I should have pruned more.

[b54red]

Well as someone once said "The chickens have come home to roost." After several weeks of dry weather with for us fairly low humidity my tomato plants were looking fantastic. Because they looked so good I didn't do my usual amount of foliage removal and they got really thick and bushy a state that I know only leads to disaster down here. A little over a week ago it started raining every day and for six straight days we had at least one good rain every day and most nights. Then the rain stopped 3 days ago and the temperatures which were already high jumped up to around 100 and the nights barely cooled off much. I could barely get out in the garden before the temps were in the 80's and by 8:00 am it was in the mid 80's and by 9 we are in the 90's. Yesterday afternoon when I went out to water at 6pm it was 97 degrees and while sweating and watering I checked my plants closely.

The disaster I knew was coming was here. Lots of gray mold on my black tomatoes, early blight really taking off, and other spot diseases showing up. I hadn't even seen any aphids a week ago and now some of my thicker bushier plants are infested along with a decent amount of whiteflies. I guess all I need now is to see spider mites to make it worse. Oh yeah, I found two more plants in my new bed hit with TSWV.

The Daconil and copper had not done such a good a job but then it is partially my fault for allowing the plants to get so thick and bushy. I'm still kicking myself. I know better but the lure of the beautiful tomato plant can even get the better of an old pruner like me.

Mixed up 3 gallons of diluted bleach spray at a rather heavy concentration due to the extent of the diseases and how fast they were moving up the plants and sprayed the heck out of them early this morning. I really had to soak some plants and may have caused some unnecessary healthy leaf damage with my aggressive use of the bleach spray. We will see in a few days.

If it cools off enough to walk outside this evening without fainting from the heat I think I will reapply Daconil and then check in the morning to see how extensive the damage was from the diseases and the bleach spray.

I only get suckered into this situation every few years because most years the early disease pressure caused me to be much more aggressive in my pruning. This year started out with the least disease pressure I have seen in many years and I fell for it again.

Bill

[digsdirt]

Bill - I'm sorry for your plant's problems but are you saying that if you had only aggressively pruned your plants none of these problems would have developed? If so I'd have to strongly disagree.

Pruning isn't the cause for bad weather, aphids and whiteflies, Early Blight, grey mold and other spot diseases. Those issues could care less whether a plant has been aggressively pruned or not. They will go after single stem plants as much as they will any unpruned plant. So given the right conditions they grab it. Given even marginal controlled condition, they move on.

Not that placing blame is important, especially after the fact. But if one insists on blaming something, pruning or the lack of it isn't the issue.

Weather we can't control of course except in a greenhouse, aphids and whiteflies we can control with decreased use of N and a garden hose and mild pesticides if necessary with careful monitoring and quick intervention when needed, and disease prevention and control has its tools as well but it is up to us to use them and use them correctly.

We do that and our reward is all the fruit we wouldn't have gotten if we had aggressively pruned the plant.

Dave

[Dewayne mater]

Bill - Sorry to hear this. I have felt your pain many times, which is why I've been pruning and using the drop line method I learned from you this year. In fact I'm over due to start dropping some plants down and pruning is a constant need. You may remember I have some plants in earthtainers and some in the ground. I haven't pruned in the earthtainers and disease has been harsh. I've still had tremendous production in both gardens because of favorable conditions this year, but my container plants are suffering badly from disease in spite of multiple bleach sprays, multiple fungicides. My pruned plants on the other hand look pretty doggone good. Disease has been much less, harmful insects less prominent. I think what this method taught me is that it is easier to spot quickly, remove and isolate disease when the plants are well pruned. When they are bushy, the diseases are rampant by the time you are acting on them. That's my hypothesis anyway. Good luck in the battle!

Dewayne

[Kikaida]

Yeah, I hear ya. I got some Martino's Roma that refuses to grow upwards...They are squat, dense bushes with lots of foliage on the ground and very little air movement and that is the ideal spawning ground for fungi and bugs. They got some neem and daconil this weekend to stave off anything but they are so dense I'm just waiting for the worse. Fruit has been set for a while, just hope I can pick some before the inevitable.
-
Hopefully you can salvage something.

[b54red]

Originally Posted by digsdirt

Bill - I'm sorry for your plant's problems but are you saying that if you had only aggressively pruned your plants none of these problems would have developed? If so I'd have to strongly disagree.

Pruning isn't the cause for bad weather, aphids and whiteflies, Early Blight, grey mold and other spot diseases. Those issues could care less whether a plant has been aggressively pruned or not. They will go after single stem plants as much as they will any unpruned plant. So given the right conditions they grab it. Given even marginal controlled condition, they move on.

Not that placing blame is important, especially after the fact. But if one insists on blaming something, pruning or the lack of it isn't the issue.

Weather we can't control of course except in a greenhouse, aphids and whiteflies we can control with decreased use of N and a garden hose and mild pesticides if necessary with careful monitoring and quick intervention when needed, and disease prevention and control has its tools as well but it is up to us to use them and use them correctly.

We do that and our reward is all the fruit we wouldn't have gotten if we had aggressively pruned the plant.

Dave

Dave, I don't want to get in a big argument on the subject of pruning but with 40 years experience gardening in these conditions I know what I am talking about. To say that pruning doesn't affect the severity and frequency of diseases and pests down here is absolutely wrong. Of course diseases will appear if conditions are ripe for them even on the best maintained plants and some pests are just going to appear no matter what. Keeping good airflow greatly speeds up the drying of leaves and good airflow is maintained by pruning overly thick and bushy plants.

I did an experiment years ago when I started pruning. I heavily pruned a bed of tomatoes and the other I allowed to grow as they wished. Within six or seven weeks nearly all of the plants in the unpruned bed were dying of massive disease and pest infestation. I treated both beds the same as to fertilizer, water, and application of fungicide. The only downside that I saw from the pruned plants were a few cases of sunscald but I actually had it worse in the bed that wasn't pruned because of the massive foliage lose from diseases. Early production where the plants were not pruned was slightly higher for a week or so but the tomatoes were overall smaller. Production overall wasn't even comparable because the pruned plants lasted several months longer and continued to produce. At the same time I had a row of determinate hybrids growing in a row along my back garden fence and tried pruning half of them somewhat. What I did was thin out the middle of the plant so air flow was better; but far less than I would prune indeterminate plants. Despite all the warnings of never prune a determinate plant I still got more production of fruit because of the longer life the pruned plants experienced.

Another benefit of smart pruning is the ease of applying fungicides to all leaf surfaces thus greatly reducing the chance of diseases. It is also much easier to get an aphid or whitefly population explosion under control if they have no place to hide when you spray them.

My production has increased each year that I increased the amount of pruning. I started in cages with little pruning and was usually through by mid July. I moved to trellising and limiting my plants to 4 to 6 stems and production increased and the plants lasted into August usually. I then went to using drop lines and limiting the plants to 3 stems and kept most of my plants alive well into the fall with even more production. I now use that same drop line system of support and keep my plants to either one or two stems and last year I had the highest tomato production per plant that I have had because 2/3rds of the plants I set out the first week in April lasted until they froze in the fall. My longest plant with two stems stretched out at the end of the year was 25 ft long.

The plants that are presently suffering from the worst disease and pest problems are all plants that are much bushier and dense than the ones that are having little if any problem. As a result of the diseases on those plants I will be removing far more foliage on the lower part of the plant now than if I had pruned it as I should have 3 weeks ago. I will be out early in the morning, if I am able, pruning off the diseased leaves and thinning out some of the thicker plants and bagging them up. It is just much easier to do the needed pruning as they grow and not let them get in this state.

Bill

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Kikaida

Yeah, I hear ya. I got some Martino's Roma that refuses to grow upwards...They are squat, dense bushes with lots of foliage on the ground and very little air movement and that is the ideal spawning ground for fungi and bugs. They got some neem and daconil this weekend to stave off anything but they are so dense I'm just waiting for the worse. Fruit has been set for a while, just hope I can pick some before the inevitable.
-
Hopefully you can salvage something.

Thanks but I'm not worrying about salvaging tomatoes because my fruit set this year is very heavy and I should have all the tomatoes I can eat and give away to friends. I will lose some to sunscald after all the diseased leaves shrivel up from the diluted bleach spray or are removed by me exposing too many fruits to direct sunlight most of the day. In spite of that the loses should be very small like the loses I took from 6 days of rain splitting some of my ripening fruit. It is just part of growing tomatoes around here.

Bill

[digsdirt]

Naw Bill I'm not looking to argue about it either. Learned many years ago that it is a waste of time to argue it with devoted pruners. And honestly as long as you have tried alternatives, experimented some, and then decided which way to go, that's great. That makes it a well-informed decision. I have done the same over my 40+ years as well. I've just come to a different conclusion.

My primary concern is for the new inexperienced grower who reads somewhere that "pruning of tomato plants is required" or "if you don't prune your plants they will get diseased and die" or
"pruning your plants will double your production" and the many similar unsubstantiated comments that abound on the web. They take such claims at face value and start blindly loping.

I want them to at least be aware that there are alternate approaches that work well for others and might work well for them. That they need to experiment and determine which works best for them in their garden and climate. I also want them to understand that pruning isn't a magic cure-all. It isn't the only way, or even the best way, to reduce their odds of disease or pest problems and it will cost them some fruit production. Can't count the number of times a new grower has said to me "but I read somewhere those branches suck all the energy from the plant" or "but I pruned it to only two stems like I was supposed to so why did it get Early Blight?" etc.

So you and I can both say that based on our years of experience in our gardens and climates, we both have valid points. Ok?

Dave

[dipchip2000]

Dave

I have to agree with Bill because of his growing conditions. When it is hot and humid here in Oklahoma I find it much more manageable if I have pruned sparingly
but with purpose. I prune for health of the plant and not for production. A healthy plant will always produce more. Just my thoughts

ron

[Bipetual]

Bill, we have a shorter season here and I can't even imagine trying to keep a plant alive from April until October! Still, I always have problems with early blight and septoria. By the time I cut the dead branches out, I'm sure I'm spreading spores all over the place. This year I decided to prune all the bottom branches so that none of them touch the mulch. I felt so bad doing it, but I figure I would be doing it later anyway and at least this way I'm not spreading any disease yet. Your posts have given me hope for managing some of this junk!

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Bipetual

Bill, we have a shorter season here and I can't even imagine trying to keep a plant alive from April until October! Still, I always have problems with early blight and septoria. By the time I cut the dead branches out, I'm sure I'm spreading spores all over the place. This year I decided to prune all the bottom branches so that none of them touch the mulch. I felt so bad doing it, but I figure I would be doing it later anyway and at least this way I'm not spreading any disease yet. Your posts have given me hope for managing some of this junk!

Although I'm sure you don't have the disease pressure that I experience cutting off the lower limbs near the ground is just common sense. Even with a good mulch leaves touching the mulch tend to stay wet longer thus creating conditions more favorable to disease. Another benefit of removing the lower limbs is to allow air flow under the plant which is a plus in letting air move through the plant. I don't prune for some reason like making bigger fruit which is a side affect of pruning. People that grow for size are not keeping their plants foliage limited to one or two stems for nothing. I do it to keep my plants alive longer and that is all. I got so tired of going to all the trouble of planting tomatoes and the season ending basically 3 months after they were set out. I was always told you can't make tomatoes during our terrible summers and that was basically true til I started pruning and using the bleach solution to stop diseases along with preventive fungicides.

It would be much easier to just stick them in the ground, cage them, and spray occasionally to have a successful season. I envy people who live in that kind of climate but I don't envy the much shorter season they have. Just 100 miles north of me disease pressure on tomatoes is far less than what it is here. Part of that is due to all the commercial tomato growing that takes place around here which just allows for more diseases and pests to accumulate and move around spreading their joy to home gardens. All the commercial growers around here now have to grow the most disease resistant hybrids in order to make a crop. When I was a kid they could grow heirlooms and open pollinated varieties which were far tastier but with the accumulation of soil, air and pest borne diseases increasing with the years that is no longer possible. The soil problems they have in their fields have spread to most of the home gardens that have been planted for any length of time and we are left figuring out how to grow heirlooms in a very hostile environment.

If all I wanted was some tomatoes to freeze or can I could just plant a bunch of Amelias or some other nearly bullet proof variety and spray the heck out of them. Since I don't care for those rather same, bland, tasteless to me varieties I have worked to overcome the problems of growing heirlooms down here and I have succeeded for the most part. Sensible pruning has been a major factor in my success but if it were not helpful I sure wouldn't go to all the trouble.

You should do what works for the conditions you have to deal with and not what works in some other totally different climate with totally different problems. Just from my own experience with spot diseases I think you might have some success in keeping them at bay by starting with pruning the lowest limbs and spraying weekly with alternating Daconil and copper sprays. If you do get one of those diseases and the fungicide is not stopping it then you might want to try the diluted bleach spray but don't wait too late in using it. It is best used early when a disease pops up despite your fungicide and not once the plant is totally covered in it.

Good luck, Bill

[Bipetual]

Thanks, Bill. No, the disease pressure here is nothing at all like what you deal with. But I think if you can deal with all the problems you have and grow heirlooms, even when you have to graft rootstock, then I can suck it up and deal with it! Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it.

[AlittleSalt]

Bill, as you already know, our climate in Texas this year, has been more like yours. I only have experience gardening in draught years because I started gardening in 2010. Because of all the rain, our favorite, "Porter" tomato plants looks more like a thick fir tree in comparison to years past growth.

I am still learning. This year, I should have trimmed some of our Indet plants - especially our heat loving Porters. Live and learn...

[ginger2778]

I have different growing conditions than most here, but disease pressure is heavy here even in the winter, which is when I have to grow to get overnight temps low enough to get fruit set. I dont prune stems or laterals, but I definitely will thin out selected leaves to allow better air flow, and as Bill mentioned, to be able to get my spray to all the leaf and stem surfaces. We have dripping dew on the leaves very often, in the winters here.
I've only been growing for 24 years. I think it is long enough to have figured out what is best in my hands and my climate.

[b54red]

Ginger talking about dripping leaves shows one of the main reasons for having to do more pruning. With high humidity it takes much longer for leaves to dry and if they have insufficient air flow parts of the plant stay wet for far too long and as a result you get more diseases. I sometimes go out very early in the morning and when the plants are tall like now and the humidity is high the sound of dripping water coming off the plants sounds like it just rained. I know you have to deal with that kind of high humidity also and it takes some time to learn what works in those conditions. I can see why you use copper a lot since it does stick better than Daconil. I sprayed with Daconil at sundown yesterday because other than gray mold on some plants, Early Bight is giving me more problems than spot diseases right now and Daconil seems to work better for that. I plan to switch over to copper for my next spraying.

I am dreading all the work I will have to do in pruning the dying diseased leaves off resulting from the bleach spray yesterday morning. I started yesterday afternoon and just working on 12 plants filled a big black lawn bag with debris. A lot of it came from the two black tomato plants that had more extensive gray mold issues than I thought. The bleach spray really makes it apparent and helps with deciding what to remove because of its affect on the diseased leaves even on the ones where you can't actually see the disease before the diluted bleach is applied. One of my Indian Stripes which had become really bushy was really riddled with gray mold and I'm just hoping I slowed it down in time. I usually spot gray mold sooner but with the thickness of the plant I just failed to see the early signs which were deep in the plant cover. Over the years I have found that once gray mold gets too deeply in a plant that there is just no stopping it. Maybe it penetrates into the plant and becomes almost a systemic disease like Late Blight; it sure seems like it sometimes. Other times when it is caught early and treated with the dilute bleach and a fungicide it might come back but not severely and is fairly easily controlled. I rarely grow a black variety that it doesn't get some gray mold on it during its life span.

Bill

[brooksville]

Bill, when pruning as much as did yesterday, how do you prevent transferring diseases or viruses between plants? Do you clean your pruners after every plant?

Spreading disease from plant to plant is another reason I want to have more distance between rows. When I walk down the rows, I brush up against plant foliage on both sides. I think I may have spread some foliar disease because of this.

Gonna be 110 with heat index today. Last year was much cooler. Almost 10 degrees coolers if I remember correctly.