Is this blight

drainey0 · Sat Jul 30, 2016 5:24 am

Tomatoes have leaves that are dieing pls let me know if this is blight not. Thank you in advance

Peter1142 · Sat Jul 30, 2016 8:10 am

How long has it been going on? If it was late blight, your plants would die rapidly.

It is not early blight.

PaulF · Sat Jul 30, 2016 10:00 am

It looks much like the beginnings of Septoria Leaf Spot, a fungal disease of leaves. I begins in mid to late season. Like many leaf problems, humid weather, lack of air flow around the base of the plant and contact between the soil and leaves are major causes. Prevention is the key: good garden sanitation, watering the soil at the base of the tomato rather than overhead watering, a good mulching program to keep leaves from soil contact, trimming off low hanging leaves....all the good gardening practices. You can't do much about humidity or rainfall so the other things help.

At this point, many will spray with a copper based fungicide or chemical fungicide like Daconil. Be sure to remove the affected leaves and remove from the garden area. Don't handle the diseased leaves and then touch healthy leaves, this will spread the fungus.

Septoria and blights are similar in the way they are spread and the way to stop the spread.

Peter1142 · Sat Jul 30, 2016 10:09 am

It doesn't look like septoria leaf spot in my opinion. As per the name it makes spots, as well as yellowing, and there is neither.

It looks environmental to me, or caused by excess fertilizer.

drainey0 · Sat Jul 30, 2016 10:00 pm

ive only notcied it in the last month or so and it only seems to affect the tomatoes and not the peppers plant in the box with it.

drainey0 · Sat Jul 30, 2016 10:05 pm

more pics

PaulF · Sun Jul 31, 2016 12:00 pm

The leaf curl may be a natural reaction to heat and the need for water and the leaves look like maybe insect damage. Whatever it is I hope you figure it out and can get it fixed.

drainey0 · Sun Jul 31, 2016 4:43 pm

so think I know what going on next to the tomato is a sunflower and the sun flower is being destroyed by these gray looking bugs and fire ants. I'm thinking they are jumping over on to the tomatoes still doesnt explain why they arnt going for the pepper plant in the same box as the tomatoes though.

drainey0 · Sun Jul 31, 2016 4:49 pm

applestar · Sun Jul 31, 2016 8:46 pm

Not necessarily. You sunflowers are infested with chrysanthemum lace bug

https://news.aces.illinois.edu/news/lace-bugs-sunflowers

Check and see if the infested leaf is being controlled by ladybug and green lacewing larvae (black/orange or black.grey "alligators-like") -- or by hover fly larvae (tiny yellow green maggot/slug-like) If not, I would just put a plastic grocery bag over the badly infested leaf and clip it off to discard.

Shot holes in the tomato leaves could be flea beetles. Also check for whiteflies.

That last photo above with someone holding the tomato leaf -- are the affected areas of the leaf thin and papery? I was noticing tomato leaf miner damage/infestation on some of my tomato foliage today. When advanced to the point that the leaf miner caterpillar has already emerged and dropped out the leaf, the damaged part turns brown....

drainey0 · Sun Jul 31, 2016 10:43 pm

is there anything I can do now with what I have at home to help control these pest I haven't noticed any lady bugs and I don't have money for any organic insectices

PaulF · Sun Jul 31, 2016 10:53 pm

A lot of gardeners will not consider Sevin but used according to directions it can be very effective against flea beetles. I use as little chemical control as possible but sometimes chemicals are necessary.

applestar · Mon Aug 01, 2016 12:00 am

First thing I always do is try to just get the bugs off of the plants. Just disrupt them -- no need to watch and let them eat your plants! Even if you just knock them off, you'll make them have to get back up on the plant again.

Use your hand, wear gloves, dust brush, old toothbrush, blasts of water when you have the hose or sprayer. A cup or pan of soapy water is very effective for drowning/eliminating anything you can get off of the plants. Larger bugs -- if I can catch them I will force drop them on the ground and stomp on them. YOU ARE THE PREDATOR.

Mass infestation like the sunflower leaf, especially when so damaged that the leaf is not going to recover -- it's just easier to capture the lot and dispose of them... Hence the plastic bag trick. If you cut off the leaf without bagging first, you'll jostle a bunch of them off. That's fine if you don't have a bag handy -- just get them off.

Flea beetles -- if you can get to them early in the morning when the dew is still on the foliage, they are slow and you can easily rub them off the leaves and squish them. If the foliage is dry and they tend to jump off, hold the soapy pan under the leaf and drive them to jump into the pan.

...it's easy to get caught up in the marketing hype and propaganda that you HAVE to have poisons to control garden pests, but that's not necessarily true...

rainbowgardener · Mon Aug 01, 2016 4:15 am

And you have to know what you are treating. Your July 30 post, the first and last pictures are definitely physiological leaf roll. It is not a disease or a pest. It is the tomato plant's natural response to heat. Rolling the leaves up like that (and thickening them to a leathery texture) helps the plant conserve moisture.

Other than that, the only problem the tomatoes definitely have is flea beetles, which have been discussed.

Peter1142 · Mon Aug 01, 2016 8:23 am

I would never treat pests on tomatoes, except caterpillars/hornworms (even then no as the parasitic wasps take care of them for me.) Definitely not flea beetles. The damage done is just not significant, tomatoes are vigorous plants.

If the damage is limited to some lower leaves I would not lose any sleep over it.