It looks like bird dropping on it !!?

Hi Seysonn, no it's definitely not bird dropping (smile). It does kind of look that way though, indeed.

Can DigDirt/Dave or someone with tomato experience please chime in here?? I'm anxious and feeling like I may have a tomato infected with late blight in my garden...yikes!

Thanks & Please Advise,

Stella

It doesn't look good. Do you see any spores? How do the stems look? Any other leaves affected?

Hi Ajsmama, it seems to have just started. There were probably eight leaves affected at or near the bottom that I removed. The one pictured is the worst looking.

At first, I just thought 'early blight'. It just doesn't quite look like the early blight I'm used to though. That soaked through gray area is disturbing. I will be sure to keep an eye on the stem.

Do you know how quickly late blight would take to show itself on both stem/leaf?

Thanks for the help!

One of the dream team members (Dave, Betsy, Carolyn, etc) will be able to help, but for what it's worth, I recently had the "unspeakable disease" scare as well, and after plenty of research I found it was grey mold (botrytis). Look it up before you picnic and pull anything up! :)

Is that a grainy white substance I see next to the dark area? I know psyllids leave white sugar looking stuff behind, but I don't think their resulting damage looks like that.

Here is a pic of botrytis, the grey mold I mentioned above

Hi Jadie, you know that does kind of look like some of the leaves. Some seem to have that yellow halo while others just the grayish dying areas. Worst of all though, is I just found the same on both of my Cherokee Purple plants. One leaf even had mold on the back of it (see pic).

I didn't know I could feel so sad about my garden/plants, but I do right now.

Thanks for your help, Jadie. Oh, and I won't pull until I'm sure. For now, off to get some copper spray...

I hope I don't have to tear any of my lovelies out...:-(

Re: post with time stamp of: Jun 14, 13 at 19:32

Is that really mold? That may be some silk from a caterpillar, like a silkworm type or something. (It's hard to tell from the picture whether it's silk or mold). The leaf itself seems to be eaten by a caterpillar.

When I find damaged leaves like that, I search under the leaves for any small green caterpillars. Some caterpillars also leave black poops.

Stella, what you have is gray mold. It is still bad stuff.

As for your original question, the unmentionable disease would become very apparent within a few days, so I've read. Keep us posted!

This post was edited by jadie88 on Fri, Jun 14, 13 at 23:07

Hi Fusion Power, are you looking at my pictures or of Jadie's picture that is actually a photo of Botrytis a.k.a. gray mold?? My last photo shows a speck of very white mold (even more white in person). My first pic is of a very dark grey blemished leaf. Please let me know if you still think so.
Also, do you have any suggestions on how one can know the difference between Gray Mold and L.B. when evaluating plants? Thanks, Fusion Power!

Hi Jadie, I will keep an eye on my plants (can't even keep myself away from them now) and be back to let you know if I'm able to come to a solid conclusion/or not. I never thought I'd be muttering 'I hope this is Botrytis'...!

It's hard to tell. But I think it would have progressed quickly - by now your plant would be dying if it is really LB. I haven't seen gray mold on tomatoes before, but I've got some on my strawberries and it looks like the fruit/stems are covered with fine gray dust, as soon as you touch them you see the spores floating away. I don't see that in your pictures.

So tell us how are your plants today? Any stem lesions? A picture of the plant(s) and not just individual leaves would help.