Ya looks like speck. Its been a little rainy hasnt it, everyone seems to have something on their toms. I have septoria real bad.

As for control, this fall remove vines completly from garden and deep till if possible. I will be moldboard plowing my garden (expanding to 1/4 acre) Next year I plan to use raised beds covered in plastic with drip tape and mulch inbetween rows. Dont overhead water! Use a soaker hose or drip line. I didnt want to mulch this year because of all the rain, well you need to keep the soil from splashing on the leaves or you increase disease chances. Try to keep tom leaves dry and clean.

Sprays : Mancozeb (or daconil) and copper sprays 7-10 intervals starting at first blossum. Once they start to ripen your in the clear. I think mancozeb has a 5 day phi, daconil 0. I have read the mancozeb is better on spot and speck on tomato. I am organic so its just copper and will be trying serenade also and my timing will be later (depending on weather)

Thats a start , you have all winter to research varities that are more resistant to spot and speck and a strategy to control or prevent it.

You have nice melons btw! (looked at your album)

Joe

Joe

I will probably have to chisel plow my new garden spot this fall. I am a farmer so I have enough deep tilling equipment. I also plan on mulching with some baled cornstalks or something.

I have a new heart shaped tomato called Homer's German Oxheart that I isolated on the south side of a shed so I can save seed and they have some septoria or early blight but not very bad. I mulched them and seemed to help.

I really don't have much of an album. I am just trying to learn how to use photobucket and I just put a few pics there to share with a couple of people.

I usually grow pretty good watermelons but this year will be late. No ripe ones yet; maybe another week. Too cold early. That was a pic of my son with a couple of Million Bucks a couple of years ago. This year I will have quite a few winter squash as they have done well. No disease at all and I have about 20 hills of various kinds.

Jack

joe-il,

I use Serenade and GreenCure. I think you will be pleased with the results if you alternate these two products. I also give my toms a dose of copper spray at first bloom and then again in 21 days. I am not totally organic and do use Daconil when needed but this year I have had great results using just Serenade and GreenCure.

DL

Here is a link that might be useful: GreenCure

Below are the pathogens that Green Cure is supposed to have some activity against, and none of them are Bacterial Speck or Bacterial Spot.

Daconil is strictly an anti-fungal. It blocks the specific attachment sites on the leaf surface where the fungal foliage pathogens attach, such as Early Blight ( A. solani) and Septoria Leaf Spot, as well as the spores of Late Blight ( P.infestans), so Daconil is of no use with respect to Bacterial Speck or Spot.

And it's good to remember that NO product is 100% effective.

I've not seen any good data to suggest that Serenade or Messenger are effective against Bacterial Speck or Spot either.

The most used product for these two diseases is a copper spray, applied early in the season and the spray schedule continued, but the effect in preventing those two diseases is said to be "moderate"

Turning over the soil completely to bury and bacteria that are shed can help, not rototilling, but actually turning over the soil deeply, as well as using a good mulch to prevent splashback infection from bacteria shed in the previous year.

Green Cure/Pathogens

Alternaria Blight
Anthracnose
Ascochyta Blight
Black Spot
Botrytis Blight
Botrytis Grey Mold
Cercospora Leaf Blight
Corynespora Leaf Spot
Didymellina Leaf Spot
Diplodia Tip Blight
Downy Mildew
Entomosporium Leaf Spot
Fusarium
Helminthosporium Leaf Spot
Ink Spot
Molilinea Fruit & Blossom Rot
Penicillium spp.
Phomopsis Blight
Powdery Mildew
Ovulinia sp.
Ramularia Leaf Spot
Ray Blight
Rust
Scab
Septoria Leaf Spot

Carolyn

Dancinglemons - thanks for the link I bookmarked it.

Jack- Plowing would be better as you want to try to bury the pathogens, of course you have what you have and I wouldnt worry too much about it if you cant plow. Copper+Mancozeb would/should give superb control of bacterial speck and good control of fungus/blight. Copper+daconil would/should give good bacterial control and superb fungus/blight control. See? There is a lot to disease management and this is only to point you in the right direction. Commercial growers start spraying 2 weeks after transplant, and for speck and spot treat the seedlings with streptomycin. (at what stage I dont know) Also you dont want to spray in hot weather (as a farmer im sure you already know this) The point being there much more out there to learn. I want to grow 200 -300 toms next year, researching this has been an eye opening experience.

I know nothing about seed saving and how or if there is any way to kill disease on seeds (for the average person) But seed is a source of speck and septoria, so you may want to skip a year. Or learn about streptomycin.

I have 1 black diamond melon thats close to being ready, been a crappy year. Pumpkins Beans onions lettuce did well.

Joe

Joe,

I don't know if my problem will stay in the seed but as I said, my seed came from different sources and I shared some plants with a neighber who has had no problems.

I save my seeds by the method Carolyn describes in her book but have only used a few varieties of my own.

I wonder if fumigating the soil would help and what that involves?

Hey it rained again, go figure. I found a good article from IL extension about speck in IL. More exact than what I gave.

Here is a link that might be useful: IL extension speck.

I save my seeds by the method Carolyn describes in her book but have only used a few varieties of my own.

I wonder if fumigating the soil would help and what that involves?

*****

Straight fermentation cannot eliminate bacterial foliage pathogens from the seed coat very well, and mostly b'c the bacterial pathogens are usually in the endosperm of the seed.

While the IL article does speak to hot water treatement it doesn't give the details and it isn't that easy since you have to hold a certain temp for a certain amount of time and there's always some loss of seed viability.

If you look in some of the commercial catalogs such as Stokes or Johnny's you'll see that for an extra charge they will do the hot water treatment.

I'm not aware of ANY products that are available to home gardeners for soil fumigation for bacterial pathogens and even those for soil dwelling fungal pathogens I think are outlawed in many states and in those states where still Ok to use, such as methyl bromide, a commercial farmer has to have a pesticide license.

Carolyn

Thanks Carolyn,

I will look into the hot water treatment.

Yes, we have had to have a pesticide license for some years now. I quit it myself though and rely on the local co-op.

Jack