Verticillium,fusarium or???

[orflo]

Hi,
I'm having some suspicious spots on my about half of my eggplants and on some tomatoes. I checked sever websites (ucdavis, cornell and others) and it's not exactly clear to me , I cut the stem of the worst eggplant and removed some off the lower leaves of one of the tomatoes: no brown discoloration showed up, there are no signs of wilting, but still the only close thing I could find is verticillium or fusarium. Can you help me on this one? Oh, and I do respect crop rotation, the eggplants were grown in soil where there hasn't been a vegetable for over twenty years,I took some pictures:



Frank

[feldon30]

Have you had some heavy rains recently?

[orflo]

The tomatoes are inthe greenhouse, I apply water on a regular base, some of the eggplants are in the greenhouse as well, others (the one I photographed) are outside. We had our usual portion of rain, nothing reallyy heavy or exceptional,
Frank

[feldon30]

To my untrained eyes, that looks like your garden variety Early Blight.

[orflo]

Is there any early blight on eggplants? I thought this was limited to tomatoes and potatoes,
FRank

[hasshoes]

Aren't early blight pants supposed to have a bulls eye or swirly-esque nature in the dark spot?

This happened to some of my virgin seedlings when I was starting them in the basement because I dumped too much water on them . . . I pulled the icky leaves and the ugliness never camer back. Hopefully it was just too much rain. . .

[amideutch]

orflo, did this problem manifest itself over a long period of time or did it happen overnight. There are many things that can cause problems that show up in the leaves. Disease, nutrient problems (to much or to little) and external problems such as somebody nearby using herbicides. Ami

[bcday]

If it were verticillium or fusarium, you'd see wilting before any yellowing or browning appeared.

The affected tomato leaflets appear to be on an older leaf and without seeing more pics I would have put that browning down to some temporary environmental condition that occurred when the plant was younger.

Unless it is spreading, especially if it starts affecting the newer foliage, I'd just remove the affected leaves and see if anything further develops.

[orflo]

Thanks for your replies, infact, on the few tomatoes affected it only occurs on the lower leaves, slowly going up to the "next lower leaf", but on the eggplants things look a bit different, some of the upper leaves are affected (not the new growth), but no wilting, not on one side branch, but just spread around, no discoloration of the stem when I cut it. I should mention the ant nest that was under the two tomatoes affected, maybe the y have an influence as well, the eggplants were "ant-free".Are you sure wilting occurs before discoloration of the leaves whenever fusarium or verticillium turn up?
Frank

[bcday]

Originally Posted by orflo

Are you sure wilting occurs before discoloration of the leaves whenever fusarium or verticillium turn up?
Frank

I saw wilting of the tips of stems before any leaf discoloration with verticillium. We don't get fusarium in my area that I know of, but supposedly the two diseases have very similar symptoms. I did see a couple of posts around the forum that mentioned yellowing of bottom leaves with fusarium, so maybe those folks that have seen fusarium can clarify that.

Are either of these diseases known to occur in Belgium where you are?

[orflo]

The diseases do occur in Belgium, maybe not specifically in my region, but they are here. I do exchange and buy lots of seeds (this year:about 80 varieties of tomato, 60 peppr var., 12 eggplants,...)and both of the diseases can be transmitted with seeds, so , if I got some contaminated seeds in the past without recognizing the symptoms , these plants could have been thrown on the compost heap (I usually don't throw sick plants on the heap), well, this could have been the start of my problem. On ly the tomatoes and eggplants seem to be affected, peppers are healthy and already bearing lots of fruit, so are the melons and all other stuff. Verticillium seems to be the more general disease, appearing on all sorts of plants, except on fir trees and grass, where the percentage of verticillium spores taken by these last two is very small, while the solanaceae and cucurbitaceae are in the highest category. So now I'm focusing a bit on this fusarium theory, apparently there is a fusarium affecting only tomatoes and eggplants. But again, no brown discoloration of the stem , no wilting, I've seen pics of fusarium, the leaves are completely yellow, no brown patches as on my plants. Some of the eggplants have really many leaves affected (esp.morden midget and the barbentane), while others (obsidian,fengyuan,...) are healthy.
Frank