i'm in shock, i found late blight

[tjg911]

well it's been a few days since i was in the garden and it's been raining helping to spread the LB so i figured today i's find a bad situation gone very bad.

much to my surprise.... none of the plants effected by LB look any worse in fact they look better! since it is dry today there's no fuzzy spores growing. the spots on the leaves have not advanced. frankly, things look better than a few days ago.

i deeply regret cutting down the reif's red heart last sunday just because it had LB spots on the leaves and some fuzzy spores under some leaves. i thought i might protect/save other plants by removing it. not only did i rip out my largest and fullest plant but it had the highest number of tomatoes on it of any of the other 10 plants. all beautiful hearts. based upon what i see today i should have just left it alone.

i actually sprayed the plants with neptune's harvest today, something i had no intention of doing as i figured the plants would be a near total loss by now! tuesday i'm going to spray them with a milk solution and keep spraying them once or twice a week if it will stop raining for an extended period of time, you know like 48 hours.

i'm not so convinced that LB is fast acting or totally destructive. my plants seem to be tolerating it better than i would have expected but it is still a short time, we'll see next week and if there is a week after next.

tom

[Sherry_AK]

That's good news, Tom. Keep us posted.

[korney19]

Tom, I've been trying to reach you! Do you still use the N-Z e-mail?

I am following your plight here closely. Haven't seen you post much at the other place.

Also curious how your garden smells, with both milk & fish spray. LB is SO SERIOUS that you shelve the Old Wive's Tale remedies.

Just yesterday I read a report from 2001 on LB by the U of Tenn... SERENADE provided about as much help against LB as NOTHING USED AT ALL! Very little difference in results between it and the control untreated plants!

"Plots treated with BAS-500, BAS-510, and with Dithane alternated with Quadris had significantly lower disease ratings for Early and Late Blight and the highest marketable yield than the other treatments. Plots treated with Seranade (biological fungicide) had disease ratings not significantly different than the untreated check plots."

Anyways, I wish the best for you there, maybe you are at a point where you will have to decide if you want to grow organically and pray to get more than nothing, or use a fungicide & get something. Maybe try copper, it's considered organic.

Good luck & keep us updated! Since you're retired, that means daily! Better yet, hourly!

P.S. More rain should be arriving there about...now.

[tjg911]

hi mark,

no i dropped the netzero address in april 2008 when i bought a new pc and switched to dsl, dialup was just too slow. i sent you an email giving you my new email address so i'm surprised you are not using that address. why didn't you use the tomatoville pm/email? anyway i'll pm you to give you my email plus i need yours as i don't have it.

i don't read or post at the other place all that much other than the allium form. i followed your plight with LB and the discussions of why organic is safer or better. i bite my tougne about organic. some heated opinions were being tossed. i decided to stay organic even if it meant losing my tomato plants. frankly, i expected the milk to protect me so i figured i was safe. when i found LB on other plants i was really upset. if i lost all 11 plants in a week and got no tomatoes this year, well i was then seriously looking at using fungicide next year if needed. that still hangs in the balance right now, just cuz things are looking ok now they may go bad in a week or 2. i have eaten tomatoes so if i loose the plants now i would not be as upset, not getting a tomato would have pushed me off the edge. so much for my situation and reasoning.

funny you ask about the smell! the fish emulsion is nowhere near as strong as the fish and seaweed emulsion that i have always used. i had to settle for just plain fish emulsion as that's all they had at blue seal and i was given a good discount as it was september and they wanted to get rid of it. so the fish emulsion does not smell much at all when sprayed. the fish and seaweed emulsion when sprayed actually kept the deer away from crops! using fish emulsion and milk together is not bad, i can't smell the fish but the milk does have a bit of a smell. when i am near the plants that have been sprayed it smells like sweet slightly sour milk. it is not bad but you can smell it. if you are 15' from the plants you can't smell the milk so if you used it your neighbors probably would not smell it.

i like your new avatar! what's his or her name? i bet he's a ball of energy!

tom

[cottonpicker]

My attempt to forestall spread of Late Blight by removing moderately diseased leaves didn't succeed. Three or four of the plants are "goners".
Intended to yank them out this morning but heavy thunderstorms prevented my trip to the garden. This has been the wettest year I can remember and I now believe it's just a matter of time before the explosive nature of LB takes all my plants. It travels like wildfire! A real downer.....

[korney19]

Originally Posted by tjg911

hi mark,

no i dropped the netzero address in april 2008 when i bought a new pc and switched to dsl, dialup was just too slow. i sent you an email giving you my new email address so i'm surprised you are not using that address. why didn't you use the tomatoville pm/email? anyway i'll pm you to give you my email plus i need yours as i don't have it.

i don't read or post at the other place all that much other than the allium form. i followed your plight with LB and the discussions of why organic is safer or better. i bite my tougne about organic. some heated opinions were being tossed. i decided to stay organic even if it meant losing my tomato plants. frankly, i expected the milk to protect me so i figured i was safe. when i found LB on other plants i was really upset. if i lost all 11 plants in a week and got no tomatoes this year, well i was then seriously looking at using fungicide next year if needed. that still hangs in the balance right now, just cuz things are looking ok now they may go bad in a week or 2. i have eaten tomatoes so if i loose the plants now i would not be as upset, not getting a tomato would have pushed me off the edge. so much for my situation and reasoning.

funny you ask about the smell! the fish emulsion is nowhere near as strong as the fish and seaweed emulsion that i have always used. i had to settle for just plain fish emulsion as that's all they had at blue seal and i was given a good discount as it was september and they wanted to get rid of it. so the fish emulsion does not smell much at all when sprayed. the fish and seaweed emulsion when sprayed actually kept the deer away from crops! using fish emulsion and milk together is not bad, i can't smell the fish but the milk does have a bit of a smell. when i am near the plants that have been sprayed it smells like sweet slightly sour milk. it is not bad but you can smell it. if you are 15' from the plants you can't smell the milk so if you used it your neighbors probably would not smell it.

i like your new avatar! what's his or her name? i bet he's a ball of energy!

tom

I bought a 5-gallon pail of that once, it may have been the fish & seaweed, it was the 2-4-1 or 2-4-0.5 version. It stunk pretty bad. Don't forget in the city here, the only thing separating your house from your neighbor's is an 8FT wide driveway!

Her name is Saffy for short, her official AKC name is:

"Korney's Sapphire Brandy Whine"

Hahahaha! She will be 11 months old the 14th. The breeders already named her Sapphire so decided to keep it in the name. Had to throw a bunch of heirloom seeds in to get her! Best deal I ever made! YES, she's a SuperBall of energy! Super fast too.

I tried punching in your name to send an e-mail & it kept inserting the old Hartford addy... I changed it to NZ but will make a note of the new one! Thanks. I think I may have gotten the new addy bulk mail but may not have wentr into the address book if I haven't replied to that message or addy yet.

P.S. Tom, do you have any links to reports about using milk for LB? I think you may want to drink it instead of wasting it on the plants. Milk is to LB what milk is to injecting pumpkins with it--[I think] a big farce. If anything, there are many OMRI approved copper fungicides you can try. I don't think the milk thing does anymore than the Serenade thing, probably less, besides the smell.

Keep in mind you will have to make a decision next year BY THE TIME YOU TRANSPLANT if you decide to spray fungicides, for them to be effective as a preventative.

[tjg911]

Originally Posted by korney19

I bought a 5-gallon pail of that once, it may have been the fish & seaweed, it was the 2-4-1 or 2-4-0.5 version. It stunk pretty bad. Don't forget in the city here, the only thing separating your house from your neighbor's is an 8FT wide driveway!

Her name is Saffy for short, her official AKC name is:

"Korney's Sapphire Brandy Whine"

yeah the fish and seaweed emulsion stinks to high heaven!

i doubt your neighbors would smell the milk and it is a mild smell at that.

i LOVE the name!

i'll reply to your pm next.

tom

[tjg911]

the hartford address is no more so i expect that would bounce back or you'd get no reply if they absorbed it internally.

i will check about milk. you have to remember that large agri business corporations are in business to make money not that there is anything wrong with that. the problem is they don't want anything nor care about anything that they can't profit from. my point is milk as a fungicide would not get much attention in a commercial world.

as for drinking cow's milk, i am not a calf. milk is produced by mammal mothers' for their babies. i do like cheese and ice cream but i have not used milk (oh i used to like corn chowder!) for decades.

if LB is an issue next year i'll have to decide. i think i will use milk next year whether LB is around or not. milk will cure powdery mildew on curcurbits in case you did not know. as far as milk being useless well the jury is out on that for now. if my plants live another week then we'll see what happens the following week. maybe milk will give me just 1 or 2 weeks before the plants die. maybe my plants will die of frost.

i'll report you decide.


tom

[tjg911]

here's another update.

on monday i sprayed for the 3rd time with the fish milk. things look the same, no better but no worse.

today, tuesday, i just did another check. the cp was the worst effected and has lost more leaves, about 1/3 left. it has about 18-20 tomatoes and just 1 has LB. many plants have lost a lot of leaves due to bacterial spot or bacterial speck not LB. linnie's ox heart, tsar kolokol and monomakh's hat are effected the most by bs. nicky crain has some more LB on leaf tips than on monday and a lesion on a vine. prue and sun gold look to be holding up better than all the others. both pl plants, agg and earl's faux, have LB but also these 2 have had serious foliage problems from early on before LB appeared, but they have very few tomatoes, picked one tomato from each so far.

i thought LB fell on the tops of the plants? none of the effected plants that have LB have it on the top of the plant - the upper 1/4 of the plants are fine.

is the fish milk helping? all i can say is i've had LB out there now for 8 days and not 1 plant has died other than the reif's red heart when i panicked and cut it out, sure wish i did not do that. i suppose some cases of LB do live for a while (?) but from what i've heard and read in posts online death is sudden, not my case.

tom

[hasshoes]

Are you sure it's not grey mold? That's what I was wondering earlier in your post but I didn't want to be obnoxious. :0)

I have grey mold and it looks A LOT like the online pics of late blight.

In fact right now I'm online trying to figure out if i now have late blight *in addition* to grey mold. It's making me nutty.

Good luck.

[tjg911]

i doubt it is grey mold. the LB pictures of leaves and stems match what i see.

another milk update, it's been 2 more days and i see no real difference from 2 days ago. i sprayed with fish milk this morning, 2nd time this week.

i have 9 crw cages with 10 plants (2 prue are in 1 crw). 4 plants have very little foliage. 2 plants have almost none. i attribute the problem not to LB but either bacterial speck or spot. i never had this before (BS) or if i did it was so minor i never thought much of it. many plants were really effected by one of the BS's. all plants have had leaves dry up and die from yellowing or BS. the 4 plants with little foliage have a fair amount of tomatoes but other than from the roots or photosynthesis via the green tomatoes i don't see how these plants are getting nutrients. i still see LB on leaves and some lesions on stems and some tomatoes have LB spots but no plant has yet to die from LB.

tom

[bcday]

Tom, somewhere I missed how you're mixing this fish milk. Recipe?

(Sorry if it's right here in the thread somewhere... )

[hasshoes]

If it really works maybe you should patent it and sell it. Throw in some perfume and color to throw people off. . . sell it at stores for $50 and store it in those soda fridges. I'd buy one.

[tjg911]

Originally Posted by bcday

Tom, somewhere I missed how you're mixing this fish milk. Recipe?

(Sorry if it's right here in the thread somewhere... )

i thought i had posted it in this or another thread in this forum. i did not so here it is.



2 cups of milk (whole milk is supposed to be better but any will do)


if you use whole milk then use 1 teaspoon of dish detergent NOT anti bacterial or it'll kill all the beneficial bacteria on your plants! the soap helps the fats in the milk to stick to the leaves.


2 quarts of water


optional - add appropriate quantity of liquid concentrate of fish or fish and seaweed emulsion for 2 quarts of water, i use 1/2 tablespoon of neptune's harvest fish emulsion.


apply early on a day you'll have sun when the leaves are dry. the sun is supposed to add to the beneficial effects of the milk on the leaves.





tom

[tjg911]

for anyone following this thread i have what is probably the final update. i have some info that probably won't surprise anyone but also some interesting info.

when i checked the garden on monday 8/10, a lot of tomatoes on various plants have LB lesions. bottom line, most plants have not had LB spread on the leaves or even appear on the vines. is the fish milk helping? i don't know. the bad news is that most plants' tomatoes (the majority on each plant) have LB lesions. worse than the last time i checked. as they get to the breaker stage they develop a large spot. i have several on the table that are ripening but it takes so long that i'm not sure if i will get more than 1 or 2 slices and they may be sour tho tomatoes with LB lesions have tasted ok for the most part. some fruits have been hard and sour some ok but at this point it seems i am going to be lucky to get any tomatoes without LB on them based upon what i see today.

today i picked 1 prue that is perfect and turning red so i hope this one is good. cherokee purple has many LB free tomatoes at the breaker stage and seems to have the least number of effected fruits. i picked 9 or 10 today at the breaker stage! i wonder if CP has some LB resistance? no plant has produced as many non blighted fruits as CP and every one so far has been excellent. sun gold has some bad fruits but i picked about 20 today that are good, it's behind CP for fruits but these are cherries. without a doubt, CP and SG have produced the most good tomatoes this season. my 2 prue plants were loaded with fruits, more than normal years, but i've only had a few blemish free fruits and not many i was able to eat.

i needed to save seeds from some old favorites and i have plenty of CP to do so. all 5 hearts that were new this year are a loss for seed as i have not gotten good fruits to be sure of my seed quality so if i want to grow these 5 again i need to get seed from people here again.

AGG and EF produced about 3 or 4 fruits and only 1 from each was ripe. all AGG have bad LB and EF only produced 1 pickable fruit, it may have had 2 or 3! i may not grow EF again, it is a wonderful tomato but other than the 1st year it has been a very poor producer. there are several tomatoes as good that are more reliable, too bad EF is really a great tomato.

i have a lot of tomatoes on the kitchen table but many have problems and other than the CPs and 1 prue none look too good! tomato season may be over in 8-10 days.

tom