the Chocolate Stripe, lol!

[b54red]

That's good. The plant should recover unless it is fusarium , some other systemic disease or some type of nutrient deficiency.
There are so many things that can go wrong with a tomato plant and this is just one tool that seems to work on most common foliage diseases.
In my garden fusarium wilt is my major concern and no spray will help that; but if I get a foliage disease along with fusarium the plant, in it's weakened condition, will usually die very quickly unless treated.

[Garf]

Will this help with bacterial spot or speck?

[b54red]

Garf, just try it and see if it works for you. Let me know the results.

[Garf]

For the moment It's under control using trimming and Maneb/Neem oil. I haven't needed to try the Clorox mix yet. I'm sure I will soon enough.

[b54red]

My worst experiences with it have been when I waited too long to use it. It is most effective during the early stages when it kills off the infected leaves but doesn't affect the healthy growth. If the disease spreads to the new growth then it will be too late for the Clorox to help. I have a Big Beef out in my garden now that has almost no leaves on it because I waited way too long to treat it. It's sill alive and producing but it is now one ugly plant.