Member discussion regarding the methods, varieties and merits of growing tomatoes.
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July 19, 2021 | #1 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jul 2021
Location: NY
Posts: 4
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Fungus? Help
Hello - I am new here and having trouble seeing any pictures for some reason, which is not making it easy to self diagnose this. I am going to try and up-load some pics here, hopefully that works. I’ll welcome any advice on viewing pics as well.
Earlier this summer, around the first week of June, and right after I transplanted my plants to the garden I had what I thought was septoria on them. I used b54red’s bleach spray along with daconil and they seemed to have recovered very nicely. Honestly, I was pumped and seemed to be on my way to my best crop ever. Then the last two weeks have been almost constant heavy rain here in central New York. There was finally a break on Friday and I noticed some small areas of leaf spots. I applied bleach spray and removed some leaves. Then on Sunday morning it looked worse so I applied daconil. I had bough a backpack mister (for some apple trees) and used it to apply both. It was the first time I had used the sprayer but I am not sure if that matters. The pictures attached show how they look now, Monday evening. I assume that they are lost for the year, which is extremely frustrating but I am hoping someone can tell me what this is and what I did wrong. |
July 19, 2021 | #2 |
Tomatoville® Administrator
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: The Bay State
Posts: 3,207
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You can’t view photos until you make your first post (which is this one) and I subsequently approve your account. It’s how I deal with keeping out the daily onslaught of spammers.
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Mischka One last word of farewell, Dear Master and Mistress. Whenever you visit my grave, say to yourselves with regret but also with happiness in your hearts at the remembrance of my long happy life with you: "Here lies one who loved us and whom we loved." No matter how deep my sleep I shall hear you, and not all the power of death can keep my spirit from wagging a grateful tail. |
July 20, 2021 | #3 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Romania/Germany , z 4-6
Posts: 1,582
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That's pretty dire, I'm not sure if any of those will make it. I'm inclined to think that's not septoria, those black petioles are not typical, more like bacterial speck or something. A copper fungicide would have actually helped better in that case than daconil.
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July 20, 2021 | #4 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jul 2021
Location: NY
Posts: 4
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Mischka - I can see pictures now. Thanks!
Does it seem like I should even try and treat or maybe just get them out of the garden before they infect something else? |
July 21, 2021 | #5 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Romania/Germany , z 4-6
Posts: 1,582
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Looking at them again, I'm now sort of thinking in might even be TSWV, although all the plants getting infected is uncommon. I would say remove them.
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July 24, 2021 | #6 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Cheektowaga, NY
Posts: 2,466
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You probably caused some of that damage from the bleach spray.
Septoria doesn't usually appear in NY until mid to late July, anyway it's easy to diagnose from the lesions. Daconil is a preventative, it's not a cure. The plants may have just been stressed too from water logged soil, from too much rain, |
July 24, 2021 | #7 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jul 2021
Location: NY
Posts: 4
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From what I read on b54red’s posts the bleach spray couldn’t hurt healthy plants. You wouldn’t agree with that?
Do you agree with the other poster who said that these plants cannot be saved? Copper? Anything? Last edited by mdtalleyrand; July 24, 2021 at 11:05 AM. |
July 24, 2021 | #8 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Cheektowaga, NY
Posts: 2,466
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Bleach is going to cause some leaf cell damage regardless, which is why Bill is so careful with the concentration in dealing with the fungal diseases in his humid climate. A last ditch attempt to stop an infection maybe, but not the first thing to consider if you haven't even diagnosed exactly what you've got.
A stressed plant is not a healthy plant, a plant root stressed from too much water is going to show yellow leaves starting from the bottom, with the roots unable to bring up nutrients from the soil, it goes into survival mode, diverting resources to newer growth, sacrificing the old leaves. A stressed plant is also more susceptible to pathogens and insect damage. First you have to investigate the soil to see if it's waterlogged or not. Has it been draining away all that rain? Roots need air too, not just water otherwise the conditions will go anaerobic and the soil will start smelling bad. Also what kind of soil is it and what have you been adding, fertilizers and stuff?. Next you have to diagnose if you have a disease,bacterial,virus or fungal or if you have insect damage from aphids or whatnot. Maybe some closeup pictures of some damaged leaves (top and bottom) and stems might help somebody here recognize something. If you've got a plant that looks like a goner, you could pull it so we can see what the roots look like. I don't know if it's something really bad like TSWV, which is more rare in NY where Thrips aren't a problem (I'm in Western NY, never seen a thrip) but TSWV can also be imported on infected nursery plants from other areas or infected greenhouse plants. There are other nasty killer diseases, like soil born fungal diseases like Verticillium wilt and others too. Gardening ain't always easy and you have to play detective |
July 24, 2021 | #9 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jul 2021
Location: NY
Posts: 4
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Here are some close ups of the leaves. I havent dug any out yet but if you need me to I will. I appreciate any ideas.
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July 25, 2021 | #10 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Alabama
Posts: 7,068
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Since I was mentioned I will say that those plants look like they could possibly be beyond hope at this point. I say that as I have had the same thing happen to some of my plants this past few weeks due to far too much rain far too often the past month.
I have gone almost a full month with rain every day from .4 inches to 3 inches with two single cloudy hot steamy days as the only exceptions. Almost every day started with 100% humidity and have been followed with showers and thunderstorms interspersed with increadibly hot hand humid sunny speels followed by showers in the evening and nights. As you can guess this has led to some massive outbreaks of foliage diseases including some septoria to go along with almost permanent early blight conditions and some gray mold thown in for good measure. I have used daconil, copper spray and the bleach spray. Needless to say the daconil was the least effective due to the rain. The copper helped some as did the bleach spray especially with the gray mold and septoria. Despite spraying all my plants several times a week with one or the other there is just nothing that can be done to stop the damage from that amount of rain in these hot humid conditions. I defintely do not use the bleach spray as only a last ditch effort to save plants but just the oppisite most of the time. The concentrations I use do not damage healthy leaf tissue nor does it seem to affect blossoms like copper can so I will frequently use it very early in an attempt to head off a disaster in the making or because it is the absolute best alternative to use when the rain just wont allow the other fungicides to stay on long enough to work. However the bleach spray can cause some damage to leaves that have been battered and waterlogged from extreme rain like we have been experiencing this summer. When that is happening I will still use the bleach spray and lose some very damged waterlogged leaves so the newer growth can succeed without overwhelming foliage diseases. I have also clipped multiple wheelbarrows of damaged and blight infected limbs from my plants this summer in my attempts to keep my tomatoes somewhat productive despite the rainy conditions. Even with all my work many plants got to the point where I just pulled them but still most of my grafted plants are still struggling along even after a month of hellishly wet steamy conditions that have caused most other gardeners in the area to throw up their hands in surrender and just watch their plants die. Despite these conditions my plants have been amazingly productive and this has been one of my best seasons ever. For some reason this year many of what I would call average or below average producing varieties have had explosive production of above average fruit and some of my most dependable producers have been only average producers this season. I have no idea why that has happened but it was really exciting to get so many very large tomatoes off varieties that rarely produced any large fruits. I also produced more tomatoes in the 2 lb category this year than ever before although that is not one of my goals it does look good when you have a ripening table with multiple monsters sitting among the larger than average size tomatoes that came off the vines up until about a week ago. At that point the rain just became too much for many of the plants and many tomatoes burst or rotted on the vine and fruit worms and army worms did a lot of damage this past week. Yesterday 2 out of 3 tomatoes I picked had worms in them and of course the largest ones were the first choice of the worms as usual. Tomorrow will be another day of clipping and removing diseased limbs and leaves to salvage whet I can. We are having a little break in the rain so it will be easier to work with the plants if it holds off a day or two and maybe some that looked hopeless will perk up as the soil dries out some. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Bill |
July 25, 2021 | #11 | |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Alabama
Posts: 7,068
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Quote:
It looks like your plants are suffering from waterlogged conditions and nutrient deficiency as a result. I have had some plants get that way in my beds that drained poorly or were too high in peat content and thus held water longer but it looks like all of yours are suffering. One thing I would do differently next year is get rid of that fabric ground cover and replace it with a good cypress mulch. The year I used a fabric ground cover was one of my worst years for tomatoes it was a problem both during too much rain and again when there was too little rain. It is probably too late but the first thing I would do is prune off all of the older sicker looking lower stems and then remove the fabric ground cover so the soil can allow moisture to more easily evaporate from the soil. As soon as the fabric is off I would lightly scratch the surface of the soil so it will release moisture quicker and before it rains again put down a thin layer of natural mulch to protect the plants from splash back. That may be more effort than you want to expend at this point with little hope but it might help. I think your bed obviously holds water well so you might want to try adding more things like pine bark fines to aid in drainage next season. Although my plants are suffering from too much rain now I had a long enough season before the deluge began to have plants to the point where they could still produce well for a while despite the rain, where as you got hit just as the plants were getting ready to produce. Bill |
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July 26, 2021 | #12 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jul 2013
Location: SE PA
Posts: 971
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Seeing the black is on the leaf stalks and the actual stems, I'm inclined to think those plants should be pulled. That is to say, I would pull them from my garden. I have never used any of these -icides though, and I hope you make some progress if you continue that route.
Bill, it sounds like some of your tomato varieties are liking the extra water? I have never noted that as a listed factor/trait, whether a variety likes meager or excessive water. I know mine are kind of struggling with how dry it has been. Muggy every day, but never rains. I have drip tape and have been using it, but it sure would be nice to get an inch here and there. |
July 26, 2021 | #13 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Cheektowaga, NY
Posts: 2,466
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I don't see any definitive disease from the pictures, but looks like edema (bursting cells) along the veins from water stress.and cell death from the associated lack of nutrient transport. That's my guess anyway
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July 27, 2021 | #14 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Romania/Germany , z 4-6
Posts: 1,582
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Black petioles are one of the telltales of TSWV. I am 88% sure that is what it is. The thing that bothers me is how could the whole bed get infected, it should usually appear on some plants only and spread around, unless they all came from somewhere preinfected. TSWV is becoming increasingly common, I've seen reports from places where no one heard of it. 5 years ago I never knew what a thrip is, now it's one one my main pests. (talking about Europe here)
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