Tomato problem helper

[TZ -OH6]

There are a lot of websites listing info and pictures of tomato diseases, unfortunately the photography for many of them is often not very helpful.

This is the site I have found most useful

http://avrdc.org/LC/tomato/tomato_diseases/index.html

http://avrdc.org/LC/tomato/home.html

It often does not come up on searches and I had to search my hard drive for my saved copy to find the web address.


I saved the file to my computer and downloaded all of the larger linked pictures, and then in my word processer (Word) I opened the file and pasted the large images as large as they would fit and saved as a single file web archive (.mht) or .doc. Now I just open my file, look at the little pictures to get some idea of the problem and then scroll down my page to the big picture to confirm. I also add informative pictures from other sites.





Sites for mineral deficiencies

http://4e.plantphys.net/article.php?ch=3&id=289


http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/min-def/index.html

http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/min-def/list.htm

http://www.hbci.com/~wenonah/min-def/tomatoes.htm


Hope this helps,

TZ

[lakngulf]

Yikes!!!! That's a lot of diseases. Thanks for posting. What are the most often used remedies for blight? Or does it depend on the type of blight the plant has attracted?

[gixxerific]

Thanks TZ. Those are some good sites.

[TZ -OH6]

I'm not sure what to do with Southen Blight. The plant is usually a goner by the time you see the evidence. Septoria and Early blight look similar and hit at about the same time. Mulching to prevent splash up of soil based spores, and trimming off lower leaves to promote airflow and drying is the best preventative. You can also try spraying with compost tea or milk, to coat the leaf receptors that the spores identify with, but effectiveness is variable/questionable. The usual organic method is to spray with a copper compound, but copper washes off with rain, does not leave the soil, and can be toxic to soil microbes and people at high concentrations, so it is not a good idea to heavily apply copper year after year. There are several very effective synthetic fungicides on the market, one of the most popular used to be called Daconil, but I think Ortho renamed it something user friendly like "Disease Control" or 'Happy Plants' for people who were scared of a chemically name,... active ingredient is Chlorothalonil. Chlorothalonil is not good for fish or aquatic bugs, so don't spray it into your fish pond, It doesn't seem to hurt bees, but if you feed it to rats at high dosages every day of their life they may develop tumors (but eating that much broccoli or cabbage would be toxic too). It breaks down in the soil after a couple of months.


http://extoxnet.orst.edu/pips/chloroth.htm


Late blight is another story. Last year in the northeast organic farmers sprayed their plants with copper after every rain and still lost everything. Farmers that used synthetic fungicides on a regular basis had better luck but still suffered. The plants I had growing under the eaves of the house protected from most rain lasted a lot longer than my other plants, so covering plants when it rains may help with Late Blight because it needs liquid to infect the plant tissue.

[lakngulf]

I'm not sure what to do with Southen Blight.

When I first read this I thought you were making a statement about us Alabamians.

[TZ -OH6]

Here is a good article pointing out the differences between systemic diseases, which many hybrids have various resistances to, and foliar diseases, which hybrids are no different than "heirlooms" in their susceptibility.

Systemic diseases are region specific and soil type specific. I don't get any of them here in my garden plots except in two small areas, so I just don't put tomatoes in those small spots, or I fixed the soil (deep dug and amended with organic matter) to get rid of the problem.

Note that many feel that potato leaf varieties are more resistant to the common foliage diseases than are regular leaf varieties. That has not been the ovewhelming case in my garden (the PL plants still get hit) except to observe that the few varieties that get hit the worse each year have never been potato leaf.



http://www.garden.org/articles/articles ... how&id=389