Help identify this problem please, disease????

gixxerific · Sat Dec 22, 2012 2:03 am

Anybody know what this is. A few of my indoor dwarfs went from stellar to no so stellar very fast.

I have been wondering if it was a disease of some sort. Than I see the funk on the leaves in the pics. Any ideas this is really depressing. I have never had problems inside before.

I did reuse some old potting mix that was mixed with new potting mix. But I didn't have any noticeable problems out in the garden.

applestar · Sat Dec 22, 2012 2:18 am

My immediate thought was mildew, but the sandy colored mass is not the white powdery mildew that I'm familiar with, so I looked at some pics on line for downy mildew and that seems to fit.

I don't have personal experience with them. But do remove/isolate the affected plants immediately in case I'm right. I have read that downy mildew is nasty. I'm sorry to see this happen to your beautiful dwarfs.

applestar · Sat Dec 22, 2012 2:21 am

Whoa look at Figure 5a here. It says "Powdery mildew of tomato caused by Oidium neolycopersici and O. lycopersici", and looks a lot like yours.
https://www.extension.org/pages/18337/ma ... gh-tunnels

powdery mildew has occurred in many greenhouses under drier conditions (Figure 5)

One of my Sophie's Choice plants has dry tan leaf spots looking a lot like top left photo captioned Fig. 5b.

I'm putting milk in their morning mist spray tomorrow.

I'll start a clean batch of AACT also.

applestar · Sat Dec 22, 2012 3:32 am

Have been reading more articles. Paraphrased below with links.

1) spray seedlings and dip hands in milk powder solution containing 35% protein. https://publications.gc.ca/collections/c ... -2006E.pdf
-- never thought of dipping hands in milk solution when handling diseased plants. This is for tomato mosaic virus but should be equally effective, especially against powdery mildew

2) non-aerated compost tea effective against tomato powdery mildew Oidium neolycopersici https://publications.gc.ca/collections/c ... -2006E.pdf

3) something about UV light used to kill airborne fungal spores...
...argh! Lost the link -- will be back with more details and link. But I was thinking that I have a ultrasonic mist humidifier with UV sterilizer and I have seen room air filters/cleaners with UV -- something to consider? Do you have anything like that, Gixx?
...heck we're talking banks of standard 4 ft tubes here, I wonder if it's an option to fit one or more uv tubes in the light fixtures and leave on overnight or something. You could use a timer to turn them on/off without being there....

Edit: here it is. pp 4-6

Code: Select all

https://dl.nsf.ac.lk/bitstream/1/8895/2/RRICQJ-50(3-4)-208.pdf

applestar · Sat Dec 22, 2012 5:02 am

Gixx, out of curiosity, which varieties are getting this bad? Which ones are succumbing? Which ones seem to be unaffected?
Just found this article but not sure if I can make sense out of it -- too technical for me -- except that some varieties must be resistant....
https://www.lifesciencesite.com/lsj/life ... 52_657.pdf

Does this part say that exposure to UV-B activated an immune defense mechanism ???

expression of NADP-ME gene were activated by UV-B, wounding, fungal effectors, NaCl, carbonates, environment pH changes etc (Walter etal., 1994; Schaaf etal., 1995; Pinto etal., 1999; Casati etal., 1999; Cheng and Long, 2007; Liu etal., 2007). It showed that NADP-ME was involved in plant defense responses and stress responses.

By the way, do you think this is what they have? As usual, I've been plunging on ahead, running searches and reading and trying to learn something without having had your confirmation. But that's OK, I learned a few new things.

gixxerific · Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:43 am

Thaks Apple.

It is mainly Donomater. I will cull these and see if I can't get this under control.