Help..... lol, is this southern wilt

[Debbiej]

It’s starting to effect more and more plants. Sad time to see work just die.

[Debbiej]

I have about 180 plants and looks to be 1/3rd are effected

[KarenO]

Severe systemic disease. Very possibly southern wilt.
You should Report it to your local agricultural office.
Its very important to get a definitive correct diagnosis and handle disposal of diseased plants properly.
I’m very sorry
KarenO

[jtjmartin]

Southern Bacterial Wilt (BW) is pretty prevalent throughout Virginia. I now graft to avoid it. And, it's been a pretty bad year with high soil moisture and a lot of heat.

I usually plant some "leftover" tomatoes that are not grafted and most end up looking like your pic - big, healthy, good looking plants that just start to wilt. Heartbreaking.

Jeff

[Debbiej]

Tis heartbreaking and thank you for the responses.
We have another patch uphill, 6acres in between. Haven’t seen any sign of wilt there.....yet, and hope I don’t.

[KarenO]

do not save seeds or share them.
KO

[Debbiej]

Hey KarenO.........love your aviator pic. Huge tomato!
Nope, not gonna save any seed.
Everyday I look and see more wilting.
I cut one at the base lobed off a 2” section and suspended in water. Sure enough a milky substance flowed.
I pull them out as soon as I see tale tail signs. put in big trash bags, take them to the dump.
I’ve heard that you can solarize the soil. Plastic for a summer will heat it so it maybe salvageable In a couple years. Then I heard you can plant cabbage and that helps the soil too.
Question .......would lime help? Anyone tried?

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Debbiej

Hey KarenO.........love your aviator pic. Huge tomato!
Nope, not gonna save any seed.
Everyday I look and see more wilting.
I cut one at the base lobed off a 2” section and suspended in water. Sure enough a milky substance flowed.
I pull them out as soon as I see tale tail signs. put in big trash bags, take them to the dump.
I’ve heard that you can solarize the soil. Plastic for a summer will heat it so it maybe salvageable In a couple years. Then I heard you can plant cabbage and that helps the soil too.
Question .......would lime help? Anyone tried?

What I used to do and it obviously worked for me was to pour a gallon of water with about 8 to 10 ozs of Clorox in it into the hole where the plant was pulled from. I would replant in the same spot in about 2 weeks and never got BW in the new plant so I assumed it worked. The problem for you is I was only dealing with at most 10 or 12 cases of it at a time in my worst case. Usually I only had to deal with 2 to 3 plants and rarely more than 6.

I now graft all my plants and it has eliminated the BW and most of the RKN and fusarium wilt. The only root stock that kept BW away from my plants is the RST-04-106-T from NE Seeds.

Bill

[Lee]

http://www.tomatodirt.com/bacterial-wilt.html


Here's a link with some notes about it.