Big problems!

Bruinwar · June 28, 2015

Things are not looking good. I'm unsure what it is but I think it's Late Blight already. We put the plants in on Memorial Weekend & it's not even the 4th & I've got plants dying.

Friday evening I spent an hour hamming stakes in out the edges of my baskets to hold them up. Something I shoulda done already I know. All the plants looked OK, many looked GREAT. The suspected early blight had not returned after pruning, bleach spray & more pruning. Rain & very cool weather all day yesterday so I went there to spray this morning. On arrival, find a lot of plants with black spots, stems & leaves, some wilting like they are dying.

It seems to be strain specific. My Carmellos (a hybrid & the worst) in the pics, Garden Peach, Black Russian, White Queen, Amazon Chocolate, Purple Cherokee, & Kelloggs. My Aunt Rubies, Black Krim are clean so far. The hybrids, Celebrity & Big Beef are also clean & thriving quite well.

As much as I am sad, I was never optimistic about another year at this location.
Actually I think that without a hoop house, it might not be possible (for ME) to grow heirlooms in my area.

See pics. What do I do? Should I just pull the sick plants ASAP?

Regards,
Joe S.

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi...nt=photo%2cjpg

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi...nt=photo%2cjpg

Let me know if the links do not work please.

KarenO · June 28, 2015

Grey mold? Can we see a closeup on the leaves
KarenO

Bruinwar · June 28, 2015

Hi Karen & thanks for your reply. I've never seen gray mold before so maybe it is.

Here is the link to a close-up of a leaf:

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi...nt=photo%2cjpg

Edit: let me know if the file is not viewable. If you click "show original" & zoom in, it is a detailed view of the leaf.

b54red · June 28, 2015

Use the bleach spray then tomorrow clip off the damaged leaves and use the bleach spray again then see what everything looks like in a day or two. That looks pretty bad so use the 5 1/2 oz to the gallon with Ultra Clorox. Don't be shy spray the ground and surrounding plants a bit to make sure because if it is LB then you need to hit everything in the garden with the bleach spray to slow down the spread of the spores. If it is just Gray Mold you have it pretty bad and so the more thorough treatment is called for. It is probably Gray Mold but Late Blight is very similar in appearance. I got LB one time in early July so it is possible but I usually see it in the fall if I see it. I hope to never see it again.

After you have done the two successive bleach sprays and cut off all the diseased leaves then apply a copper spray. Remove every leaf that is showing damage and I know you will have some fruits over exposed but it can't be helped. I got some sun scald on quite a few fruits last week because I had to do the same thing to my plants two weeks ago.

Bill

Bruinwar · June 28, 2015

OK gosh darnoodley I shoulda hit-im with the bleach this morning. My plot is a 1/2 hour drive away, very close to where I work, so I'm planning to spray in the morning. Only the healthy plants got daconil this morning. I do have some copper soap in my arsenal so we shall see.

Thanks for all the help Bill. I'll let post the results in the coming days.

edit: gosh darnoodley!? Best swear filter ever!

AlittleSalt · June 28, 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bruinwar

edit: gosh darnoodley!? Best swear filter ever!

LOL, it does work well.

KarenO · June 28, 2015

Pretty sure it's grey mold. Follow Bill's advice and hopefully you can get a handle on it
KO

Bruinwar · July 3, 2015

Update on my "big problems". Two bleach applications 5.5 oz per gallon, Mon & Wed mornings. Copper spray yesterday morning. All applications done right at daybreak. I at my lunch at the garden yesterday & examined the damages.

It does not appear to be spreading. Most of the diseased leaves are drying up. Today I am headed out there to weed, feed (TTF!), & of course, prune. One or two of these plants seem to be infected throughout & I am unsure what to do with them. Pruning the diseased parts would leave nothing but the new growth on top, meaning, no plant.

The main thing here is that it appears to have stopped. Thanks Red & Karen for the help!

b54red · July 3, 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bruinwar

Update on my "big problems". Two bleach applications 5.5 oz per gallon, Mon & Wed mornings. Copper spray yesterday morning. All applications done right at daybreak. I at my lunch at the garden yesterday & examined the damages.

It does not appear to be spreading. Most of the diseased leaves are drying up. Today I am headed out there to weed, feed (TTF!), & of course, prune. One or two of these plants seem to be infected throughout & I am unsure what to do with them. Pruning the diseased parts would leave nothing but the new growth on top, meaning, no plant.

The main thing here is that it appears to have stopped. Thanks Red & Karen for the help!

It is probably better to prune off the diseased and dying leaves that are shriveling up than leave them on the plant. If you leave them there is a greater chance of spores that were not stopped by the bleach spreading to healthy leaves. I lost a few tomatoes to sun scald but it is worth it to stop Gray Mold. If the Gray Mold had already moved more than half way up the plant before you treated it then it may have been too late to save it. I had this happen to a Berkely Tie Dye Pink last summer and no matter what I did I couldn't stop it. All the other tomatoes that got treated when the GM was less prevalent went on to have long happy lives and lots of tomatoes. If that does happen and it continues to devour the plant leaving it with almost no leaves then you just learned the same lesson I did about waiting too late on treatment. I have stressed this over and over about the bleach spray. Use it early and use it often and use it before any other treatment once a disease shows up on the plant.

Good luck and hopefully all your plants will be fine.

Bill

Bruinwar · July 3, 2015

Red,

This infection went from zero to halfway up the plant in 36 hours! I had sprayed them with diluted bleach a few days before due to what looked like Early Blight. Friday night the plants looked great. Rain all day with cold temps on Saturday. Sunday morning, 30% of my crop are infected. Crazy fast!

Funny thing is no one in the plots around me got it. Maybe it was on the stakes I put in a few days before. I bleached them in May but they were laying in the weeds for weeks so they mighta picked up the spores.

Big day today. Some plants look more like mini-palm trees after I was done pruning.

b54red · July 3, 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bruinwar

Red,

This infection went from zero to halfway up the plant in 36 hours! I had sprayed them with diluted bleach a few days before due to what looked like Early Blight. Friday night the plants looked great. Rain all day with cold temps on Saturday. Sunday morning, 30% of my crop are infected. Crazy fast!

Funny thing is no one in the plots around me got it. Maybe it was on the stakes I put in a few days before. I bleached them in May but they were laying in the weeds for weeks so they mighta picked up the spores.

Big day today. Some plants look more like mini-palm trees after I was done pruning.

Yes I have been in the same situation with both Gray Mold and Septoria when rainy weather persists for a long time. I once had a whole bed of plants 7 feet tall with only a little bush on the top after a long bout with Septoria. Like I said use the bleach spray at the first sign of returning disease and don't be afraid to use it often.

When something like Gray Mold hits the first impression of it being just on a few leaves is wrong. It has already spread and infected more of the plant that you aren't aware of yet. When it is hit with the bleach the extent of the disease becomes more obvious within twenty four hours. Even though I now have my Gray Mold problem under control the frequent rains and high humidity are causing me to use the bleach spray two to three times a week because no fungicide can be kept on the plants til we hit a dry spell.

Bill

Bruinwar · July 12, 2015

Bleach sprays followed up with copper a couple times last week. It seemed like it slowed whatever it is I got down a bit. Cold rain all day (5/8" in gauge) on Thursday.
Stopped by Friday to spray & found disaster.

Whatever it is, one local master gardener claims it's bacterial canker, speck, or spot. All 81 plants are heavily infected. Even the Celebrity & Big Beef hybrids. In under 24 hours it spread all over. Unbelievably fast. The pic below shows a leaf that represents nearly every leaf in the garden.

At this point I am throwing in the towel. Should these plants all be chopped right now? I do have some large fruit I am hoping will ripen. I am worried about this disease spreading to other plots.

Well my Purple Tomatillos seem to be unaffected so I can look forward to some green sauce. Hunting good tomatoes at the markets this year! Thanks everyone that took the time to post all the great suggestions. If it is Bacterial Speck, Spot, Canker, it was likely hopeless from the start.

Bruinwar · July 12, 2015

Sorry about the formatting.

edit: seems that the formatting is fine now. The larger picture must have been in my cache.

b54red · July 12, 2015

Sorry about the disaster that has hit you. It happens to all of us eventually if we garden long enough. I haven't seen anything like what you showed in the last pictures; but I did have something similar looking one summer when it rained a lot and was cooler than normal. I sprayed every day between rains with the bleach spray and ended up with palm trees. Did the same thing with Septoria one summer and the worst was when I got Late Blight in June one summer and lost everything within two weeks.

Is it all over the plant or just on the lower leaves? If it is on the new growth it is probably a lost cause. I wonder if it is something that came in on the rain like Late Blight frequently does.

Bill

Bruinwar · July 13, 2015

It's all over all the plants other than some right at the top appear to be clean. Whatever it is, it's FAST. Last year it was Late Blight, took most plants in 2 weeks. The year before it was something else, not as bad though.

My first year was unbelievably perfect, 16 bushels or more of the best tasting tomatoes ever!

Regardless, thanks Red & everyone else for all your help. Looking forward to next year. Wish me luck this year locating good tomatoes. I got some nice looking red one's on Saturday, not bad but nothing close to what I want.

June 28, 2015	#1
Bruinwar Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Mar 2015 Location: Ann Arbor Michigan Posts: 93	Big problems! Things are not looking good. I'm unsure what it is but I think it's Late Blight already. We put the plants in on Memorial Weekend & it's not even the 4th & I've got plants dying. Friday evening I spent an hour hamming stakes in out the edges of my baskets to hold them up. Something I shoulda done already I know. All the plants looked OK, many looked GREAT. The suspected early blight had not returned after pruning, bleach spray & more pruning. Rain & very cool weather all day yesterday so I went there to spray this morning. On arrival, find a lot of plants with black spots, stems & leaves, some wilting like they are dying. It seems to be strain specific. My Carmellos (a hybrid & the worst) in the pics, Garden Peach, Black Russian, White Queen, Amazon Chocolate, Purple Cherokee, & Kelloggs. My Aunt Rubies, Black Krim are clean so far. The hybrids, Celebrity & Big Beef are also clean & thriving quite well. As much as I am sad, I was never optimistic about another year at this location. Actually I think that without a hoop house, it might not be possible (for ME) to grow heirlooms in my area. See pics. What do I do? Should I just pull the sick plants ASAP? Regards, Joe S. https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi...nt=photo%2cjpg https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi...nt=photo%2cjpg Let me know if the links do not work please. Last edited by Bruinwar; June 28, 2015 at 01:23 PM. Reason: trying to get the pics to show in high res.

June 28, 2015	#3
Bruinwar Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Mar 2015 Location: Ann Arbor Michigan Posts: 93	Hi Karen & thanks for your reply. I've never seen gray mold before so maybe it is. Here is the link to a close-up of a leaf: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resi...nt=photo%2cjpg Edit: let me know if the file is not viewable. If you click "show original" & zoom in, it is a detailed view of the leaf. Last edited by Bruinwar; June 28, 2015 at 04:40 PM.

July 12, 2015	#13
Bruinwar Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Mar 2015 Location: Ann Arbor Michigan Posts: 93	Sorry about the formatting. edit: seems that the formatting is fine now. The larger picture must have been in my cache. Last edited by Bruinwar; July 13, 2015 at 06:21 AM.

June 28, 2015	#2
KarenO Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Vancouver Island Posts: 5,932	Grey mold? Can we see a closeup on the leaves KarenO

June 28, 2015	#4
b54red Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Alabama Posts: 7,068	Use the bleach spray then tomorrow clip off the damaged leaves and use the bleach spray again then see what everything looks like in a day or two. That looks pretty bad so use the 5 1/2 oz to the gallon with Ultra Clorox. Don't be shy spray the ground and surrounding plants a bit to make sure because if it is LB then you need to hit everything in the garden with the bleach spray to slow down the spread of the spores. If it is just Gray Mold you have it pretty bad and so the more thorough treatment is called for. It is probably Gray Mold but Late Blight is very similar in appearance. I got LB one time in early July so it is possible but I usually see it in the fall if I see it. I hope to never see it again. After you have done the two successive bleach sprays and cut off all the diseased leaves then apply a copper spray. Remove every leaf that is showing damage and I know you will have some fruits over exposed but it can't be helped. I got some sun scald on quite a few fruits last week because I had to do the same thing to my plants two weeks ago. Bill

July 3, 2015	#8
Bruinwar Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Mar 2015 Location: Ann Arbor Michigan Posts: 93	Update on my "big problems". Two bleach applications 5.5 oz per gallon, Mon & Wed mornings. Copper spray yesterday morning. All applications done right at daybreak. I at my lunch at the garden yesterday & examined the damages. It does not appear to be spreading. Most of the diseased leaves are drying up. Today I am headed out there to weed, feed (TTF!), & of course, prune. One or two of these plants seem to be infected throughout & I am unsure what to do with them. Pruning the diseased parts would leave nothing but the new growth on top, meaning, no plant. The main thing here is that it appears to have stopped. Thanks Red & Karen for the help!

July 13, 2015	#15
Bruinwar Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Mar 2015 Location: Ann Arbor Michigan Posts: 93	It's all over all the plants other than some right at the top appear to be clean. Whatever it is, it's FAST. Last year it was Late Blight, took most plants in 2 weeks. The year before it was something else, not as bad though. My first year was unbelievably perfect, 16 bushels or more of the best tasting tomatoes ever! Regardless, thanks Red & everyone else for all your help. Looking forward to next year. Wish me luck this year locating good tomatoes. I got some nice looking red one's on Saturday, not bad but nothing close to what I want.