Late Blight?

[crmauch]

I'm having a problem with my tomato plants that I think might be Late Blight, but I kind of wanted at least some confirmation.

I cannot post photos unfortunately. I'm not trying to save the plants this year, but would like to know so I could consider doing something different next year. I am afraid that I have quite a few Roma tomatoes hanging that probably won't ripen.

First of all I found out after planting that I had them too close (18" apart) in a Florida Weave. I did not prune out any growth, just wove it in.

The plants have lost their leaves from the bottom up, very, very quickly. The still green leaves are not spotted at all, but have brown areas or sections of leaf, sometimes at the tip, sometimes on the side of the leaf. and then the whole leaf turns brown. But from what I've read of Late Blight there should be a darker area within the diseased section, but I'm not seeing that. Some of the fruit has turned gray, but not fuzzy, more pebbly in appearance. In the case of the cherry tomato, it's the whole fruit, but only parts of the larger tomatoes. But I wasn't sure if this was part of the leaf disease or some kind of sunscald because of the leaf loss.

The disease seemed to progress the fastest on Super Sweet 100 cherry, but also affected Golden Jubilee, Roma, and Husky Gold.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[zipcode]

Sounds very much like late blight, yes. Normally most plants should be affected, there aren't many that have any resistance.
If good weather comes, it can still stop if the plants aren't dead. About 2 weeks of dry weather and it will stop completely. But in the meantime 90% of tomato fruit will be lost regardless, so I guess it's a bit late at this date.
Besides spraying, pruning to single stem is a slight help, but not too much. The best thing you can do for next year is cover. Like a greenhouse or just a transparent roof from glass or whatever over them.

[KarenO]

http://www.longislandhort.cornell.ed...ato.htm#images

very good photographs and much information about late blight on Tomatoes. Sorry about your garden, nothing can be done to salvage plants with late blight.
Prevention is not easy either if it is prevalent in your area but the tips as above may help and you will find a great deal of information here on Tomatoville regarding preventative spraying for next year. Some years we can be affected here too but not this year I am grateful to say.
good luck
KarenO

[RayR]

Late Blight doesn't spread from the bottom of the plant up, it starts anywhere on the plant—leaves, stems and fruit will all be affected.

Go to Cornell's web site, it may help you diagnose whether you have late blight or not.

[crmauch]

Originally Posted by zipcode

Besides spraying, pruning to single stem is a slight help, but not too much. The best thing you can do for next year is cover. Like a greenhouse or just a transparent roof from glass or whatever over them.

Actually in one article I read, one year had late blight spreading in greenhouses,

Originally Posted by KarenO

http://www.longislandhort.cornell.ed...ato.htm#images

very good photographs and much information about late blight on Tomatoes. Sorry about your garden, nothing can be done to salvage plants with late blight.
Prevention is not easy either if it is prevalent in your area but the tips as above may help and you will find a great deal of information here on Tomatoville regarding preventative spraying for next year. Some years we can be affected here too but not this year I am grateful to say.
good luck

Thanks for the link, it was helpful. Looking online I have some ideas now for varieties (seems unfortunate, but it looks like the more resistant varieties aren't the greatest flavored), and some both organic and conventional sprays (plus the bleach spray that might be helpful described in Tomatoville).

Originally Posted by RayR

Late Blight doesn't spread from the bottom of the plant up, it starts anywhere on the plant—leaves, stems and fruit will all be affected.

Go to Cornell's web site, it may help you diagnose whether you have late blight or not.

Well maybe I'm wrong about it spreading from ground up. Just appearred that way to me. I need to look more closely at my stems. But the telltale for me was the images of the fruit. My fruit closely resembles the fruit shown, and none of the other diseases infected fruit images come close.

Thanks for everyone's help. If anyone else has a comment I'd like to hear what you have to say.

Chris