Foliage regimen, when and what

[Mike723]

Thanks Dave,
I've been procrastinating about beginning weekly treatments with serenade, can't source it locally.. I'll have to resort to good ol' Amazon.

[Nematode]

Originally Posted by Mike723

Thanks Dave,
I've been procrastinating about beginning weekly treatments with serenade, can't source it locally.. I'll have to resort to good ol' Amazon.

I have given up completely and decided there is nothing more "local" than my front porch (amazon).

[digsdirt]

I have given up completely and decided there is nothing more "local" than my front porch (amazon).

Love it! Yeah the UPS guy and I are on a first name basis and he knows my back porch well and where the sweet tea cooler is kept. But I'm still waiting for amazon's delivery drones - the ones they were touting not so long ago - to find me out here in the boonies. I'm thinking of hijacking one of them and rig it to spray the gardens for me.

Dave

[Mike723]

Haha I love Amazon.. If you use it a lot, the prime membership is great.. Just for the two day free shipping alone - not to mention the movies and music!

[Nematode]

Ray,
I have been looking at older posts, and was curious what your current foliage disease prevention/treatment plan is.
Being in the northeast your disease pressure should be similar to mine.

Nematode

[RayR]

Originally Posted by Nematode

Ray,
I have been looking at older posts, and was curious what your current foliage disease prevention/treatment plan is.
Being in the northeast your disease pressure should be similar to mine.

Nematode

Now that the rains are finally over and no new storms are in the forecast till next week, I may have opportunity to make a plan. I checked the garden this morning and the Soap Shield copper has helped a lot, it holds up well against the rain. I see some new yellowed branches on a few plants which I will need to prune and spray again with the copper. Probably didn't get good coverage on those anyway. The others I will try the neem oil and potassium bicarbonate and see how that goes. I also have Organicide 3 in 1, I'll spray a row of plants and see how that compares. Actinovate has helped in the past as a preventive, I want to use that along with compost tea in rotation.
Septoria is my only problem, EB hasn't been a problem since I've been inoculating seedlings early with Mycorrhizal fungi. I see less and less EB every year.

So what's your plan?

[Nematode]

Originally Posted by RayR

So what's your plan?

Still formulating one.
Looking to see what the experienced members are doing.

Daconil went on this morning. If there was a softer effective treatment I would consider dropping it. I dont think its particularly dangerous, but it's the one thing I spray that makes me want to wash my produce.

Likely Candidates for rotation
Copper soap. ( help ride through a wet period + anti bacterial)
Plant doctor(excel lg) (systemic immune response)
Actinovate. (there are several "press releases" indicating actinovate plus a "low level" of copper in tank mix is more effective than copper alone) I would like to see the research on this one.

Possible fungicides
Serenade
Micronized sulfur (if mites were a problem I would reach for this pretty quick)
Bleach ? Sounds interesting but I am too lazy to to have multiple study plots with different treatments and too scared to go bleach alone, but its on my radar.


Help me decide, we have 4-5 days to order from amazon before the next spray

[Lindalana]

Not to jinx myself but this year I am much better with disease problems. Last year was my first year of using compost tea, this year I started right away. Compost tea and compost extract, I've noticed plants look especially good after those. I have also started aspirin water this year.
Disease pressure was/ is really high this year due to uber rainy and cold June, my community garden is loaded with Septoria and EB around me.
If I can keep what I have now I will be a happy camper.

[Nematode]

Ok so after spending way too much time on this, I think this will be the formula.
chlorothalonil + phosphorous acid (catamaran-esque tank mix) (daconil + exel lg)
Alternated with
Actinovate + copper octanoate (copper soap)
Spray one combo at 7 day intervals, subject to increase as disease pressure ramps up.


My first copper choice was a copper hydroxide (champ or kocide)but I dont need 20lbs of it.

I always used to wait till some foliage disease was present to start treating. Boy did the research open my eyes to that folly.
Fungal spray available to the home gardener is preventative only.
For anyone else looking into this, bravo is chlorathonil, kocide.and champ are copper hydroxide. Any fungicide trials will use those commercially labelled names.
There is very little info I could find on septoria efficacy trials, mostly late blight.

First septoria spots showed yesterday.

[Nematode]

I might go with tom cast as a modifier on the spray schedule. Cornell seems to be doing quite a bit of the cutting edge agriculture science these days.
It is for the usual early season fungal problems. They have a separate tool for late blight.


http://newa.cornell.edu/index.php?pa...seases-tomcast

Nematode

[Nematode]

FYI
I back tested the tom cast tool for this season, and got a first spray date of 6/23 12 days before first sign of disease on 7/5. (I didn't actually spray till 7/1 oops). Seems about right, the brainiacs at cornell may be on to something.

Nematode

[Lindalana]

Ray,
I have no insects and bunch of beneficials like lady beetles on my tomatoes, is Neem oil safe choice for them?
Septoria is pretty bad in the area, seems like every blade of grass has rusty spots and every weed too, whatever they are.

[Tracydr]

Can Excel Lg be mixed with kelp and fish emulsion? What about with insecticidal soaps, spinosad or BT?
To use potassium bicarbonate, is there a brand made for gardens? If not, how do you use it?

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Lindalana

Ray,
I have no insects and bunch of beneficials like lady beetles on my tomatoes, is Neem oil safe choice for them?
Septoria is pretty bad in the area, seems like every blade of grass has rusty spots and every weed too, whatever they are.

Neem oil might run your ladybugs off or even kill some of them. I wouldn't do anything that would run off my ladybugs because they really do a job on aphids which spread diseases. I don't think Neem oil will do much to stop Septoria either. Copper sprays seem to work better on Septoria for me and if it is already a problem then I use the bleach spray followed by copper. Neither of these sprays seems to bother ladybugs.

Bill

[RayR]

Originally Posted by Lindalana

Ray,
I have no insects and bunch of beneficials like lady beetles on my tomatoes, is Neem oil safe choice for them?
Septoria is pretty bad in the area, seems like every blade of grass has rusty spots and every weed too, whatever they are.

Bill is probably right about the Lady Beetles and Neem Oil, but it's probably not going to harm them unless you hit them directly with the spray. If you don't have any aphids on your tomato plants you are not likely to find many Lady Beetles hanging around anyway.
I agree also that Neem Oil alone is not going to impact Septoria much.

Originally Posted by Tracydr

Can Excel Lg be mixed with kelp and fish emulsion? What about with insecticidal soaps, spinosad or BT?
To use potassium bicarbonate, is there a brand made for gardens? If not, how do you use it?

It might be OK to mix Excel LG with those things, I don't know, but why? Phosphourous Acid is not something you should be applying regularly since it's systemic in the plant. I also know applying too much of it will cause leaf burn. I know because I did it!

Greencure is the commercial potassium bicarbonate fungicide product for gardeners. Or you can just buy potassium bicarbonate and make your own formula.