This year I'm definitely going to spray. Earlier rather than later, trying to head off late blight. Last year I was complacent, and it cost me big time. Don't know if spraying would have defeated late blight, but it might have helped.

Ever since I started drenching the plants and the ground with Actinovate, I've had very little disease problems. I also had pretty good luck with Serenade in previous years.

I intend to spray with BT to head off the horn worms. I also dose a little neem for the aphids. I didn't spray at all on my winter crop and aphids took over my chard and lettuce so severely they never recovered. This season, I'm being more proactive. I've also got to keep up with the Sluggo or slugs will devour everything I plant in one night.

I rarely spray against insect pests, discovering there are usually other ways to deal with them.

But I DO prescriptively spray to protect against tomato diseases before they show up, since in my experience, diseases are much more a threat to tomato production and health than insects. And more certain to appear on my plants! I get an occasional hornworm and have removed a fruitworm from a tomato, but those are the only insects I've met on my tomato plants for years.

I'll be spraying against late blight, even though in IL, we're not supposed to have a huge problem in general. But I got wiped out last year, thanks to a neighbor who just left his stricken plants lay there in the garden for weeks and weeks. Everyone who had a tomato in the area was screwed - even the one sole hanging tomato all the way down the block.

This year, with the wet and cooler weather patterns so far? Oh yes I am regularly spraying fungicides to prevent diseases insofar as possible.

Pests? No, never on a regular basis, only as needed and with the least toxic possible. I never use Sevin dust as it is far too lethal to beneficials and grossly use-abused. I will use liquid Sevin, but only on rare occasions and as a last resort.

JMO

Dave

For hornworms, a couple applications of BT. I don't spray until/if I see any holes in the foliage though.

And for disease, trying a homemade recipe of: milk, liquid seaweed and Superthrive. Spraying this once per week. I'll report back with results with this later in the season.

So what fungicides or anti-disease sprays do people recommend. Are there any that are dangerous to insects that I should avoid?

I second that question - should daconil be used and should it go on in the morning or evening?

So what fungicides or anti-disease sprays do people recommend. Are there any that are dangerous to insects that I should avoid?

Lots of discussions here about fungicides you can review if you wish. Just search 'fungicide'.

Daconil and the similar Ortho Garden Disease Control are the two most frequently discussed. Actinovate, Seranade are also available and discussed here. Bonide makes Fungonil and a couple of other copper/sulphur based fungicides but those containing Chlorothalonil like the Daconil are the most recommended.

With any fungicide you just need to follow the detailed directions on the label. Daconil has like 8 pages of attached instructions for mixing and application.

Dave

Some of us grow organically. We are a minority though on this particular board. I have made the decision NOT to use Daconil on my vegetables after reading the warnings and precautions on the bottle. This decision I felt was best for those who were going to be eating my vegetables especially my wife who has survived breast cancer TWICE. Life is about choices. How badly do you really need those tomatoes?

I have found that proper spacing, good organic mulch, soaker hoses and lots of compost go a long way toward fighting many diseases. I haven't lost a crop in all the time I've been growing organically...

So, Big Daddy, after reading your message I would feel horrible spraying anything on my tomatoes. I'll just use the Daconil on my roses and hope for the best for the tomatoes. DH put cages around them befor I could get the newspaper and pine mulch down so I'm going to try to get grass clippons around them.
I just wanted perfect tomatoes for one year!

Thanks for all the feedback.

Joy

joytwo

If you don't protect your tomatoes against diseases, you may as well be prepared to lose a lot of them, depending on the variety. Tomato diseases are far more prevalent and destructive than insect pests.

Why don't you investigate Serenade if you don't want to use Daconil? And other organic fungicides? Maybe bigdaddy can tell you how he protects his tomatoes from diseases.

I'd be happy to Anney! First thing though I'd have to say that your experience differs somewhat from mine when you write:

"If you don't protect your tomatoes against diseases, you may as well be prepared to lose a lot of them, depending on the variety"

My ususal summer gives me plenty of tomatoes until October. I usually start getting Early Blight and various spots and specs in mid August that attacks lower branches but the plants still keep producing like I said until sometime in October. In 15 years of growing organically I haven't lost a plant to disease where I got ZERO tomatoes. I would bet that if I DID use Daconil I would get more tomatoes and for a few weeks longer but I am happy with these:

Above pic taken August 1, 2003. You can see some yellowing specs and spots starting just above my son's head in the middle. I never prune. I now grow 5 feet apart in either Texas or CRW cages. I use TONS of compost and a THICK straw mulch to prevent splashback from rain. I use kelp/fish fert SPARINGLY. I use soaker hoses and some years I used the Cornell Formula which translates to 2 tablespoons of ultralight horticultural oil and 4 teaspoons (one heaping tablespoon) of Arm & Hammer baking soda in a gallon of water.
Originally, up to a tablespoon of liquid dishwashing soap was added in order to emulsify the oil in the case that the mixture couldn't be continuously agitated while spraying. That isn't necessary with current versions of most ultralight horticultural oils because they now contain an emulsifying agent (see the label).

Works great for me and a nice side effect is that I feel better about my gardening hobby. I used to spray anything anytime. My garage smelled like the garden isle at HD or Kmart. I learned it was a vicious cycle, a never ending spraying pattern. Chem companies must love that! Now I contol troublesome insects by releasing beneficials each year. About $10 but SO much cheaper and easier than spraying chems willy nilly! An organic garden is a thing of joy and beauty and is good for the soul and planet...;-)

I don't spray and have so far, never lost a crop.

I get the sense that in some areas like say Texas, you pretty much have to use Daconil if you want a crop.

If you don't live in such an area, then I'd suggest the default is not spraying -- only spray as a last resort once you've figured out how things grow in your particular garden.

You can look at this two ways: yes, the chance of catastrophic loss in a given year is probably higher, because by the time you notice a problem, the spraying is less effective. But you are also potentially avoiding the cost, hassle and risks of unnecessary regular spraying.

bigdaddy

Yes, thanks, and you answered in the spirit the request was made! (Later I wondered if it had seemed less than friendly.)

So you do use a spray but it's one you whip up yourself? (...some years I used the Cornell Formula which translates to 2 tablespoons of ultralight horticultural oil and 4 teaspoons (one heaping tablespoon) of Arm & Hammer baking soda in a gallon of water.) This sounds like a fungus fighter, and you don't object to spraying but just what's sprayed with!

I have a theory about insect pests and diseases and where one lives. When I lived in NJ suburbia and gardened, it was like living in a huge sprawl of NYC, which I could see from the back window. It was extremely odd to me that there were almost no insect pests or tomato diseases that invaded my garden while I was there for 25 years.

I believe that when you garden in areas that are in the middle of urban or suburban sprawl, there are not nearby gardens with pests and diseases that transfer to your own. It isn't that you don't see them, but IME it was not often.

Now in rural Georgia, where everything is rampantly lush and green and there are gardens and farms everywhere, you really have to be on the lookout. There is just more LIFE in such an environment. If there are accompanying plant pests and diseases, that is not surprising to me. And they get handily passed around from plot to plot.

As I say, it's a theory. But have you ever noticed that when you drive out in the country, your windshield is a bug graveyard, and it just doesn't happen in towns and cities.

Anyway, I keep waiting to hear more reports about the organic fungicides that are appearing on the market. I'll move to one of them after I finish my Garden Disease Control if they do the job as well.

When I don't spray them, my tomato plants are dead from disease by mid-July, or at least were last year. And of course last year was bad for just about everybody's tomatoes on the east coast. If it wasn't LB, it was other funguses because of the cold wet weather. I finally gave up trying because it rained so much.

I've never sprayed. Even last year I only had one tomato plant mildly affected by late blight (a sungold). I start my own and my neighbors don't really garden much so the risk of infection is fairly low. I do tend to crowd my plants (I've got a small space and big eyes), so I try to be careful to remove anything that looks iffy. Other advice I've read is to water from the ground in the morning, mulch heavily, and remove any leaves that touch the ground.

I don't get many destructive bugs either. Maybe it's all the birds in the garden (different thread)?

Some vital points made about how location can affect the need to spray fungicides. As can weather and it is our weather that led me to spraying this year. While we normally suffer from high temps and high humidity both, it is normally dry (as in minimal rainfall) and chronic diseases like septoria and early blight are normally found at tolerable levels here.

But the past 2 years,and this one so far, have been markedly different here with almost constant daily rain - enough to rapidly bring the lakes up to maximum flood pool - and little sun. Plus it has been inordinately cool. Those conditions are ripe for the common diseases. So I am electing to spray this year - not out of any fear of late blight, but just in the hopes of controlling the fungal and bacterial diseases to a degree.

You see it doesn't have to be and either/or issue - spray or don't spray. Just as many of us here are compromise organic gardeners, many more than get credit for it since we aren't organic purists, one can compromise on this issue too.

If you feel that fungicides are dangerous, even the organic-approved ones, then you can always consider applying them only early in the season when the weather is its most risky and before fruit has set. Or only apply it during a period of severe weather change, or only after signs of disease to control if not prevent. There is gray, not just black and white on any issue.

So, Big Daddy, after reading your message I would feel horrible spraying anything on my tomatoes.

Joy I'm sorry you feel that way - "horrible" - since it reflects on those of us who choose to use fungicides. It is your choice of course. But I am curious as to how you can come to that conclusion about fungicides yet justify to yourself the use of Sevin in your garden?

I am always amazed at the number of gardeners who accept highly toxic chemicals to kill bugs, any bugs, yet find disease controls unacceptable. Is it just because we find bugs ugly? Or because they are alive? Makes little sense to me since diseases pose a much greater threat to the garden than do the bugs. And it is especially difficult to understand when the disease controls, in general, are rated as much less toxic than the pest controls.

But to each his own. ;)

Dave

I've never sprayed either and never lost a crop. I also grow from seed and my closest neighbors aren't all that close and aren't big gardeners, so I didn't get the late blight last year. My biggest problem is supporting them and weed control.

Caryl

Anney, I think you are absolutely correct about location. I had never sprayed for fungal dieseases in my garden until I moved to my present home. The first three years I lived here, I didn't spray either. It took me those three years of growing tomatoes and *trying* to grow squash, beans, peas, and cucumbers to figure out that it is a requirement for this particular garden because it is in a very low lying area, and is surrounded on three sides by huge trees and bordered by a small creek as well. Everything I try to grow gets infected by fungal diseases by the end of June and most are dead by July. Even my tomatoes (which are in earthtainers) are lookiing pretty pitiful, tho they do continue to produce some tomatoes. But after reading about preventative measures on this forum, I will give it a shot to see how much of a difference it will make.

Anney, you may be on to something there regarding the bugs and where you live. I've been to Florida many times. We have a condo in West Palm Beach and the bugs there are insane! I think maybe the more tropical conditions are the more bugs you are gonna get and probably more disease. It was wet here last year and on the cool side and sure my tomato plants showed lots of lower yellow late in the season but I consider that normal and really don't care if I only get 20 Brandywines instead of 25 if I had sprayed and drenched chemicals like MG and Daconil to keep all the foliage nice and green. I take what nature gives. And nature is quite generous when you use natural solutions and ingredients.

Years ago I used to read CRAZY people on these rorums who would preach organic. Total NUTCASES who would say they used green lacewings and ladybugs to fight whiteflies, aphids, spidermites, etc. No way I thought that would work. After maybe 5 or 6 years of spraying I started doing research because spidermites were simply everywhere in my gardens! For instance, it's well documented that Sevin kills the beneficials who control spidermites. I had sprayed Neem, hort oils, soaps, Kelthane, Isotox, Sevin. Eight and Nine LOL and it was a vicious cycle and my plants got all sickly looking. So I tried organics the next year and integrated pest management and I'll be darned the improvement was blatantly obvious! I ordered the stupid lacewings and the mite and whitefly populations got smaller and smaller as time went by. LACEWINGS work folks! THey are cheap and oh so easy to apply! Now everything I am saying applies to backyard gardeners like me, not farmers who are feeding the world. I realize that and that's a whole different thing.

I am also watching the new organic sprays that claim to prevent various diseases. My neighbor who lives only a few minutes away is using Actinovate (sp) and something else instead of Daconil this year and I hope it's successful for her. She's a GW member too BTW so maybe she'll share her results with us all. So yes Anney I'm not against spraying, I'm just only spraying what I consider natural and safe remedies (I think Daconil is neither) because my family, my friends and myself, are eating this stuff!

Dave I thought we were friends! I listen and I waver back and forth and that's whi I asked everyone's opimion.
DH puts the Sevin on potato and cabbage plants. To be perfectly honest, I have never put anything on my tomatoes except one time I puy a gallon of Miracle Grow on each one. I put grass clippings around them, cage them up and that;s it. So far, we have gotten enough fruit for our nneeds. The only thing is I guess I get some type of blight because by late August the plants are pretty well gone.
I just thought if I sprayed them they would be really pretty and last longer. It is really humid here and by August it's pretty miserable.

Bonide's Fungonil
Just to expand on Didirt's comments, Bonide's Fungonil is 29.6 percent Chlorothalonil. I found it very effective used on a seven day schedule during our quite horrible growing year last season. Again, read and follow the copious directions supplied.
Victor

So far there's nothing organic that's **effective** against Late Blight. For those who think you've concocted a homemade mix and it cured it, you just haven't experienced LB yet!

After what happened last year with LB, I will start spraying before the plants even get planted in the ground, bed or container.

Until I have more than just a few varieties tolerant of LB, there's no doubt who's spraying around here. I'm surprised at how many would want to take a chance reliving 2009.

The most effective cure starts with "an ounce of prevention."