GreenCure for Late Blight - Anyone ever heard of it?

[mjc]

Other than the 'heavy duty' need-a-license-to-use industrial grade stuff...nothing. Daconil is pretty much it for the home gardener...copper can be somewhat effective, but not as and neither is going to totally prevent it.

LB is pretty much the ebola of the tomato-world.

I suppose you could try bleach...but at a strong enough concentration to actually kill the blight, it would probably kill the plants and most soil microbes/beneficials, too.

[hasshoes]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

It's funny you said that about ebola--- because that's what I immediately thought---OMG- I'm so lucky. Like it sucks that this happens. . . but it's nothing compared to other countries where people can get these things on their bodies.

[dice]

Hydrogen peroxide supposedly will kill spores (this
document does not say specifically "will kill late blight
spores", but it mentions it under "organic fungicides"):

http://www.umassvegetable.org/newsle...tableNotes.pdf

If I were spraying regularly to protect from late blight, that
is one thing I might try (cheap, should have no side effects
on plants, as they produce it naturally in response to trauma;
do not use 35% hydrogen peroxide available from agricultural
suppliers full strength).

Edit:
This document says to mist them *every night* with hydrogen
peroxide to prevent late blight:
http://www.prevention.com/cda/articl...home/gardening
(Makes sense; it only kills the spores on contact, and it is not going
to persist on the plant over days; it is either going to evaporate or
be washed off, depending on the weather.)

[mjc]

The thing about peroxide is that it offers absolutely no residual protection...

[dice]

The thing about peroxide is that it offers absolutely no residual protection...

True. It is only a disinfectant. One poster on a blog said to use
3% hydrogen peroxide full strength. Might be easier on the
plants than spraying them with a bleach solution, though.

[mjc]

Originally Posted by dice

True. It is only a disinfectant. One poster on a blog said to use
3% hydrogen peroxide full strength. Might be easier on the
plants than spraying them with a bleach solution, though.

True...although, I've lived in some towns where watering with tap water was close to spraying with diluted bleach...

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by hasshoes

MJC- what late blight suppressors and preventatives do you believe work that are not being suggested?

First, sorry I haven't kept up but my computer mouse died THursday and my computer man couldn't come until this AM so after taming a new mouse and him ( Wayne, not the mouse) updating this and that and adding two new sites for Malware and cleaning out that I'm good to go except all the cookies went and I couldn't remember the passwords for several of those sites.

As I was saying, ahem, Heather, someone ( actually Mark Korney) at GW posted some results that indicated that Serenade and I forget what else, maybe Neem, maybe messenger, were only about 4% effective in helping to prevent LB, whereas Daconil was stated to be 98% effective, and I'm sure those were not anecdotal, rather, direct challenge data.

For many organic growers I think a choice has to made this summer here in the NE and that's do I want tomatoes or don't I. Plain as that. This is the first year I've had Freda spray Daconil since I moved here in 1999 and this cool wet weather has also destroyed lots of folks plants not due to LB, rather, with Early Blight and Septoria Leaf Spot and of course Daconil is excellent against those two fungal foliage pathogens as well.

[Ross]

Help me out a bit here, please, is the difference between "late blight" and "early blight" simply a matter of when in the growing season one's plants experience these ailments and diseases ? That almost sounds too simplistic. In posting 13 one sees a list of 25 different afflictions of plants, and there are more, yet surely a list of the myriads of species that make plants unhappy. Are the visual observations of each of these always distinctly unique from the others ?

Prevention is always less costly than a cure. Preventative measures can be taken even when no visual symptoms are there yet. For most dire situations as seen now in this 2009 season it just may be too late. And, so one plans with 2010 in mind. Since some have rendered a few product types and names as possible remedies......here's another to consider. - - Plant Wash from Soil Mender Products.

[mjc]

Late Blight is Phytophthora infestans an ooymcete (pseudofungi) or water mold.

Early Blight is Alternaria solani, a fungus.

Two distinct organisms causing two distinct diseases. Yes, each of those listed are distinct organisms causing distinct diseases.

That Plant Wash stuff lacks some information...like just what is it? What exactly does it do? Where is the MSDS? What is it supposed to control? A soap?

At a $105/gallon of concentrate, $13/quart RTU it had better be a little bit more than just a soap.

"All natural" and 'organic' do not necessarily mean safe and effective...