Name this malady - tomato leaf diagnostics needed

[b54red]

Originally Posted by ginger2778

Bill, with all due respect, and having tried your bleach spray, I went back to the copper spray, which works the best on mildew, and Septoria. The bleach spray was just too destructive in my garden, and my plants suffered greatly, never fully recovered. I wish to re emphasize that I respect you very much, but I personally will never use the diluted bleach spray again. To everyone reading this, this is only my personal choice.

If you use it improperly it will not be effective and will damage plants. I have been using it very effectively on mildews for years now. The secret is to start using the spray early in the season before the mildew gets a good hold on the leaves. I first tried it on squash 7 or 8 years ago when none of the fungicides was stopping it and almost all my large leaves were covered with large mildew spots. The result was all of those leaves died after spraying but most of the younger leaves which had little mildew present did fine and the plants eventually recovered. I learned my lesson from that as well as from waiting til a disease was too far along on a tomato plant. The trick is to use it in a fine misting spray as soon as diseases first show up so that leaf damage is minimized. Every time I spray my tomatoes or peppers with the spray I also hit the cucumbers, squash and onions. I have found that by doing this and keeping a little Sevin dust on the stems I can grow squash until I am sick of eating them without problems from either SVBs or mildew.

With all due respect to copper as a fungicide it does not control gray mold very well once it gets started on a tomato plant. It does however slow it down some and is better than most other fungicides as a preventative measure. That is why I use Daconil, copper and diluted bleach sprays all season long. After killing back the gray mold I wait a day or two then apply the copper spray at the recommended dose. I grow a lot of black tomatoes and they are especially susceptible to GM so I keep a close watch for the first sign of it which always shows up despite using copper fungicide weekly. I used the copper spray more this year than ever and found it is not so good at preventing Early Blight which is prevented much better by Daconil. Since I grow a lot of plants close together I am usually hit by EB, GM and Septoria at different times almost every year and sometimes all of them at once. I try to alternate spraying Daconil and copper as preventatives and use the bleach spray when diseases show up to stop them if possible. Sometimes I wait too long on some plants and I usually end up with a plant with lots of dead leaves as a result. I now use the bleach spray during long rainy spells a couple of times a week so the diseases don't get ahead of me while the fungicides are washed off.

I'm sorry it didn't work for you but I haven't found a foliage disease that it wasn't helpful in controlling other than systemic ones like TSWV if used promptly and correctly.

Bill