Black leaf tips. Mold?

[Dewayne mater]

Just when I thought I was off to a great start, nearly all of my earthtainer tomatoes have something happening and I'd appreciate your insights. As you can see from the posted picture, some of the leaf tips are turning black and eventually they crisp and die. I mistakenly thought this was a result of the howling north winds and 39 degree temps recently and the leaves getting slammed into the cages over and over again. However, now I think that is not it as some new growth is now affected...see the upper left most portion of the picture for the small dried/dead leaves.

Is this a mold? Doesn't look like the molds I've had before. I have some insects, but nothing rampant I see...mostly aphids. Thinking it might be some disease, I hit them hard with Excel G and actinovate this morning early and we shall see. Another concern is that it appears some of the blossoms are affected (see the two in the middle of the screen with browning on the tips of the green part that holds the flowers. How is that every year there seems to be something new to deal with? Any suggestions as to what it is and how to deal with it greatly appreciated!

Dewayne mater

[Vespertino]

I would have thought it was wind damage too. I'm sorry about your tomatoes, I hope this turns out to be nothing and they bounce back. Sorry I can't offer any help or advice since this is my first year growing tomatoes. I hope those with more experience can chime in.

[coastal bend]

I'm not sure but my toms look like that. They were fine untill we 50 mph cold wind 10 days ago. Now my CP looks like that with some broken limbs. Some of the leaves have turned black . I took them off . Then the end of last week another cold front came through with 40mph winds. It was down in the 40's at night for 2 nights. I lost all the bloom when this time of year I should have lots of them. I hope it starts up again. It look's like the cold weather may be over. We don't have cold weather like that this time of year. The one CP that was ready to be pick tasted like a tomato from HEB . I hope the rest do better.

[Dewayne mater]

Upon deciding that I was dealing with a fungal issue of some kind, yesterday morning I sprayed a combo of Exel LG and Actinovate. Exel says it is a systemic fungicide, so it seemed worth a shot. By evening, some of my plants looked like those in the two attached pictures. As you can see, a lot of leaf browning took place. The plants with the most leaf browning were those that were most affected by what I believe is a fungal issue. The plants that I thought showed no signs of the fungal issue only have 2 or 3 leaves with this type of leaf browning.

Questions: Is this browning the action of Exel? I've used this product for 3 years and not had a reaction like this. Still, the leaf browning looks similar to when I sprayed Bill's bleach solution in reaction to a mold problem a year or two ago.

Did I burn the leaves by over application? I did use a new Solo sprayer (LOVE IT!) but I did follow the dilution suggestions on the Exel bottle.

What to do next? Thinking about a foliar feed followed by daconil 12 hours later. Any input appreciated!

Dewayne Mater

[Heritage]

Dewayne,

Fairly rare, but check out the symptoms of CMM (bacterial canker) and see if they fit what you are seeing.
One link is http://www.google.com/url?q=http://w...Kc_Uw9_7e33Huw

I sent you a PM.

Steve

[Dewayne mater]

Thanks Steve PM'd you back. Wondering if this is leaf burn from application of Excel LG. The browning up of a lot of leaves happened very quickly, within 12 hours of spraying, so that is a pretty good indicator that Excel had something to do with it. One question I have though is did the Excel LG cause this to healthy leaves or is this a reaction of already diseased leaves to the product? If it is the later, then the leaves were doomed anyway and this just sped up the process. If the former, well, I really screwed up!

[JamesL]

Dewayne,
While I would not completely rule out a product burn, I think with molds and mildews, it is generally more widespread than is at first visible to the eye. It all gets wiped out when you spray and the leaves look much worse than we think they should.
I have observed similar reactions using Greencure and I think that is one of the more innocuous products.
The Exel certainly had something to do with it - killing the mold or the leaves! And I don't think I am surprised that you are observing a big difference in 12 hours.
It is kind of a lose, lose as you really won't know either way. As long as the patients survive it becomes a win though!

[sfmathews]

Hi Dewayne,
Funny you should post pics that look similar to some of my plants. Although I don't use Excel, I thought perhaps I had burned them with fish emulsion, or if it was that wind and cold snap from last week. Now I'm thinking I do need to hit them with fungicide.
Susan

[RayR]

First you have to determine if you have an insect problem on the bottom of the leaves (mites, aphids etc...). They can fool you into thinking you have a disease issue if you are only looking from the top. Spraying anything on leaves that are in a weakened state can just aggravate the symptoms and not solve a thing.

[Dewayne mater]

Susan - I'm sorry to hear that! Which pics resemble yours, the first or the 2nd and 3rd?

Not too suprisingly, we run into similar problems. If it is fungal, I'll bet it blew in here on the 40-50 mph north winds we had for about 48 hours last week. I'd concluded probably fungal prior to spraying the Exel LG and I think that may still be a good conclusion. Exel is one of the only systemic fungicides, so that is why I chose it. The bigger bummer is one plant that had several trusses of huge flowers, but now seems like none of those flowers are viable. I'm not gonna beat myself up because the plants that are very protected from winds got the same spraying and they show only a very small amount of leaf browning today.

Ray - there are some insects to be sure, but not a huge number of any type. I've seen some aphids and what I think are my first few spider mites. Neither has a large population because I've been vigilant with neem, insecticidal soap and when that wasn't doing enough, one does of Take Down. I do worry about whether what looks like an aphid could actually be a psyllid...which can lead to bad things. But, not really seeing any purple veins or the white sticky stuff they leave behind, so I don't think that insects are the issue.

Barring some other insights, I'm still thinking fungal and think I'll spray a liquid fertilizer like Texas tomato food or fish/seaweed, then 24 hours later hit them with daconil to try to prevent further spread. Good luck Susan. Really appreciate all the replies! Feel free to keep them coming.

Dewayne

[KarenO]

I would have said the first picture was simply mechanical damage/injury from the wind. The subsequent photo's look like chemical burning from whatever was sprayed on the leaves There will be no improvement or recovery to normal in the damaged foliage from subsequent fertilizers applied *the already injured foliage will not look better no matter what you do. damaged leaves and plant tissues will not "heal" and return to a healthy green. the best that can be hoped for in this case is that new growth will be healthy. the damaged foliage needs to pruned off. unfortunately, most of the foliage is damaged.
sorry to be blunt but it's not looking very good here for a good outcome.

Karen

[Dewayne mater]

Karen - I can take a blunt truthful answer - thanks! I decided it was not mechanical because of two things, one, some plants that I put in the garage during the entire wind event developed the same issues and symptoms as in the first picture (black leaf tips that eventually spread and kill the leaves). Also, even after the wind ended, new leaves were coming out that also had the black tip issue. I still can't be 100%, but, that was my reasoning process for why this was something other than mechanical. I don't have an insect infestation (sure some insects good and bad) and that left infectious processes as the culprit, of which there are several possibilities.

It is likely that I burned the plants with too much Exel, though I still can't figure out why my tainer plants were burned significantly, whereas my in ground plants only ever so slightly? The good news is I showed the absolute worst of the worst in the pictures for demonstration and the rest of the plants don't have the same extent of browning/burning as shown, well less than 1/2 of the plant affected. This could be 100% human error, but, I think there is a component of something else going on and it may be that the other issue that I think is fungal magnified the affects of Exel.

Next time, I will definitely use a much lighter dose of Excel G and hopefully, not have this issue again. Lesson learned.

Dewayne mater

[sfmathews]

Dewayne, pics 2 & 3 most resemble what I'm dealing with. I pulled a good number of low branches last night that were wilted and curled, with black tips. And I'm also seeing some early blight. Bugs are not an issue yet, I've been checking the undersides of leaves every day.

[tsipgolf12]

Dewayne I also am having the same problem...black tip at start then leaf edge turns brown and spreads into the leaf. Have sprayed with B54red's bleach solution and greencure 4 times in last 5 days because of continuing rain. Have removed lots of damaged leaves. New growth looks to developing same black tip on some of the leaves but seems to have stopped spreading. What is it and how do I treat it? Would attach pictures if I could figure out how to overcome the security token error message when I try.

Thanks RWG

[Dewayne mater]

RWG: I may can help you on the posting. I believe the problem is your browser has to be set to accept cookies. Try making that change and see if it helps.

Maybe pics will help. Maybe not. As you can see in this post alone, there are some varied opinions as to whether this is nothing but a little wind damage, insect related, fungal in nature, chemical burn (Exel LG), or a combination of the above. In other words, just about anything it could ever be has been suggested in just 14 posts (this being 15).

Ultimately, you have to make your own judgments on the best info you can get. That's what I try to do and through the years, that has worked extremely well. On this occasion, it looks like I may well have over done a good thing and caused new problems or aggravated existing ones.

FYI: I first tried typically helpful sights like A&M problem solver, (two others from CA and CO), searching here, and google image searches. I never found anything that matches very closely the original problem, which it sounds like you may have too. I would point out again that in the upper left corner of the first pic, you can see a new leaf that is entirely black...that was without question a leaf that was not mechanically harmed into looking that way and that type of leaf damage was spreading daily. I will continue to look for definitive diagnosis, but, my m.o. is to figure out as best I can what it is and then act quickly. If you over analyze to the point of paralysis, you can end up with an unwinnable situation by waiting too long.

Dewayne mater