I'm a newbie okay, so don't take what i say to the bank... But, you see the rings in the brown spots in the pics? It matches everything i've read about blight.

That would be Early Blight ( A. solani), not Late Blight (P. infestans) and I agree with a Dx of Early Blight, a very common fungal foliage pathogen,

3rd vote for Early Blight - it's classic - and you can learn a great deal about the disease by Googling 'Early Blight."

Strip off the affected leaves, bag them and trash them and begin a regular weekly spraying program with a good fungicide like Daconil or Ortho Garden Disease Control.

I would spray all your plants because if this one plant has it then the conditions are right for it to develop on all of your plants.

Dave

I agree, it's Early Blight. I find it much easier to control than other diseases, with a good fungicide, such as the Ortho that Dave mentioned above.

Thanks everyone,
How effective is Actinovate? I have a package of it that has been in my shed since last season. It has been exposed to extreme heat and cold. Would it still be good to use? There is also some Daconil in my shed. It was left there by the previous owner of my house. I've been living here a year, but have no idea how long the Daconil has been sitting in there. It has also been exposed to extreme heat and cold. Does it expire?

I've not seen any data to tell me how effective Actinovate is against fungal foliage pathogens but some folks have said it works, and others aren't sure.

I do know that Daconil works, and that's the compound that's found in Ortho Garden Disease Control. There are other brands as well but you must get the one that has 29.6% chlorothalonil, the active ingrediaent in the concentrate, b'c there are different concentrations of Daconil that are sold/

I wouldn't use the Daconil in your shed. ( smile)

Carolyn

Thanks Carolyn,
Will Daconil Harm this little guy that has been living among my tomato plants?

I forgot to mention that I used Actinovate (not the old stuff in my shed but a new package) on all the tomatoes that I have in my earthboxes. What I did was, at planting time, I put a tablespoon of it in each of my earthbox's fill tubes. I did NOT do this for the diseased tomato in the photo as it is in pot that was turned into a homemade SWC and I never added Actinovate to any of those. It makes me wonder if this is why my earthbox tomatoes (so far) seem to be blight free. I will treat them all again just to make sure. I just ordered some more Actinovate. I will use the Daconil as a last resort because I like to keep things organic.

Thanks to everyone for all of your help.

He is a cutie. I'd carefully move him out before spraying. Once it dries he can move back in.

Dave

Has anyone tried Regalia SC for early blight? It is a natural plant extract used to wake up the plants own defense system to fight of the fungal infection. If I can find it for a decent price I'll get it but if not I'll get the Serenade. My symptoms are lesions on the lower leaves with halos. So far just the bottom leaves are effected.

Hello bdank,

It's nice to know you are born on Nov. 1 and you live in the United States, but it would also help if you revealed your geographical location quite specifically. Nobody's gonna bite you. Geography has everything to do with pathogens... and plant maintenance.

And it works both ways. Give a little, and get a little.

The rest of us also like to learn from your postings. Hence my personal disappointment in your lack of specificity in location.

Here in slightly-inland coastal so california, I never spray for early blight... after some 15 years. I just cull the leaves so afflicted on a casual routine basis. I thought I saw late blight on one prized plant, lately... a much more frightful prospect... and I removed the plant entirely. Well, "lots of things" might have explained those dark lesions on my stems, I was told... but I was taking no chances. Early onset of late blight is a plague... and has wrought havoc in may eastern USA locations... so I heard... in 2009.

I believe in "chemical warfare," too. Had my own chem lab as a 11 year old, for that matter. Could have blown my face off. But I didn't.

My point is that chemicals have their place. And so does abstinence therefrom. Chemicals are both overrated and underrated. I wouldn't trust the best chemicals to protect my other plants from the spread of late blight. But I wouldn't bother with any chemicals at all for early blight.

I also value the opinions of other long-time contributors, like Dr. Carolyn... who has dedicated her career... not just an avocation... to tomatoes and botany. Dr. Carolyn lives in a very different (eastern) climate than I do, however.

Different remedies typically apply, based on geography.

John

John,
I'm in Northern Virgina. I ended up destroying that tomato plant. I know I probably could of saved it but didn't want to risk infecting others. I went today to look for Daconil but couldn't find any at Walmart or Lowes. I even asked a Ortho distributor (who was stocking shelves) about the garden disease control and he had no idea what I was talking about. So I ordered some online and for now I sprayed all my plants with the old stuff that was left in my shed. I was thinking of spraying one week with Dancoil and then the next week spraying with Actinovate. Does this sound like a good plan. Should I spray weekly for the entire season?

Is it best to apply Daconil preemptively or once the symptoms have developed? And then, how often do you have to reapply?

Steve

This is definitely an early and incomplete assessment but I think Serenade is helping to keep my early blight in check here in northern VA. I pulled off all the diseased leaves and spray serenade once a week, usually right after storms.

bdank, if you are close to Merrifield Garden Center, they have daconil and pretty much anything you need for gardening. Price is higher than big box stores but it beats shopping online.

bdank, you definitely want to alternate Daconil with something else. Actinovate seems like a good idea. Just check the expiration date on that since they are only good for a year or so based on online information. Thankfully our weather is much better now than this time last year when we had so much rain and mild temperature.

"I ended up destroying that tomato plant. I know I probably could of saved it but didn't want to risk infecting others."

Wow... Sorry to hear that. I hate to tell you this, but if your plant had already developed symptoms of early blight, that means it is probably already in your soil. All your plants will likely get it anyways, unless you spray them every couple days and even then, it's not a 100% prevention in my opinion; You may have pulled the plant for nothing. If you had left the early blight alone, and not treated it at all, worst case is you would have lost some leaves and a little of the productivity of your plants.

Early blight is really, really common, and is generally more of a nuisance than anything else. Early blight is no more of a death sentence to tomatoes than the common cold is for humans. If I pulled up all of my plants when I noticed a patch of early blight on them, I'd have a bare garden with mostly mulch by now.

ikea_gw:
The funny thing is I didn't have any disease on my plants last year, even though I heard that a lot of people had trouble. I believe there is a Merrifield around here somewhere. I'm in Fredericksburg. I will check it out. I guess I could of checked out the Meadow Farms nursery as well. I buy my Tomato Tone there.

homegardenpa:
I grow in earthboxes so my plants don't share soil. This particular plant was in a homemade SWC and wasn't even near my other tomato plants. It was one of three Sungold plants that I had. Actually, it was an extra plant that I had left over, that's why it wasn't in an earthbox. So it really wasn't that big of a loss to me. I'd rather get rid of that one plant then have to deal will all my plants getting early blight. It's been about five days since I pulled that plant and I don't see any disease on my other plants yet. I will continue to treat them with Daconil and Actinovate as a preventive.

"I grow in earthboxes so my plants don't share soil. This particular plant was in a homemade SWC and wasn't even near my other tomato plants."

Well, my point still stands. My understanding is that, if any plants of yours developed early blight, the spores are likely in the soil of the containers, or in the ground, or being windblown, or all of the above; Basically, they're around you somewhere waiting to come back out. Spraying should work out for suppressing further infection though.

There isn't anything that I'm aware of the kills early blight (without killing the plants) and most sprays and such are just preventative measures. I've just come to accept that dealing with early blight is part of growing tomatoes and I focus on keeping it to the bare minimum. If you managed to go a whole season without seeing early blight at all - without spraying; then you sir are a luckier man than I :)

++If you managed to go a whole season without seeing early blight at all - without spraying; then you sir are a luckier man than I :)++

I especially lucky because I'm a woman ;0)