Is this little thing really what's destroyed my gardens?

[z_willus_d]

Hi David, yeah bad karma from another life (or maybe this one ) I appreciate the encouraging words.
-n

[dice]

The most ironic thing is *where* this is all happening:
http://www.tommyersphotography.com/d...os/ag00270.jpg
http://media.smithsonianmag.com/imag..._aug08_631.jpg
http://matchbin-assets.s3.amazonaws....ques_field.jpg

(That could explain slow response from labs in the area: they
are all busy at this time of year with commercial tomato farm
business.)

[Paradajz]

hi, N.,

funny that you mentioned- we don't have a Father's day here, but if we did it would be mine second too ( her birthday on May 25th ).
i also like your place very much, and don't worry- a house yard is really something one can have getting fixed for his whole life and still get only half way there... but the point is that the process itself is so divinely beautiful, not only the result.

i'd like to summarize my view of your problem there, it's the time to do it.

1. it's very serious and can potentially get significantly worse. it's definitely a soil- born and uncurable pathogen there, with a capacity of puting the whole place on fire.
2. it's a V. in my final estimation, and altough it might appear as an ''easier'' disease than F. by it's results, it's actually the other way around- V. capacity of ''taking'' an awfull number of host plants and an indefinite capacity of survival are just terrible and the threat it therefore represents to such type of a garden is far more significant than that of a F.
3. again- my estimation based on details given, it's V.dahliae, Race 2 pahogen ( more heat tolerant than V.albo- atrum, actually more than usually stated with average net- search info, with an optimum in 25C range and symptoms appearing more agressive as the temp rises; commonly known for strains with huge number of hosts, such as peppers, etc. ; specific for it's ability to develop mycosclerotia in non- host plant and therefore unrestricted in it's survival rate, representing a threat even when symptoms aren't there; definitely present in the State of California, since just i personally know of 2 ''general informative instructions'' received in our Ministry of AG, warning about vigilance at plant and seed material import from there, and advising on a neccessity to adapt phyto- sanitary certificates for those with an additional clearence for ''presence of V.dahliae, R2''; thanks God, we didn't implement the instruction or i would never get my seeds for this season American Beauties test; finally, F. typically strikes at heavy blooming stage, V. does it at heavy setting fruits stage. still, pepper plants usually offer far greater chances of finding the stem discoloration down there than it's case with tomatoes. but, altogether, you absolutely need a test for both your plants and vermicast done.
4. it's manageable, it'll just take some time. do not believe everything you find when googling stuff ( BTW, don't believe me, i could be just some kid with plenty of spare time and a great googling ability, double- check anything stated here ); there are still ways of controling the ''officialy uncontrolable'', don't worry; in your shoes i would unfortunatelly not consider ''time restriction of planting sustainable plants'' an option if V.dahliae R2 proven, it's symply not known how long it can survive there on it's own, probably long enough.
5. with the moment you get the final test- diagnosis a period of ''getting in control'' starts for you. you will never actually totally get rid of it ( eradicate it ), but you can absolutely have it where you want it to be, and that's actually all that you need. there is sufficient time for you to reconsider your options with it, and those are not so narrow as it might seem from today's perspective
6. gardening is a rare God's given joy, and when getting such a formidable enemy as this disease on it's knees, it will be even more profound joy for you.

shall be back for another un- sleepy night, br

[Paradajz]

EDIT: a very very dreadfully very long double post

[Paradajz]

ups, not only that it's so ''short'' but i also doubled it... how can i remove the darn thing?

[z_willus_d]

And I thought there was more, but it's double-emphasized for effect. Well, thanks for the synopsis Ivan. And congratulations on birthday #2 and being a father, even if you don't celebrate there. I have to figure out how to do something nice for my Dad, which might put me in conflict with my own father's day wishes of taking it easy and watching a basketball final. Oh well.

I'm wondering, assuming I can find a reasonably priced lab to test my soil/vermicast, where best shall I grab the samples in the beds? Should I look for the plant that's most ill-affected to source the sample? How deep should I go down to extract the sample? How much? How many different samples? I'm guessing UCD may not be interested in testing soil where they've outright dismissed systemic problems for the area.

Thanks and have a nice day.
Naysen

[Heritage]

Ivan,

I appreciate the details on your heat treatment of V infected soil. I will archive your recommendations (if I don't have V. now, I probably will, someday) and refer to it as needed. For anyone in the US (maybe other countries also) I will add the step of: 1. first test the manure for herbicide residues before adding to your soil. Unfortunately, this is now necessary regardless of the source of your manure. Ironically, my first step at switching to organic farming was to add 60 yards of composted manure to my soil two years ago. The manure came from a stable of expensive horses, fed the best hay money can buy. I knew better, but didn't test the manure, and as it turned out, everywhere I spread the manure the tomato plants are showing the tell-tale signs of herbicide damage. Fortunately, I only spread manure over a small portion of my field so I will only loose a small portion (about 100)of my plants to the herbicide. If I were to use your heat treatment method I would probably substitute alfalfa for the manure or use a variation of Anne's solar method. (add layers) Although, in reality, if I tested positive for V. I would probably switch all of my tomato growing to containers and use a soiless mix. Kind of a faux-hydro system.

As for your puzzle, I really don't have a solid guess. Your first photos of Crnkovic Y. had me convinced it was probably P.M. but now I'm not sure. I'm going to say it is not V or F, and is probably a mold/fungus I'm not familiar with. (I'm not familiar with many). I'm curious to hear the solution!

Naysen, sorry to hear of the decline of your father's tomatoes. Hopefully, you will soon get a clinical answer to the soil/plants in both of your plots.

Steve

[LDx4]

Originally Posted by beeman

I live in the middle of Ontario, and yes we do get lots of frost. In fact during January it rarely gets above the freezing point. We used to get 15 feet of snow over a winter, but lately about 3 feet.

Don't give in Lyn, I too had a horrible time of it the last few years, but this one, so far is totally different.

I suffered with numerous problems, finally professionally diagnosed as 'Corky root rot'. So in an attempt to fix the trouble, I found Biotamax, a bacterial inoculate which I am trying for the first time. It's advised to physically dip the whole plant, pot and all, just before plant out. Seems to be working.

I also sprayed the whole garden just yesterday, perked and greened up everything.

Worth a try?

Beeman, thanks for the Biotamax recommendation. As a matter of fact, this is exactly what I did at plant out this year with most of my plants - I used Ami's recipe of Biotamax + Actinovate + Mycogrow + molasses http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?p=199882 and dipped each plant, pot and all, before planting out. So far though, those plants look just about the same as the others that I didn't dip before plant out. So my results are inconclusive. But I won't give up trying to grow organically in the future. Good to know that the Biotamax is working well for you!

Lyn

[beeman]

Originally Posted by LDx4

Beeman, thanks for the Biotamax recommendation. As a matter of fact, this is exactly what I did at plant out this year with most of my plants - I used Ami's recipe of Biotamax + Actinovate + Mycogrow + molasses http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?p=199882 and dipped each plant, pot and all, before planting out. So far though, those plants look just about the same as the others that I didn't dip before plant out. So my results are inconclusive. But I won't give up trying to grow organically in the future. Good to know that the Biotamax is working well for you! Lyn

A big difference from the link, I brew my Biotamax for 24/48 hours, using AACT methods.
Short time for bacterial, longer time for fungal. Brewing does vastly increase both bacteria and microbes, as seen in my microscope.

[LDx4]

Greetings everyone -- Happy Father's Day to all you dads! I'm reporting in with the preliminary results of the myclobutanil spraying. I sprayed on Friday, and so far, everything looks pretty good (fingers crossed). I'm not seeing the explosive yellow growth pattern anymore and all the plants seem to be "staying put." Of course, they don't look all that healthy because I pruned all the yellowing stems off before spraying and now they don't have that lush, thick appearance anymore. Yesterday I noticed that I still have some active fungus on a couple of the plants that looks like this:



so I'm going to hit those areas with something just to kill the fungus (other fungus spots now look like dried up brown spots on other plants).

So I'm in "wait and see" mode to determine if the spraying did actually work.

Ivan, I have no guesses for your leaf puzzle! My knowledge of tomato diseases is woefully lacking, and each year I realize that I know even less than I thought I did. My method has usually been to cut off the branches with problem areas and hope they don't come back .
Naysen and Steve - of course I hope that your lab tests, if you do get testing, show that your plants don't have the dreaded V.

My new, additional problem is that a few of my plants are showing signs of herbicide drift and then yesterday I saw my neighbor across the street spraying weeds along his driveway.
Have a good day all!

Lyn

[aclum]

Hi Naysen (or should I say "Hi, Aggie" ?),

Here's how A & Labs recommend collecting samples.....

http://www.al-labs-west.com/sections...hologysampling

If you get impatient with Davis, and consider going with this lab, I think you have to call for pricing on the plant and soil, etc. pathology services.

BTW, you might get a quicker response from Davis if you mention that your wife is a graduate and you studied there. Seriously! It couldn't hurt !

Anne

[dice]

how can i remove the darn thing

For 2 days you can edit a post. If a post is still editable,
the little "edit" button will show at the bottom of it.
Click on "edit", and when the editing window opens up,
highlight everything and delete it, then replace it with
"edit: Double post". Everyone will know what happened
when they see that and simply continue past it.

[dice]

There may be more happening with the manure treatment
than simply heat of decomposition killing the verticillium.
I had one row where verticillium took down 4 Moskvich plants
pretty fast one year. (A few Pruden's Purple plants were afflicted,
too, but not as quickly.)

In mid-winter I piled up a foot of aged horse manure on that
row, and I left it open, letting the rain run through it for a few
months, washing nutrients down into the soil underneath the
manure. In spring I turned it under before planting. I had no
verticillium in that row the next year.

edit: This was before aminopyralid was approved for sale in
the US, or about the same time, and it had not spread out
into the hay/manure supply chain yet, as not many hay
farmers were using it.

[z_willus_d]

Well, I just heard back from the UCD plant diagnosis services department. Here's what they wrote:
"Hi Naysen,I'm am ****, a graduate student in the department of plant pathology. Can you please send me a foliar sample (both stems and leaves) of the bell pepper and tomato. If you can, please get symptomatic plant with healthy tissues. In addition, a root and crown system will also be beneficial for identifying and soil borne pathogen."

Does anyone know what "root and crown system" refers to?

Thanks,
Naysen

[Mlm1]

Naysen, that is great they got back to you so fast and want plant samples. The crown is the part at soil line so it sounds like they want some roots and the stem that comes off the root as well as the leaf and stem samples. It seems to be working out very well. I wonder if you can mention that v race 2 is in the differential in case it is rare here and not quickly considered. This will be very interesting.
Marla