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Growing Tomatoes

Leaf spot on Bonnie's plants sun sugar cherry tomatoes

catherinet (5IN)

2 years ago

Anyone else seeing this? Yes, I struggle every year with leaf spot on my various tomatoes (especially Romas), but this year the Sun Sugar plants (Bonnie's) and another cherry that I bought this spring are all just about dead from this. Just wondering if anyone else is finding that Bonnie's plants are pretty over-run almost immediately with leaf spot?

Thanks.

(And P.S., please don't put me down for growing Romas........lol).

Comments (4)

Labradors
2 years ago
If it's Septoria leaf spot, I get it every year on most of my varieties (that I grow from seed). Have you been removing the damaged leaves? It's important to do that, as well as removing all the leaves up to 12" from the ground to prevent splashback when it rains. Mulch also helps with that. The disease starts at the bottom and works its way up the plant.
catherinet (5IN)
Original Author
2 years ago
Thanks Labradors. Yes, I've been removing the damaged leaves and I mulched with cut grass, but probably a bit late. This seems to get worse every year, but it probably didn't help to have a very wet/cool spring. Since it happened to all the potted cherry toms I bought from Bonnie's.....I just wondered if it came from there to start with?
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The damage that you're seeing on the leaf looks like several different things. That's the problem with tomato foliar problems---they could indicate any one (or more) of dozens and dozens of issues and often the symptoms are not unique enough to tell us which one it is. Can you tell us a little about the plant? Growing in the ground? Transplanted when? Is it heavily mulched? Are the leaf issues moving in a specific pattern---for example starting at the bottom and working their way up? Or, showing up on uppermost leaves only or maybe everywhere uniformly? What has your rainfall been like for the last 2 weeks? Has the plant been exposed to hail or high winds? Are you seeing the grayish-tan lesions on the stems of the plant or only the limbs? After you answer my questions, I'll take a stab at a diagnosis, but off the top of my head, it looks like it might be a couple of things happening at the same time. I just hate to "guess" without knowing more about the plant and how the disease appeared. One problem with attempting to ID an issue from a photo is that a photo is static and captures one moment in time, but diseases, nutritional deficiencies and even environmental stress are progressive. For me, it is a whole lot easier to figure out what something is if I have watched it appear and progress than to look at a photo that captures it at only one stage. Also if you haven't already compared your photos to the photos at the Texas A&M Tomato Problem Solver website, you might want to give it a try. That's always the first place I look, and then if I can't come up with a diagnosis from that, I go to Cornell Univ.'s Vegetable MD Website, and if I still feel like I haven't figured it out, I drag out my tomato disease book. Dawn
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On Cherry Tomatoes: I have several SUNGOLDS that I have started from seed. Today I was at Fred Myers Garden center They have Sun Sugar. The price @ $1.99. was right for a nice 6" sturdy plant, BUT: I realy do not have more garden space. Is Sun Sugar any better than Sungold ? If YES, I might squeeze one some place. They had so many different nice varieties That I would've liked to grow, if I had space : LIKE. Anna Russina, Caspian Pink, Black from Tula, Indigo Rose, Red Zebra, Ananas Noir, Juliet, Jet Star, German Johnson, Amish paste, Kellog BeefSteak ... and few more.They all were from another grower, NOT Bonnie So what do you think about Sun Sugar ?
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Labradors
2 years ago
.

Of course the disease could already have been on the plants when you bought them. I once grew a variety that had spots all over the fruit. None of my other plants suffered, so I had to assume that the disease was in the seed.......

Are you able to rotate your garden? It's difficult for me because I grow so many plants in the same family, but I rotate my plants end to end every 3 years in the hopes that it will help a little, even though I know that Septoria is blown in on the wind, rain and dew.
catherinet (5IN)
Original Author
2 years ago
Hi Labradors.........I have all my tomatoes in 70 gallon food-grade raised stock tanks. I rotate them every year, but that means the next year after rotating, they go back to a stock tank that has had tomatoes in them the year before last. It's not ideal, but that's all I have. I just can't plant all things down in the ground. As I've aged, the ground keeps getting further and further away. lol!

I have found it very useful to never plant more than 3 plants in a stocktank and keep them pruned at the bottom and sides, to give them more ventilation. It seems that Roma tomatoes seem to be much more susceptible to leaf spot. It's usually a race against time every year to get tomatoes before the entire plant is gone from the leafspot. But.....it's amazing that it continues to ripen and produce plenty of 'maters. This year even my peppers seemed to get leaf spot. I know, it's everywhere....

Thanks again.

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