bleach spray

[HoustonHeat]

I sprayed bleach mix (only 4 oz per gallon) last night and this morning plants look good. I do not want to make it too strong so will stick with 4 oz.

I am ready to spray Copper mix this evening. However my Bonide Copper Concentrate does not tell me the specific mix ratio?

It states from .5 to 2.0 fluid ounces per gallon of water. It does say to use 2.0 ounces for Late Blight on tomatoes, but i do not have late blight.

Does anyone have a good ratio they use for tomatoes as well as cucurbits and beans? I am thinking 1 ounce to 1 gallon and I can spray everything in my garden?

[b54red]

Originally Posted by HoustonHeat

I sprayed bleach mix (only 4 oz per gallon) last night and this morning plants look good. I do not want to make it too strong so will stick with 4 oz.

I am ready to spray Copper mix this evening. However my Bonide Copper Concentrate does not tell me the specific mix ratio?

It states from .5 to 2.0 fluid ounces per gallon of water. It does say to use 2.0 ounces for Late Blight on tomatoes, but i do not have late blight.

Does anyone have a good ratio they use for tomatoes as well as cucurbits and beans? I am thinking 1 ounce to 1 gallon and I can spray everything in my garden?

Houston I have never used the Bonide Copper Concentrate but rather the Southern Ag brand of Copper. From my experience using the lower dose will give you the best results for just regular spraying as a spray with too much copper can cause some new leaf stunting for a while though the plants usually recover in time.

Bill

[HoustonHeat]

I am a little frustrated but I planned for this. On Sunday evening at dusk I sprayed bleach mix on only lower half of plants just to be safe and test it. I had mixed 6 ounces of clorox bleach with 2 gallons of water and 2-3 ounces of dawn soap.

Monday morning and evening all looked ok. I had to travel on business Tuesday through late Friday. While I was away there was no rain. This morning I go out to garden and half of my plants lower stems are dead, others have yellow leaves. However I am confused because others have leaves that looks like my earlier posted pics with mixed brown/yellow and dark spots.

So on one hand I think the bleach spray killed the parts of plant it touched but am also wondering why there are still some leaves with the discoloration and do I have early blight and when bleach touches it it causes death.

Is there any product that cures blight?

I am going to copper spray this evening hoping it’s proven safe for plant and will stop fungus, etc..

[MissS]

I think that you overdid the soap and that is the cause of your troubles. You are only supposed to use a few drops. I think that you suffocated the foliage with the soap.

[DocBrock]

Originally Posted by HoustonHeat

I sprayed bleach mix (only 4 oz per gallon) last night and this morning plants look good. I do not want to make it too strong so will stick with 4 oz.

I am ready to spray Copper mix this evening. However my Bonide Copper Concentrate does not tell me the specific mix ratio?

It states from .5 to 2.0 fluid ounces per gallon of water. It does say to use 2.0 ounces for Late Blight on tomatoes, but i do not have late blight.

Does anyone have a good ratio they use for tomatoes as well as cucurbits and beans? I am thinking 1 ounce to 1 gallon and I can spray everything in my garden?

I used the bonide copper several times this year. I started with .5oz and the last I sprayed was 1.5oz. I also added a big squirt of Castille soap to deter whiteflies on my cucumbers. Worked pretty good for powdery mildew, seems under control. Plants looked fine the next day and I sprayed the heck out of them. Also sprayed my zukes and watermelons for good measure, they are a lot younger than the cucumbers and they don't seem effected by the copper. Seems like the Bonide copper solution is already a soap. I read that the chemical compound is aka copper soap. There was dried blue residue on some of the leaves the next day but didn't burn.

[HoustonHeat]

MissS you may be correct. I went back and read Bills formula and it did say “a few drops” of soap.
That may have been the problem. I will adjust again and try it on one entire plant. I am going to get this right eventually. I guess “measure twice cut once” applied to gardening also.

Doc thanks for feedback on the Copper.

Thanks all for help.

[b54red]

Houston the best thing I can tell you with regards to EB is to remove the leaves immediately and spray with Daconil. I have had the best results deterring EB with Daconil and the best results deterring gray mold with copper. I have only had a bad infestation of EB a few times over the years and it is very hard to stop but it seems to move rather slowly most of the time. I think that I sprayed the whole plant with the bleach spray and followed up with removing all the diseased leaves and spraying with Daconil. I have had EB show up suddenly and fairly widely on a few plants and by the time I removed all the leaves that were obviously infected I had a rather bare plant but they did recover and do alright.

I agree with MissS that you way overdid the soap. No way would that concentration of a regular strength bleach destroy foliage like that. If you are using 6 ounces of 6% bleach to two gallons of water it may well be too weak to be effective at killing anything. Years ago when I first started experimenting with the bleach solutions I found after many errors and quite a few damaged plants that there was a fine line between too little and too much and that either one did damage. Too little did little or nothing in stopping some diseases and too much could damage healthy leaves or way too much could actually kill a plant. Spraying at the right time of day made a difference, spraying with a fine mist and not allowing puddling was important also; but most important was finding the right strength solution for the problem you are trying to treat.

Why don't you find the plant with the worst problems with EB and spray it with a much stronger solution and if no healthy foliage shows damage after 2 or 3 days then spray the rest if you think it helped with the EB on the first plant you sprayed. I have no idea what strength your bleach is but if it is regular Clorox then it should be around 6% sodium hypochlorite. If that is the bleach you are using then try mixing 5 1/2 ounces of bleach to a gallon of water and spray the one plant thoroughly with it. After two or three days if there is no leaf burn showing on healthy new growth then up the solution by 1/2 ounce of bleach and do it again. Keep doing that until you see some minor leaf damage on healthy leaves after a few days and you will know what the maximum you can safely spray with and then back off 1/2 ounce and you should have the ideal spray for your tomatoes. Of course there is always the chance that you could really damage a plant trying this but this is how I found the right amount to use and I keep having to adjust according to however Clorox changes their formulation on their bleach.

Bill

[HoustonHeat]

Thanks Bill

I am using the Walmart Great Value brand that is 8.25%. I mixed 6 ounces to 2 gallons.
I truly think I overdid it with soap.

I sprayed with Daconil 2 weeks ago and it lasted a week then rained so I came in after rain and sprayed the bleach mix. I had to travel a few days but at dusk last night I sprayed copper mix.
I am going to spray bleach mix again in couple days just on1 plant with most discoloration as you suggested then follow up with Daconil again on Saturday.

[Gardeneer]

My Liquid Copper says 3 to 5 tsp per gallon. I use about 4 tsp per gallon.
Probably the oz converts to the above tsp dosage.

[Gardeneer]

Fliud oz to tsp conversion.
1 US fluid oz = 6 tsp.
So 0.2 to 2 will be 1.2 to 12 tsp.
That is quite a wide range. For tomatoes I won,t mix more than 5 tsp per gallon of water.

[Gerardo]

I do 15-20 ml of the Southern Ag Copper in 1 gal, and a few ml of CocoWet. Higher doses stunt the plants; even at the lower end of the spectrum, Copper fries the flowers.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by HoustonHeat

Thanks Bill

I am using the Walmart Great Value brand that is 8.25%. I mixed 6 ounces to 2 gallons.
I truly think I overdid it with soap.

I sprayed with Daconil 2 weeks ago and it lasted a week then rained so I came in after rain and sprayed the bleach mix. I had to travel a few days but at dusk last night I sprayed copper mix.
I am going to spray bleach mix again in couple days just on1 plant with most discoloration as you suggested then follow up with Daconil again on Saturday.

Houston with that strength bleach I would start with 4.5 oz to a gallon. I believe I ended up using 5.25 oz per gallon with that strength bleach for most spraying but would cut its concentration a bit for cucumbers and squash. Experiment with it a bit and see what works for your plants. Just take your time and give it 2 days to work before trying a higher dose. Sometimes the effects on the plant are not seen for a few days and it is better to wait than jump right in with a higher dose before you know what the results are.

Don't overdo the soap. You just want enough to act as a wetting agent so you get better coverage. Make sure to spray both tops and bottoms of the leaves and use as fine a mist as possible near sundown or at daybreak.

Bill

[HoustonHeat]

Thanks Bill.

Not sure if you caught that I was using 6 oz to 2 gallon sprayer. So that’s still low.
So far so good but I will ramp up to 9oz for 2 gallons next. I am pretty confident my issue is blight and currently have trimmed all visible stems out and been spraying with Daconil every 10 days.
I like to spray the bleach mix 3 days prior to Daconil, which is a week after I spray Daconil.
I think I can keep it controlled at least through June while my crop ripens.

What I like is it appears my best producing plants are more resistant to early blight.
Those seem to be Big Beef, Brandy Boy PL, Prudents Purple PL. PL varieties seem to resist better.

[b54red]

Houston I don't know what is going on but I have seen no foliage diseases on any of my tomatoes so far. I guess it is due to the much lower than normal humidity we have been having for weeks now. Normally this time of the year our daytime humidity would hover between 75% and 90% but it has been reading between 30% and 45% and then rising during the night but quickly dropping again by late morning. It has meant I have had to water a bit more but I don't mind this has really increased fruit set to the point I may not have many large tomatoes because the plants have so many fruits on them. I am loving it while it lasts because when it ends it will be a totally different story.

Bill

[TexasTomat0]

Houston - I'm right there with you. I'm already battling early blight. I had this same thing happen last year and didn't aggressively try and fix it and lost all my plants. I've sprayed bleach yesterday and will follow up today with a trim and some Daconil.

I've already removed the affected plant, so we will see how this goes.


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