cousinjordo wrote:I'm leaning more towards septoria leaf spot right now, but maybe thats because it seems to be the least devastating of the variety of diseases and thats just what I am hoping it is. I've pretty much ruled out blight because the symptoms are small black spots ...
My tomato plants seem to have this most every year, to a greater or lesser extent. With a couple dozen tomato varieties in the garden, I really notice that some are more susceptible than others. There are hybrids with disease resistance that sail through. Heirlooms that may or may not be susceptible.
This is not the cool, wet Pacific Coast. Still, we usually get weeks of
cool, cloudy weather in the spring months. The ancestors of our garden tomatoes grow wild in one of the driest places on earth. I once discovered several plants that were not Early Girl, from my packet of Early Girl seed. I grew them for 2 seasons. The fruit was exactly like Early Girl but the foliage, was not! And, after a month or so in the garden, I could stand at a distance and look down the rows of all my tomatoes and identify the 4 "mystery" tomatoes by their yellow leaves. I guess I got the non-resistant genes in those seeds.
Yes, I think of it as septoria. Cornell has an easy to use guide to tomato diseases (
link).
Cleaning off the leaves is about all I have ever done. This is a Wild West climate

once we get to summer. Generally, they may be stunted by our spring weather but can come out of foliage problems when we get into better, tomato-growing weather. Wishing you the Best of Luck.
Steve
We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond. ~ Gwendolyn Brooks