Early blight or????

16 years ago

Help! I check my tomatoes everyday. They are raised from seed. Today I went out and there were about 10 with dark spots surrounded by lighter areas, wilted leaves and some where the entire sucker had dried up and died.

These were perfectly healthy yesterday!!

I've had a similar situation going on with my HD tomatoes planted in October but they have been separated by about 100 feet. I've been trying not to work on the new tomatoes after the old tomatoes but who knows if I ate a tomato before going to check my babies and contaminated them?

I looked on the Cornell website. They look like early blight but some of the bacterial pictures look awfully similar. I have some bordeaux powder. Can I use this or do I need something else? I've been looking at the garden stores and HD. Can't seem to find any sort of fungicide at all.

Also, in a totally separate garden, my home grown basil seems to be doing something very similar, except the stems are shriveling up and appear to be rotting. But the leaf lesions are similar. My eggplants (one year old) also seem affected but only mildly. The peppers seem fine.

If someone tells me how to post pictures I'll be happy to add some. Only thing is that I just took all the bad leaves off the plants. Hopefully, I don't have any new ones!

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Comments (5)

tracydr
Original Author
16 years ago
I think it's Septoria. I just went to the Cornell website and I'm almost sure this is Septoria. What would be the least toxic treatment. I mean, I realize I'm probably going to have to use something chemical or non-organic to get this under control but would like to use something that is not horrible to the soil and my family.
Again, all I have at home is bordeaux and will have to mail order anything else as they don't seem to carry fungal stuff in Mesa, AZ. Maybe we're not supposed to get fungus here because we're usually dry but it has been a really wet spring.
tracydr
Original Author
16 years ago
I just ordered some Daconil and Serenade from Amazon. Not sure which one is best so ordered both. I'm hoping the Serenade is good enough since it's organic. But I'll have both on hand if needed. In the meantime, will treat with the bordeaux solution tonight since it's all that I have. Although, wondering if I should mix up some milk/water and spray it on. If I did that, should I do it before or after the bordeaux?
Geez. Just when they were starting to really get some nice fruits and now this!My first big tomato garden too. How can I have septoria in the desert of all places?
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digdirt2
16 years ago
Good luck with it whatever it is. But yes photos are pretty much needed. See link below.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: How to post pictures FAQ
tracydr
Original Author
16 years ago
Heading out of town this AM for San Antonio. I'll try posting pictures when I get back. I hope I have live tomato plants when I get back. Spraying them with anything as strong as copper made me so nervous. I mixed it with a little kelp. Funny, after I did it I found a website that said seaweed is one of the only organics (besides copper and a couple of others) that has actually shown some promise of working to TREAT early blight and septoria.
I diluted way down as I was very nervous about using the bordeaux mixture. I used 14 tsp and it called for 14 tbsp. I just couldn't bring myself to use such a strong solution, especially since it will be so warm the next few days.
tracydr
Original Author
16 years ago
Returned from town. Plants looked better. I think I may have found my problem and it's a biggie. I have been worried all along about the flood irrigation that I have no control over. Well, flood irrigation occurred four days ago. Went to plant some basil in some empty spots in the tomato garden. I hit water (hello, this is not Louisiana!!), standing water at about 3 inches in depth. My poor plants are standing in water and the top couple of inches of soil/compost look dry. I had no idea!
Now, how to improve drainage without destroying all the tomatoes? Any ideas?
I'm thinking french drain but not sure how to do all this work without digging half the tomatoes up. May have to just limp through the summer, uproot tomatoes when they're getting too hot to produce and dig a french drain before fall crop.