recovered from or cured of late blight?

[tjg911]

of 11 plants 5 are dead. some are alive but have no fruits.

however, these plants are still alive, have some foliage with no signs of LB, have tomatoes without any LB lesions and have no LB on their vines :
1. sun gold lots of flowers and i'm picking a fair amount of tomatoes
2. prue between 2 plants in the same cage there are 5 tomatoes 1 is turning red
3. nicky crain has 3 tomatoes and i picked 1 today as it's 1/2 colored
4. aunt gertie's gold has 1 green tomato

isn't LB suposed to kill tomato plants in just a matter of days? how is it that 7 weeks after LB was found i have 5 plants that have healthy foliage and healthy fruits? all 11 plants had LB on their leaves and then the ripening fruits, there's no doubt of that. i did not use any fungicides. i did spray fish milk for a few weeks but gave up when it appeared all was lost, that was 2 weeks ago. i did not tear out any plants (except for reif's red heart 7/10 or 7/11 as it was the 1st infected plant) and i'm surprised to see these 4 doing so well!

did the dry weather and sun cure them of LB? that's impossible from what i have read.

did the fish milk give them a boost to survive?

did both work together?

i'd sure like to hear from you folks, why are these plants not only alive but apprear to have fully recovered!

tom

[mjc]

Possibility #3...it wasn't LB they had.

[kdoble]

I remember reading in one of these threads that a mature plant can outgrow verticillium. Just a thought.
Glad to hear your plants have rebounded!

[tjg911]

Originally Posted by mjc

Possibility #3...it wasn't LB they had.

sorry, i had LB, no doubt at all about that. this was not maybe it was absolutely.

tom

[mjc]

Confirmed by a lab test?

I don't want to argue it but LB is nearly always fatal, short of some heavy duty systemic fungicides...which milk and fish are not. Mild contact fungicides...maybe. Fertilizer...yes.

[bcday]

It may be too soon to celebrate. Hot, dry weather can slow down or stop the development of LB, but the spores can survive those conditions on living plant tissue and they will resume growth when conditions once again become favorable. That may happen soon, especially if we get rain from Danny. Already the weather is turning cooler. You still need to keep an eye on your plants because you still have weeks of growing season left and actually those late-season weeks are the prime LB season in any year.

I'm amazed at the ability of some plants to hang on though. At the community garden a few miles from here there are tomato plants that I'm sure have never been treated with anything. Their lower leaves are all dead but they still have topknots of green leaves and healthy unripe fruit. And I know those plants had LB, no question. I have no idea why they are still standing, other than hot weather coming at a fortuitous time. The majority of the tomato plants in those gardens long ago died or were pulled up though, so those that are left are definitely a small minority and it remains to be seen how long they'll keep going now that the weather is turning cooler.

[kdoble]

bcday makes a great point. Last week I had to pull all but 3 plants due to LB after we had a full day of heavy rain followed by 2 days of 100% humidity. Since then, we've had dry sunny days and my 3 plants are fine ~ these 3 did have some infected leaves, but I cut them off, and sprayed with daconil and they are producing healthy fruit ~ HOWEVER, I'm sure the next time it rains it will seal the fate of these last three. My 3 that are surviving are sungold, persimmons and goose creek. I'll keep my fingers crossed for both of us that our plants survive the next rain. Keep us posted, it's very interesting.

[tomakers]

I saw signs of what I believe is late blight on many of my plants 5 weeks ago. I have tried to spray with milk and aspirin after each rain. I have about 65 plants in the ground. Sungold(which was the first I noticed) had black blotches that appeared to bird droppings at first glance. I removed the infected leaves, etc., until I had too many to handle. The plants are still making fruit and new growth. I have removed infected fruit (several over the last week) from various plants, which look like late blight to me, but the plants are still producing good fruit also, in fact, MOST(99%) are OK. Maybe they are all doomed, but everything I know about late blight suggests the plants should all be dead already. I don't really see much sign of the disease spreading, actually it seems that the infected areas are dead, but the total plant is still going and producing, and I see little additional infection. I hope my initial diagnosis was wrong. We have had plenty of rain (3.75" last weekend), and the conditions seemed perfect for spread (high humidity and hot). I suppose I may not have to worry at all, actually, because the possible hurricane headed in this direction may make it all meaningless.
Happy Gardening,
Tom

[tjg911]

tomakers, if you had LB then you are seeing what i have seen. now yesterday and today we will get a lot of rain and it is so cool it's cold - perfect for LB. let's see what happens this coming week.

i'm wondering if the conventional wisdom on LB is incorrect. maybe it doesn't always kill plants. maybe the advice is to pull and bag plants immediately is just a generally accepted warning to help prevent spreading of the spores? in a year like this it seems to matter little because it's everywhere. if i pulled all my plants i would not have had any tomatoes since mid july. i sure wish now that i left my reif's red heart plant which was the 1st to show signs of LB and the only plant i destroyed.

tom

[eddie46]

I noticed LB early July. Sprayed every 3 days with daconel. Plants slowly died but I had tomatoes thru Aug. and continue to pick. All plants are now dead except Thessonki.

Ed