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Growing Tomatoes

Early Blight, Late Blight?? Combination?

15 years ago

Hi everyone-

Below are pics of my plants that I planted in mid Feb...a bit early, but they have tolerated the cool weather.

I noticed the spots showing up on the lower leaves, which were yellowing, and I thought it was because it was setting fruit. (The yellowing, not the spots) The spots are now on every leaf of the plant. It is a Yellow Pear plant I purchased at a local nursery. After I planted it, it never looked very happy or healthy in comparison to the other plants I purchased and planted nearby. I thought it was just transplant shock initially.

The Sweet Olive plant looks like classic Early blight, but the grayish patches on the Yellow Pear look like Late Blight according to the pics from Problem Solver in the Disease forum, but I'm no expert. The grayish patches are on the lower leaves, and the top leaves have spots and no grayish patches. The Cherokee purple and Champion plant have spots as well.

The only plant not affected is a cutting off of the Yellow Pear that I had in a container sitting near by. I moved it this morning, and it looks very happy and healthy.

What do I do with these plants? Pull them up and start over or will Daconil or other sprays save them? Also, is the soil contaminated now? It was an old bed that had not been used for anything in at least 15 years that I dug up and amended with MG Garden Soil and purchased compost.

I have seedling hardening off that I can replace them with, so I'm not heart broken if I have to pull them up...just concerned about it happening to the new ones.

Thanks!

Yellow Pear pics (see the grayish regions on the right?)

[IMG]http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/ss157/ragtimegal/CIMG0349.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/ss157/ragtimegal/CIMG0352.jpg[/IMG]

Sweet Olive (looks like EB to me)

[IMG]http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/ss157/ragtimegal/CIMG0350.jpg[/IMG]

Cherokee Purple

[IMG]http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/ss157/ragtimegal/CIMG0360.jpg[/IMG]

Champion

[IMG]http://i571.photobucket.com/albums/ss157/ragtimegal/CIMG0354.jpg[/IMG]

Comments (4)

ragtimegal
Original Author
15 years ago
Drat! I do this everytime...here's the pics.

Yellow Pear

With gray regions on the right
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Sweet Olive (looks like EB)
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Cherokee Purple
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Champion
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By the way, the Champion has 2 toms on it and the Yellow Pear has one, very sad little tomato. They both stopped fruiting, but our evening temps dipped and the blossoms have all been dropping, so I assumed it was blossom drop since I have other plants at another location that are healthy but dropping blossoms.
ragtimegal
Original Author
15 years ago
Someone from another forum was kind enough to point out that this looks more like Septoria leaft spot. I pulled up the plants that had spots from bottom to top, and I left the two that had some leaves without spots. I removed all infected leaves and sprayed with Daconil.

Can I put new plants in the same bed?
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We get similar symptoms on our tomato plants, usually toward the end of August. We are generally able to get a good crop of tomatoes despite the yellow leaves. I compost all of the refuse from the garden, including sick looking tomato plants. However, we have a slow pile, and material will sit in the pile for about 18 months before the finished compost is removed and put on the garden plot. As far as I can tell, the compost is free of tomato pathogens, because the tomatoes are generally healthy.
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I'm not sure if potato blight is related in anyway to tomato blight, but I've heard to get rid of tomato blight, you have to solarize your soil by putting a plastic sheet on top of the area, and let the sun bake the area for a few days to kill the fungus in the soil. Or I guess you can plant the potatoes in a different area, but I'm not sure how far away you have to do that from the infected area. Maybe someone else may have other ideas too.
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THe best preventative for the two fungal foliage diseases, Early Blight and Septoria Leaf Spot in Daconil and Ortho does make a good Daconil product. Be sure to get the one with 29.6% active ingredient which is chlorothalinol. And start on a rigorous spray schedule when you put the plants out side. What Daconil does is to block the specific attachment sites on the leaf surface so that the those two pathogens can't attach. And Daconil is also the best we have in helping to precent Late blight as well, if you look at quite a few wesites, and that's even more important since LB can quickly become lethal while the two fungal foliage pathogens are less devastating. Whether or not any of the foliage diseases is present in any one season is primarily due to their presence in rain droplets and they are transmitted just by air alone. But if diseased plants shed the spores to the ground then the next year one can get what's called splashback infection from those spores that were shed to the ground when rain or irrigation splashes them back up onto the lower foliage and then the disease progresses upwards on the plants. Carolyn
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Yep- HD sells it and so does ACO. Are you useing MG for toms? Also you might be watering to much. I've only watered 3-4 times this year and I think you got a few more storms than me. I grew up in Warren and owned a house in Fraser for 10 years. Know your area well. Toms are like weeds, you can kick them and abuse them and they'll still get backup and grow. But I think people try to hard and give them mega doses of ferts and waste them. Smaller and frequently is better than lots of ferts every so often.
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may0503
15 years ago
Hey ragtimegal, I read about this disease and one thing that I've read over and over again is to not plant a tomato in the same area more than once in three consecutive years. For that matter anything that is related to the tomato. Rotation of crops can deter fungus issues that may arise. Hope this helps.
anney
15 years ago
RTG

If it is Septoria, you may have caught and treated it in time. Why don't you leave the plants where they are and see if they respond to the Daconil by putting out new unblemished growth. And follow the label directions for additional spraying.

If it's Septoria and you purchased these plants, I'd wonder if it came along with them. Infected seeds are sometimes thought to be a source of the disease as well as weedy areas and infected plant debris being a harbor. Soil does not seem to be a home for the disease (see below).

Here is a link that might be useful: Septoria Fact Sheet

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