blacking of stem

[MarineCorps]

Noticed this a couple weeks ago on one of my plants. The stem is the stems are turning black. It doesn't seem to be a stem rot as the stems isn't soft. Nothing I can find matches what I'm seeing.

[Bruinwar]

I am no expert here, however, I also had the same symptoms but it was also on my leaves.

The good people here that know more than myself called it Gray Mold. Here are some high-res pics:



.

[ginger2778]

Your leaves have either a severe fungal infection, OR ...you have sprayed during the heat of the day, and its a burn from the spray mixed with too intense sun. I thought for sure that it was the latter until the lower photo showed the leaves too.

On second thought, I am going with spray burn, because with that severe of a fungal infection, you would also have yellowing on the leaves beyond the darkened areas. Also, the upper stem and leaves appear healthy. Also, the stem appears splashed with droplets. I tend to stay away from oil containing sprays because of this, but whatever you spray, always do it either very early am, or very late afternoon( better) before the sun gets too intense. The droplets on the leaves become little light focusing magnifiers.
Trim off the dead leaves and remove them from the garden, and this plant should recover, the stems look not too far gone.

[b54red]

You appear to have Gray Mold at the advanced stage. When GM is left too long without treatment it seems to invade the plant and nothing will completely stop it. When it gets to this point it causes stem lesions and eventually deadly rot on the fruit themselves. I have had this happen several times in the past to different plants usually blacks but sometimes GWRs. It seems that when they get to this stage it is very hard and sometimes impossible to stop the disease. I believe that the disease has become systemic when it gets to this point kind of like Late Blight does when it gets a foothold.

You can continue to use the bleach spray and copper spray but it may not be enough at this point but it should stop the spread to other plants if you keep it up. The last time I had Gray Mold do this was two years ago on a beautiful bushy Berkley Tie Dye Pink plant that was loaded with fruit. No matter how often I sprayed and how much I pruned off the diseased leaves new sites of disease kept popping up within days until the plant looked like a 8 ft tall palm tree. I finally gave in and pulled it. I hope yours hasn't gotten that bad.

We have been getting heavy hard rains for nearly two weeks now and I have been using the bleach spray about every three days since no fungicide can stay on the plants more than a few hours before another storm rolls in. It is too wet to keep up with the removal of dead leaves and diseased leaves so my only hope is to stop any new diseases before they get too far along. I had gotten all my Gray Mold and Early Blight under good control when this rainy period started and now I fear the next shoe to drop will be Septoria which is really hard to control in rainy weather.

Keep on trying to get it under control if you can. Good luck.

Bill



Bill

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by b54red

You appear to have Gray Mold at the advanced stage. When GM is left too long without treatment it seems to invade the plant and nothing will completely stop it. When it gets to this point it causes stem lesions and eventually deadly rot on the fruit themselves. I have had this happen several times in the past to different plants usually blacks but sometimes GWRs. It seems that when they get to this stage it is very hard and sometimes impossible to stop the disease. I believe that the disease has become systemic when it gets to this point kind of like Late Blight does when it gets a foothold.

You can continue to use the bleach spray and copper spray but it may not be enough at this point but it should stop the spread to other plants if you keep it up. The last time I had Gray Mold do this was two years ago on a beautiful bushy Berkley Tie Dye Pink plant that was loaded with fruit. No matter how often I sprayed and how much I pruned off the diseased leaves new sites of disease kept popping up within days until the plant looked like a 8 ft tall palm tree. I finally gave in and pulled it. I hope yours hasn't gotten that bad.

We have been getting heavy hard rains for nearly two weeks now and I have been using the bleach spray about every three days since no fungicide can stay on the plants more than a few hours before another storm rolls in. It is too wet to keep up with the removal of dead leaves and diseased leaves so my only hope is to stop any new diseases before they get too far along. I had gotten all my Gray Mold and Early Blight under good control when this rainy period started and now I fear the next shoe to drop will be Septoria which is really hard to control in rainy weather.

Keep on trying to get it under control if you can. Good luck.

Bill



Bill

Maybe this explains the demise of my black prince plants.

Worth

[AlittleSalt]

Our county agricultural agent told me that a couple of my tomato plants had grey mold last fall. The plants looked like those pictured above.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by AlittleSalt

Our county agricultural agent told me that a couple of my tomato plants had grey mold last fall. The plants looked like those pictured above.

The first time I ever had Gray Mold that I knew about was with a JD's Special C Tex and it was about that time that I started experimenting with the bleach spray. I made the mistake of trusting Daconil to fight it and lost that battle. Near the end with the plant totally riddled with the stuff I finally tried the bleach spray which dramatically affected the infected leaves. What I ended up with was a plant with 4 or 5 stems each over 6 feet long with just a tuft of healthy growth on the tips of the stems with the rest of the plant shriveling up. Over the years I have become much more aware of the disease because of all the black tomato varieties I now grow and since well over 90% of the Gray Mold I have seen has been on those varieties. With experience I have learned that fast acting with the bleach spray and a follow up with copper works really well as long as you do it early enough and repeat it with any new appearance. Even as often as I have dealt with GM I still sometimes put off acting too long and the result can be really bad. I'm sure it wouldn't be so bad in a climate that is much less humid because during the fall when it is usually very dry the disease seems to progress much slower and come back less frequently.

Bill

[Bruinwar]

Sorry, I didn't to hijack MarineCorps thread with my pictures. But it's absolutely, positively, not leaf burn on the plants in my pics. I've only sprayed in the early morning at the break of day.

We do agree that MarineCorps' blackening stems is Gray Mold?

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by Bruinwar

Sorry, I didn't to hijack MarineCorps thread with my pictures. But it's absolutely, positively, not leaf burn on the plants in my pics. I've only sprayed in the early morning at the break of day.

We do agree that MarineCorps' blackening stems is Gray Mold?

If it isnt spray burn, then I also feel that it is fungal.

[AlittleSalt]

Originally Posted by b54red

The first time I ever had Gray Mold that I knew about was with a JD's Special C Tex and it was about that time that I started experimenting with the bleach spray. I made the mistake of trusting Daconil to fight it and lost that battle. Near the end with the plant totally riddled with the stuff I finally tried the bleach spray which dramatically affected the infected leaves. What I ended up with was a plant with 4 or 5 stems each over 6 feet long with just a tuft of healthy growth on the tips of the stems with the rest of the plant shriveling up. Over the years I have become much more aware of the disease because of all the black tomato varieties I now grow and since well over 90% of the Gray Mold I have seen has been on those varieties. With experience I have learned that fast acting with the bleach spray and a follow up with copper works really well as long as you do it early enough and repeat it with any new appearance. Even as often as I have dealt with GM I still sometimes put off acting too long and the result can be really bad. I'm sure it wouldn't be so bad in a climate that is much less humid because during the fall when it is usually very dry the disease seems to progress much slower and come back less frequently.

Bill

Bill, thank you for your reply. I used the bleach water last year, but didn't know about the copper. I buy a lot of gardening supplies from Walmart because we get a 10% discount there. I need to find a copper source there.

I'm guessing this is related: I've heard elders used to put pennies in ground around their tomato plants to repel Molds. Pennies used to be made of copper, but not anymore. I do have a lot of 12-2 and 14-2 wiring that I could strip and put in ground if it would help keep away molds.?

I'm hoping the results/answers of the above question helps the OP of this thread (MarineCorps).

[b54red]

Originally Posted by AlittleSalt

Bill, thank you for your reply. I used the bleach water last year, but didn't know about the copper. I buy a lot of gardening supplies from Walmart because we get a 10% discount there. I need to find a copper source there.

I'm guessing this is related: I've heard elders used to put pennies in ground around their tomato plants to repel Molds. Pennies used to be made of copper, but not anymore. I do have a lot of 12-2 and 14-2 wiring that I could strip and put in ground if it would help keep away molds.?

I'm hoping the results/answers of the above question helps the OP of this thread (MarineCorps).

I use the Southern Ag brand of copper and use it at the rate of one Tablespoon to the gallon and also add a few drops of soap for better coverage. When using the copper you need to spray the bottoms as well as the tops of the leaves. I like to use it as a follow up to the bleach spray which works faster and if done right doesn't mess up the healthy parts of the plant. If you apply copper at much more than the minimum recommendation you can get some temporary stunting of the leaves.

Bill

[Starlight]

Originally Posted by b54red

You appear to have Gray Mold at the advanced stage. When GM is left too long without treatment it seems to invade the plant and nothing will completely stop it. When it gets to this point it causes stem lesions and eventually deadly rot on the fruit themselves. I have had this happen several times in the past to different plants usually blacks but sometimes GWRs. It seems that when they get to this stage it is very hard and sometimes impossible to stop the disease. I believe that the disease has become systemic when it gets to this point kind of like Late Blight does when it gets a foothold.

You can continue to use the bleach spray and copper spray but it may not be enough at this point but it should stop the spread to other plants if you keep it up. The last time I had Gray Mold do this was two years ago on a beautiful bushy Berkley Tie Dye Pink plant that was loaded with fruit. No matter how often I sprayed and how much I pruned off the diseased leaves new sites of disease kept popping up within days until the plant looked like a 8 ft tall palm tree. I finally gave in and pulled it. I hope yours hasn't gotten that bad.

We have been getting heavy hard rains for nearly two weeks now and I have been using the bleach spray about every three days since no fungicide can stay on the plants more than a few hours before another storm rolls in. It is too wet to keep up with the removal of dead leaves and diseased leaves so my only hope is to stop any new diseases before they get too far along. I had gotten all my Gray Mold and Early Blight under good control when this rainy period started and now I fear the next shoe to drop will be Septoria which is really hard to control in rainy weather.

Keep on trying to get it under control if you can. Good luck.

Bill



Bill

Appreciate this post as I have a plant with the same symptoms on the stem. I thought it might have been where the branch was just bent from being knocked down from all the strong winds and rains. Guess not. Will be removing it out tomorrow. Fudge and double fudge.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Starlight

Appreciate this post as I have a plant with the same symptoms on the stem. I thought it might have been where the branch was just bent from being knocked down from all the strong winds and rains. Guess not. Will be removing it out tomorrow. Fudge and double fudge.

Don't feel too bad I just removed a plant with Late Blight. First time I have seen it in about 4 years and was hoping to never see it again. Luckily I spotted it a few days ago while spraying with the bleach spray so I really doused the plant and the ones near it really good and then removed the affected part of the plant which was the top third. I hoped it hadn't gotten into the plant but it had and was showing on the new growth and stems lower down by this morning so I sprayed everything again with the bleach spray making sure to get the tops of the plants and all the stems. I then removed the plant and bagged it and will keep a close eye out on the rest for any appearance of LB. I knew what it was as soon as I saw it the other day but I was hoping it could have been some weird form of TSWV or even Gray Mold but that was only wishful thinking.

I am thinking that I may have acted fast enough that only that one plant will be lost. If that is the case it will be the least number of plants I have ever lost to a LB appearance in my garden. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Bill