Can't tell what's wrong with this tomato plant

[hasshoes]

Ps- I've seen "Mancozeb" rec'd on a a few sites for it, but for some reason I was thinking it was only for pro farmers- it is not. You can buy it on Amazon or probably at your local store.

PSS- I also forgot to add that I use Neem Tree Oil in my spraying rotation. Also maybe google making a baking soda spray- I *vaguely* remember reading something about that, but never got around to trying it. :0)

[tam91]

Thanks you - I'll have a look

[b54red]

I had it on appear at different times on almost all of my 'black' tomato plants this year. It was fairly easy to control with the Clorox spray I have mentioned in earlier posts and it will only cost you a very small amount. A day or two after using the diluted Clorox solution follow up with Daconil as a preventative. I only had to spray two plants more than once. Both were JD's Special C Tex and they went on to have incredibly productive seasons. For the spray add 8 ounces of regular strength Clorox to one full gallon of water and add a little dishwashing soap for a wetting agent. Make sure to spray late in the day to prevent leaf burn.

[norcalblacktail]

It is tomato russet mite. No doubt about it. You can control with a sulfur spray or predatory mites. Get on it quick or your plants will die and it will spread to others. You can see them with a 15X magnifier.

[tam91]

The mancozeb seems to be helping this plant - still to early to tell for sure. I'm still getting fruit off of it though, and it tastes fine.

I'm told by the local farmer (he does grow heirloom tomatoes too) that we don't have tomato russet mite here in IL. Of course, I have no idea if he's correct, but he does seem knowledgeable.

[Tracydr]

I have a question about this mold. I lost a purple Russian earlier in the season to it, although I got loads of tomatoes off of it. At the time, I had no idea what was going on, suspected overspray of the neighbors lawn, but that didn't really make sense given the location of the plant and the plants nearby that were unaffected. Anyway, it seems like a brief, severe aphid infestation occurred right before this started. Can they cause it to worsen?

[b54red]

I don't know what causes gray mold but it can be very hard to get rid of if the plants don't get enough air flow and sunlight. I had it on a few of my dark tomatoes last year and controlled it rather easily with my bleach spray. This year was another story altogether since I had my tomatoes planted very close. I sprayed faithfully with Daconil but this year it didn't seem to have much effect in slowing the spread of this stuff. I ended up losing quite a few plants because I waited too long to start spraying with the bleach solution. Even using the bleach solution I needed to spray about every two or three days for a while to get it completely under control. I didn't have any further problems with it for almost 6 weeks then we had a week of unending rain and when I was finally able to go out in the garden it was on most of my new plants that were just starting to produce. I spayed them day before yesterday and will probably spay again tomorrow. I have noticed that it seems to like the black tomatoes and potato leaf plants the best but it will get on any plant. If the plants are near each other it spreads very rapidly if not stopped.

[rsg2001]

In another thread about Black Cherry this year we have been discussing this. Someone suggested to look very very closely at the leaves and I would probably see the telltale circles of early blight. I did that and found this to be the case. Evidently on blacks and some of the greens the circles are not yellow. I too have never seen any photos on the disease sites that correspond to the crumbly leaves.

I had gray mold a few years ago and it was different looking from what was described in this thread. I found that Daconil slowed it down, although I couldn't stand the smell and haven't used it since then.

[feldon30]

Originally Posted by hasshoes

It looks like it could be grey mold (botrytis) though it hard to tell by the pictures.

That was my thought as well. Whenever I have a garden again, I'll probably take Black Cherry out of my usual rotation in favor of Purple Haze or something similar. Black Cherry goes down almost every year to botrytis.