Can you get any fruit with Veriticiilium?

[hasshoes]

After pulling a bunch of plants yesterday with the dreaded V. . . it looks like the rest may come down with it as well. . . particularly since some of the ones I pulled were the biggest, otherwise healthiest looking (I checked the base stem area). . . and some even had tons of flowers . . . .

So I won't pull the last ones if there's a chance of fruit (no more plants to "protect" :0).

Can you get okay looking tomatoes with Verticillium. . . providing the whole plant doesn't collapse etc?

Or will you also get funky, nasty fruit?

Thanks in advance. And no more questions this week, I promise!

[dice]

My Black Cherry with partial (most of it) verticillium wilt did
produce two decent tasting clusters on the two branches that
did not have it (I cut all of the others off). The Pipo plant that
had it produced fairly horrid tasting tomatoes. (Figure that their
water supply, and thus nutrient supply, is seriously handicapped,
for one thing.)

Not exactly a product that you can buy to treat verticillium
infected soil, but some ideas for attacking it without going
the heavy commercial chemical or 6-year rotation routes:

http://www.find-health-articles.com/...albo-atrum.htm

I have cnidium monnieri and platycodon grandiflorum (balloon
flower) growing to make extracts from, and I have seeds for
a hybrid Magnolia that only gets to about 15' to plant, so that
I can collect leaves from it for making extracts, mulch, adding
to compost, etc. I could not locate any asarum sieboldii seeds
(too bad, would have been great in no-till beds; I could have just
let the wild ginger grow there all year around, since it is dormant
in summer), and planting an acacia was out of the question.

I also sprinkled garlic chive seeds all over the areas that had
verticillium, on the theory that it will get mowed with my winter
cover crop next spring and may help (they tend to take a long time
to sprout, I probably won't see them come up until late summer
or early fall).

This year I have VF tolerant hybrids growing in the verticillium
spots from last year: Jetstar, Supersonic, Goliath, and a Faux
Brandyboy (F2s of a Brandyboy with odd fruit type). I still have
Tigerella, Super Marmande, and New Yorker seeds to cycle
through those spots, too (OP V-tolerant cultivars). Campbell's
1327 would be another good V-tolerant OP to try.

I did not have it very extensively last year: one plant in one
row, and 3 in another row, plus a couple of containers. Those
are the areas where I planted the VF tolerant hybrids this year.

I have not seen it this year yet, but the weather has been so
warm that it is probably just lurking down there, waiting for
its chance to attack something susceptible.

[Gobig_or_Gohome_toms]

Will be interested to see what the fruit turns out like in the Faux Brandyboys good to hear they are still growing.

Craig

[dice]

Will be interested to see what the fruit turns out like in the Faux Brandyboys good to hear they are still growing.

(Brief off-topic diversion)
One of them has set fruit at least. I would have to take a closer
look at the other one, which is a little smaller and flowered
a week or so later. I will send you a PM with more info.

[carolyn137]

I'm next door to you in NYS and seldom have I ever had Verticillium, maybe 3X in 20 years or so and if it weren't for the fact that the first time it happened I had the local Cornell Coop Ext person at my field setting up a comparison of diseases between hybrids and OP's, I wouldn't have recognized it.

She told me that often well nourished plants grow out of it and much to my surprise that's exactly what happened and the plant bore absolutely fine fruits.

But, there was only the wilting with green leaves, and just a few leaves with symptoms which I took off and disposed of.

Of course I was concerned about Vert in the soil, but as I said, only three plants in about 20 years, and that field had up to 500-700 plants each season, and she said that Vert can hit at random, so I was lucky that way.

Did your plants have all the symptoms that Vert is supposed to have if the disease has progressed?

[hasshoes]

As always dice, you are my hero. I'd send you a care package of delicious tomatoes if I thought I was gonna get any.


Carolyn- And of course, as always, much thanks for your response as well.
I'm totally no expert on verticillium or fusarium (crown rot in one spot, I believe.)

I was ignoring the yellow leaves, some seriously wilty plants, stunted plants and chalking it up to weather. I did notice a lot of somewhat fast yellowing and the V shape of yellowing/necrosis. . . but I brushed it aside. . . . One plant had yellowing up the side of a stem unevenly. . . .

Long story short. . . I was about to demonstrate to my husband how to remove yellowing leaves. . . very gently grasped a big fat stem that was coming from the bottom. . . and *CRACK*. It snapped off---- and inside was circular vascular white and brown.

I made an incision at the base and it was white and brown. . . no oozing. Pulled it. . . long story short it looks like all the pics you see on google of verticillium.

I got some sterile knives and tested quite a few others. . . pulled quite a few. Did the water glass test and got no oozing.

The next day. . . several plants (that I hadn't tested. . . though had yellowing). . . were completely snapped over. Googled it to death. . . not the same symptoms as bacterial, pith necrosis, timber rot etc.

I'm not testing or pulling anymore because there's no place left for me to worry about it spreading to. Though after reading up on it. . . I realize it doesn't spread like mosaic. . . and I do wish I'd left my Anna Russian because it had so many flowers and little fruits starting to form it looked otherwise healthy.

A big stem near the base of my sungold (which is supposed to be resistant) snapped off today and had white and brown circling. . . I'm really hoping it was just a physical wound I didn't know about.

If there's something else that would case all this stem and base snapping I'd be very happy to hear it! Providing it's treatable, that is.


Ps- I didn't think about this 'til now . . . but our house is built up into it's own little hill on the side of a hill. . . who knows where the dirt came from.

[dice]

Remember when you were asking about yellow new growth
and puckering, and I suggested iron and phosphorus deficiency,
maybe both caused by high pH?

I came across a document that mentions that magnesium
deficiency will cause puckering, too. (Treatment: tablespoon
of epsom salts in a gallon of water and soil drench.)

See the discussion of magnesium deficiency near the top of
this document, and ask yourself whether the overall description
resembles your plants:

http://www.progressivegardens.com/gr.../plantnut.html

(Although the picture with the twisted leaves *and* puckering
in one of your other threads looked like the puckering was
probably related to the same virus that was causing the twisted
up foliage.)

Kind of a year when everything that can happen to them does,
eh? Hope for better weather. I had similar problems in smaller
numbers of plants last year in the cold first half of the summer,
and the progress of infection to other plants in the same
beds pretty much stopped once the weather warmed up.
(Different bugs at warmer day and night temperatures?
More predator bugs around? I do not know, but that was
what happened.)

This year it has been much warmer, and as far as I can tell
I only had one plant get a virus or viroid infection and no
verticillium so far. One bed that had 4-5 virus/viroid infected
plants last year has had none this year. Neem oil spraying
regimen has been about the same.

[hasshoes]

I'm going to make a homemade book of dice info for myself. . . just you wait and see.

I'm going to post more later. . . but I wanted to say my yellowing new growth plants have gotten better and are nice and green with the sun finally out.


I'd sing "Here Comes the Sun". . . but I don't want to jinx it.

[dice]

One document mentioned that sometimes that effect (new
growth yellower than the rest of the plant) can be seen
when plants are growing really fast, but those leaves become
normal as the stems grow beyond those leaves. It is just a
temporary deficiency where the plant's growth rate is
outstripping the supply of iron in the soil and/or size of the
root ball. A plant in a little less light, or with a little less N-P-K,
will grow slower in the same soil and not show the iron
deficiency symptom.

This document from a company that markets hydroponic
supplies (and so on) has a lot to say about nutrients
and their interactions:

http://www.growtomatoes.com/nutrition.htm

(I should have Worth on late night tv flogging a cd with
all of my tomato growing WWW bookmarks.)

[hasshoes]

(I should have Worth on late night tv flogging a cd with
all of my tomato growing WWW bookmarks.)

I can be the young testimonial woman. . . "Before I found tomatoville, I couldn't even grow morning glories! Here's what my plants looked like before Dice's help [cue pic of my "Little Plot of Horrors"] and this is what my plants look like after Dice's help. [fake Topsy Turvy style pic of a million maters everywhere]! teehehehehe

I'll sign on to do it for only a small cut of the profits. Or just a bunch of good seeds.

[hasshoes]

Hey Dice. . . would you say this is the dreaded vertic.? Please say no.

This appeared overnight on my coyote plant and it hasn't been wet, I didn't spray anything etc.

uber uber thanks in advance. It's not as dramatic (yet at least) as some other plants. . . so I haven't jabbed it at the base yet.

Ps- yes there is some old flea beatle bites on there. . . got rid of those suckers a while ago. :0)

[dice]

My verticillium infected plants are usually a little more
dramatic than that, like this:

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/...s/88-036f4.jpg

Whole branches just go limp, like the symptoms that you
see with bacterial wilt, but if cut and tested, the stems fail
the "milky discharge in water" test for bacterial wilt. This
is not fusarium country, so that does not leave much else
besides verticillium as a cause (and this is a verticillium
friendly climate).

I see plenty of leaves with that slight yellowing and dieing
tips that so many pictures show for a verticillium wilt symptom
in Google Image search, but if I cut those leaves off the rest
of the plant just keeps growing, flowering, and producing
normal fruit. Maybe those plants have some undocumented
tolerance for verticillium, or maybe it is something else.

So, while your pictures match plenty of pictures that are
claimed to be symptoms of verticillium wilt, I cannot say
for sure.