Fusarium Wilt

[Cole_Robbie]

I have spent the past few days picking up my plastic mulch and pulling huge Johnson Grass roots out of my beds. I had the epiphany that perhaps that is how I am managing to cultivate a disease much farther north than it should live - the fusarium is overwintering on the Johnson Grass. The roots live in dormancy all winter after the tops freeze off.

[tryno12]

Yo Cole, FWIS Worth, i am still eating toms from garage - here in Central Indiana. Don't know if decease from side and back beds will gravitate to my new raised bed?? Even the raised bed showed white flies, horned worms, and grey mold. 110 plants all tolled and raised bed only showed blue/grey mold, horn worms, and white flies. Had 30 potted toms - will not bother next year - too much upkeep for little yield. Gotta get on Marsha's site - looking for something similar to a Colapari?
Pete

[Cole_Robbie]

The best I have done with container plants is a dwarf in a 5-gallon bucket. I place the bucket in a kiddie pool or other shallow bin to water it. The wind likes to knock them over, though.

Everything I read says that fusarium also affects pepper plants, but mine seem to do fine. Therefore, I shall grow mostly peppers next year.

[AlittleSalt]

Fusarium does effect pepper plants. It stunts their growth, but I still have peppers here in late November.

[AlittleSalt]

The odd looking thing in the second picture on the post above is my cat rolling around under the pepper plant. Can you see it?

[pmcgrady]

Originally Posted by Cole_Robbie

I have spent the past few days picking up my plastic mulch and pulling huge Johnson Grass roots out of my beds. I had the epiphany that perhaps that is how I am managing to cultivate a disease much farther north than it should live - the fusarium is overwintering on the Johnson Grass. The roots live in dormancy all winter after the tops freeze off.

Cole, have you ever grown Momotaro tomatoes before? Kitazawa seeds sells Momotaro Tough Boy 93 and Momotaro Tough Boy Fight, they are expensive and you have to buy 1000 seed packet ($226) that is supposed to be fusarium resistant. They do sell small packets of these seeds thru Amazon $7 for a dozen seeds (ouch!), they may be worth a try. I'm doing the Japanese theme this year, tomatoes, peppers and squash.

[Cole_Robbie]

I had one plant of Rebelski last season. It is $1 a seed, but a generous gift from a fellow t'viller. It grew and produced ok, as it is resistant to F too, but it still gets the disease. It just takes longer to kill the plant. It was ok, but too firm for my liking, as are most hybrids. I can handle garden hybrids like Big Beef, Jet Star, and Early Girl, but all of the others I have tried are too firm for me. I have never had any of the super-expensive hybrid seed make a tomato I like to eat. Thanks for the suggestion, though. Good luck with your Japanese theme.

[AlittleSalt]

I need to wake this thread up. If my health agrees, I will be pulling some tomato plants up tomorrow morning to show some pictures. The plants are FFF,N varieties that I quit watering when they showed obvious signs of RKN and/or FW3.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by AlittleSalt

I need to wake this thread up. If my health agrees, I will be pulling some tomato plants up tomorrow morning to show some pictures. The plants are FFF,N varieties that I quit watering when they showed obvious signs of RKN and/or FW3.

Over the last few years I have had a few plants grafted onto various fff,n root stocks show some signs of fusarium wilt and have even had a couple of them die from it. I also had two different plants show RKN on the roots when I pulled them. But that is out of hundreds of plants. I also had the same thing happen with some of the fff,n super hybrids I tried before I started grafting. I think the resistance these plants have is not foolproof all the time but it is a sight better than what I was dealing with.

The number of these incidences was so small compared to the 90% or more of my heirlooms being affected in some of my worst years that I decided to commit to grafting and I am so happy I finally took the plunge. I still have all the other problems that tomato growing down here involves but in comparison it seems almost carefree. Of course grafting has its own set of problems I am still learning about.

Bill

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by AlittleSalt

I need to wake this thread up. If my health agrees, I will be pulling some tomato plants up tomorrow morning to show some pictures. The plants are FFF,N varieties that I quit watering when they showed obvious signs of RKN and/or FW3.

Looking forward to the photos whenever you can.

[AlittleSalt]

I may have woke up the wrong thread. It looks like RKN. There was no way to know until I pulled them up to see. The first picture shows that they grew to about 30 inches tall and quit growing. The cages are 28 inches tall. I quit watering June 1 - there was no reason to waste the water. The plants leaves were turning yellow and brown in large portions. The rest of the pictures are to share, and you can diagnose/comment whatever you like. They are from the FFF, N plants only. The other normal OPs that are not FFF, N looked the same. Some plants were taller - some shorter. I'm glad they are gone.
__________________________________________________ ________________________

The container garden is completely separate and looks wonderful in comparison. I will not touch the container garden until I take a shower, scrub under my fingernails, and change my clothing.

[AlittleSalt]

Here are pictures before I quit watering.

You'll notice that I did not weed the beds. I didn't feel there was a reason to because I knew what was going to happen with the non-FFF, N varieties. It happened much faster than it has in the past, but we had July temperatures in May this year and that probably had a lot to do with it.

I was disappointed with the FFF, N varieties. I expected them to do better.

I will most likely use those raised beds to grow flowers. Lantanas grow well in this soil. Inpatients are looking good too, and one of the raised beds gets a lot less sun than the other three.

[ginger2778]

Salt I found out in my own garden that sweet potatoes do very well in my natural nematode soil. I am getting lots of large besutiful tasting sweet potatoes from the soil. They are just about trouble free too. Wish tomato plants were this easy.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by ginger2778

Salt I found out in my own garden that sweet potatoes do very well in my natural nematode soil. I am getting lots of large besutiful tasting sweet potatoes from the soil. They are just about trouble free too. Wish tomato plants were this easy.

I grow sweet potatoes in the same bed as my bell peppers and they do wonderfully and they seem to help the peppers stay healthy longer. It seems the two have a symbiotic relationship that I found out purely by accident a few years ago. I planted my bells in the same bed that had sweet potatoes the year before and a few sprang up so I just let them run. Of course I had to clip some of the vines to stop them from covering my bells; but the surprising thing was that the sweet potatoes made far more with the bells than they did the year before by themselves and my bell peppers seemed to prosper along with them. I have been setting out a few slips between the rows of bell peppers since then and have never had such productive sweet potatoes.

Bill

[b54red]

Originally Posted by AlittleSalt

I may have woke up the wrong thread. It looks like RKN. There was no way to know until I pulled them up to see. The first picture shows that they grew to about 30 inches tall and quit growing. The cages are 28 inches tall. I quit watering June 1 - there was no reason to waste the water. The plants leaves were turning yellow and brown in large portions. The rest of the pictures are to share, and you can diagnose/comment whatever you like. They are from the FFF, N plants only. The other normal OPs that are not FFF, N looked the same. Some plants were taller - some shorter. I'm glad they are gone.
__________________________________________________ ________________________

The container garden is completely separate and looks wonderful in comparison. I will not touch the container garden until I take a shower, scrub under my fingernails, and change my clothing.

Salt I can't tell for sure but it doesn't look like you have fusarium or nematodes to amount to anything. Could you possibly be having spider mites? The way your plants are yellowing from the bottom sure looks like fusarium but your stems sure don't look like it is bad enough to cause that kind of yellowing. I remember years ago when I got hit by spider mites when it was exceptionally hot early in the season. I thought I was having fusarium earlier than usual until I finally saw the webbing after I had let it go too long. I felt bad because I just never thought to check for them in May even though they gave me fits the summer and fall before.. I had always had my first spider mites show up in July at the earliest before that.

Bill