Disease on Tomato Plants

[BStangl]

This year is my first year doing a garden, and I love it, but this garden seems to be giving me a lot of worries throughout the season. My most recent worries are my tomato plants, which up until recently had been doing absolutely wonderful and giving me no worries whatsoever except for how to support these huge plants outgrowing their supports. I know you guys get a lot of questions like this, so I hope I'm not repeating things already asked. Anyway a couple of weeks ago my tomato plants started to exhibit some leaf roll on some of the lower branches, we had had some hard rains in the days before that so I thought that's all it was and it would clear up. The weather has been hot and dry now for over a week and they still have the leaf roll and then a couple of days ago I noticed the affected leaves were starting to get some light yellow spots on them, and it's been getting worse. What really scares me is I did some research and the affected leaves look just like Tobacco Mosaic Virus. All of my tomato plants are affected except for my grape tomato plant. Could this be TMV if only some of the leaves are affected? It's all of the leaves on some of the branches at the bottom of the plant. If it is TMV could I remove the affcted branches and maybe save the plants? I sprayed my garden with a milk solution because I read that that does something to the virus. I'm really hoping these plants aren't a lost cause because they're my only tomato plants, other than a grape tomato, and I haven't even got a tomato off of them yet, I was really looking forward to a nice juicy home grown tomato. Well thank you for any information, I'm sorry this post was so long.

[hendi_alex]

My tomato plants almost aways get afflicted by various conditions of yellowing leaves. Usually is verticillium wilt but sometimes has the curling condition you cite. My only suggestions apply to next year. Rotate crops with tomato planted in a new location that has not had similar plants like egg plant, peppers, potatoes planted in the previous several years. Also consider selecting several varieties having as many kinds of disease resistance as possible. Many plants will get the disease but tolerate it and continue producing for a decent harvest season. Plant the tomatoes several feet between plants, line the beds or rows with lanscape fabric and cover with clean mulch. Water the plants only from the bottom. Cull out some of the interior branches to increase air flow. Trim the low leaves that appear affected, but be sure to rinse pruners with chlorox solution between trimming a contaminated area and triming a healthy area. Also rinse between plants. Try planting a few upside down tomato plants, planted in synthetic soil. Place a sheet of plastic on the ground and try using the "hay bale" method of planting a few plants. One last suggestion is really and experiment that I've yet to try. I've noticed that my summer greenhouse grown tomatoes never get diseases. The greenhouse is open and plant are grown inside in large containers. Plants grown outside in similar containers eventually do get the disease. My conclusion is that the majority of disease comes from the soil and is promoted by rainy, damp weather followed by hot humid conditions. My experiment is going to be to build a tomato shed covered in plastic such that the tops of the plants do not get wet by rain. Will grow the tomatoes in clean soil in raised beds and will use individual plant drip emitters so that the foilage never gets wet. I think that such a tomato enclosure will virtually eliminate any problems with tomato diseases. It only takes about 4 healthy tomato plants to provide sufficient tomatoes for an average family, so IMO such an enclosure would not have to be bigger than about 8 x 8. An added benefit is that the enclosure could easily be modified by using removable panels or with addition/removal of plastic film, such that it becomes a season extender to start plants earlier and to haverst later. Just a thought, for the person with adequate space and motivation.