Can a late blight in... Morris County, NJ, affect gardeners in... Long Island, NY. (circa 50 miles between the two location) ?

It can, depending where the winds are coming from.
Bacteri cannot fly. hehe. they float in the air and winds scatter them.

I have a question:
HOW DO THEY MOVE / MULTIPLY WITHIN A PLANT ?
Say they land on the top. How do they go to the bottom ?

Sey

About half of the time the wind blows from... WEST.

Morris County, NJ, is WEST of Long Island.

Yes it most certainly can. That's a bad place for LB in July!

I am going to cave and spray my tomatoes.

Yikes, i'm in that colored patch on the map, to the far right side of it.

And out comes the Daconil...

Steve

OK... Daconil, but is it the first time you fungicide ?

Not at all Daniel, i used Daconil once at the beginning of the season, but then regularly followed up with copper-sulfate and Serenade.

Here's a PDF from NCSU, Tomato Late Blight treatment info can be found at pages 119 thru 122: http://content.ces.ncsu.edu/disease-control.pdf

Well, I think you should be ok.

eek ! I don't like it . hehe
Luckily there is one spot in WA, south of us and we don't get any winds from that direction.

Sey

Steve, Daconil from DAY ONE ?

Also, how often copper and Serenade ?

Daniel, i coated my tomato starts with Daconil a couple of days before plant-out. Copper-sulfate or Serenade corresponding with rain, sometimes both before and after rain using Serenade.

To be honest, i'm not a big fan of copper alone, hence me going with a copper-sulphur mix, 6:1 sulphur heavy (Bonide Garden Dust, used in a sprayer). I only keep copper around because it works well for bacterial spot on my pepper plants. I'm currently in research mode for alternatives, including systemics.

Steve

> Daniel, i coated my tomato starts with Daconil a couple of days before plant-out.
BEFORE !?
Now, that's good to know ! Interesting !
I always thought that MIGHT not be a good idea to mix different fungicides.
I'm talking about the backyard gardeners, not the commercial growers.
What do you people think ?

About mixing fungicides, many can be mixed, but you'd have to confirm by researching them beforehand to avoid creating a toxic disaster. Serenade employs a more dominant form of benign bacteria, it crowds out all of the other nasties, but i'm sure they would not like to be hit with copper-sulfate a day or two after, so i alternate. And a few brands pre-mix copper+sulphur, as mentioned in my prior post.

Steve

I wish I had known about this a while ago, I got plants 7 to 8 ' high in cages that have blight here in tn, gonna pull the infected leaves tommorow which is gonna be a major pain in the ass, gonna spray after that and hope I can get the tomatoes that are on the plants now before the plant dies,

karl_tn, can we see a few pictures of your plants - before and after ?

Our little rain storm ended around 6:00pm EST, so i just finished coating everything in my local plots with Daconil, even the pesky rosebushes :P

Tomorrow morning i'll hit my other plots, and the parent's too since i don't think dad has any Daconil left.

Steve

I'll give you picks of what I have , it started lower leaves, had a good 2 weeks of heavy rain, my tallest plant is ove 8 ', the plant on the left is my tallest and I have infected leaves close to a ft from the top

Here's another of the bottoms, I know it's hard to see but it extends far up my plants

As far as before they got infected I only have a couple picks when they were small

Picks didn't come out in order, top one is the first pick, no problems till later, it's been a bad year so far for me

I'll give you picks of what I have , it started lower leaves, had a good 2 weeks of heavy rain, my tallest plant is ove 8 ', the plant on the left is my tallest and I have infected leaves close to a ft from the top

Here's another of the bottoms, I know it's hard to see but it extends far up my plants

As far as before they got infected I only have a couple picks when they were small

Picks didn't come out in order, top one is the first pick, no problems till later, it's been a bad year so far for me

Karl, I'm not an expert, but IMHO you probably don't have late blight but some other fungal or bacterial disease. I will see what the tomato leaf experts say. The blight map also doesn't indicate LB in Tennessee, and it is too hot I think down there. I can't see well on my phone but I think I see early blight.

Good luck, I'm sure you can get it more under control and salvage fruits.

I'm not an expert either, but I think late blight destroys a crop fast, VERY fast - like a week or so. I might be wrong. But if I'm right, and your problem lasted more than a week, it might NOT be Late Blight, so there is hope.

You guys are probley right but after seeing a post today and seeing leaves like mine I went out clipping leaves, took some to my local nursery to check out , told me it was blight and not much I can do at this point except pull leaves and spray and will probley get the tomatoes on the vine, but that they will die, as far as late blight , not sure all I know is it's getting late in the season for me so I consider this a late blight and a major pain in my butt :(

> ...took some to my local nursery to check out , told me it was blight...

Errr... LATE blight or EARLY blight ?

> ...is it's getting late in the season for me so I consider this a late blight...

A LATE blight does NOT have to be LATE in the season.

It can be ANYTIME.

I think also it looks like early blight. Which would mean removing all infected branches and leaves and spraying with a fungicide.

Daniel, I mix fungicides all the time. The label on my copper even recommends mixing it with mancozeb. As far as I know, if the mix does not cause a precipitate to form, then you are good to go.

Karl-tn
I am just sitting here and wondering WHY you are keeping all those dead and sick leaves on the plants ?
I would have removed any and all the leaves with a hint of disease. YMMV

Sey

ncrealestateguy, thank you for your comment.

Because Mancozeb is not organic, it's not on my list. Daconil is not there either. Actinovate and Serenade are.

karl_tn, can we see a few VERY recent pictures of your plants ?

Pictures taken TODAY, Thursday. Tx.

They should rename that site tomatogardeneranxiety.com ;)

We may need to have rgreen bring that wine over here for other reasons. :)

Those piks I took were taken yesterday, except for the ones taken when they were small. This is the first year I've gotton blight ( havnt been gardening to long). So early or late you guys would probley know better. I spent 3 hours this morn picking leaves and snipping branches, I could have used a 12 pack while doing it, all that hard work now my plants look like this

I bought some stuff called mancozeb at the co-op yesterday Gona spray later this evening

Those piks I took were taken yesterday, except for the ones taken when they were small. This is the first year I've gotton blight ( havnt been gardening to long). So early or late you guys would probley know better. I spent 3 hours this morn picking leaves and snipping branches, I could have used a 12 pack while doing it, all that hard work now my plants look like this

I bought some stuff called mancozeb at the co-op yesterday Gona spray later this evening

Peter... not sure the wine will work on blight lol. Besides, all this bottle passing will deplete my reserves. However, tomato wine is a thing!

Karl, it's tough to discern from the pic, but your plants look fairly good. You said these are from before trimming off the branches?

Those piks I took this morning after picking and trimming, I know not the best piks, I picked a lot, they were much thicker, I hope they turn out ok

Mancozeb is powerful; read the label to learn how to use it.

Don't forget that you have to spray ON the leaves and UNDER the leaves.

Cross your fingers and hope for the best.

Karl, I would get some Bonide copper spray also and rotate. I looked at the infected leaves again in your pictures and it could be bacterial speck or spot going on also. Copper works better on those. The mancozeb works good on early blight...so to cover all your bases rotate the two. I just learned this as I have a plant infected with bacterial spot. I had been using only Daconil to control the early blight I have, but learned it is not effective against bacterial spot and speck.

Karl my guess is that you'll be ok for the rest of the season as long as you snip and spray regularly. The new green growth will allow for photosynthesis, so the plants will remain "reasonably" healthy and new tomatoes will form and ripen.

Your next purchase ought to be a bunch of inexpensive pine bark mulch to apply around the bases, this keeps the nasties from splashing up onto the leaves. It'll also help condition that clay soil once you till it in next year. Jennie's idea is a good one too btw.

Good luck either way.

Steve

Totally agree with Steve regarding mulching.

Pine bark mulch is cheap and effective.

I also agree with Jennie regarding Copper Fungicide (Bonide)

Here is a sprayer that I have and I like.

It allows you to spray EASILY under the leaves (because of the Multi-directional nozzle for spraying from all positions.)

Adjust the spray to fine (play with the drift guard.)

Thanks for the helpful input from you all, I did see that copper fugiside ( Bonide) right next to what I bought, I will get some of that too. I found a new sprayer in my garage so gonna use that one, will also look into that pine bark mulch

FWIW, I use the Bonide Copper Fungicide once a week as a maintenance thing. I have about 60 tomato plants and so far, thankfully, only 3 have any funk about them. One that is supposedly a black cherry, more like a black plum based on size of fruit, is running out of branches. It looks like septoria got to it. The other two appear to be holding their own as long as I stay on top of the occasional pruning and weekly spraying. I don't know if it is location, the spraying or some combo of both but I have been very fortunate with my plants. Last year I let up since there was no problems and the early blight hit in late August. My entire tomato crop went from thick luscious plants to dead in a week. I can't say the Bonide is the reason for no big issues with the plants but it seems to work well for me.

I have ant issues here, big time, and I would never again use any kind of wood mulch in the garden. I used it in several beds in the front yard years ago and I have to put down so much D.E. it looks like there was snow some afternoons.

Last year:
I also used Bonide Copper Fungicide.

I used disease-resistant seeds.

I mulched.

Probably I was lucky.

No problems at all.

In my first year of growing tomatoes, I didn't use ANY of the above precautions, and my healthy plants - few days after transplanting - wilted in less than one week.

Even today I don't know the disease name.

They wilted GREEN, not brownish or yellowish.

And nope, it was NOT because of lack of water.

Sounds like maybe bacterial wilt... which would not be helped by your precautions. Thankfully so few of these diseases overwinter in our climate.

Yep, it might be Bacterial Wilt.

Bellow is a picture I found on the Web.

I happened something like that.

Wilted... GREEN !

Well that's an odd sight -

August 10th and not a single reported case of LB in the last 7 days.

The hot and dry weather has certainly not been favorable for a LB outbreak this year, only NW NY is having major issues.

http://www.usablight.org/?q=map

It is nice NOT to hear a LB anywhere, so far. Not certainly in our neck of the woods. But I am prepared to prevent/confront grey mold. That will be when the rains start and the temps cool off.

So far , it has been a great season, as far as tomato plants are concerned. They like it a lot, so do I, the gardener. hehe

It turned out to be a pretty good year for LB... unless you are in NW NY. Too hot & dry I think.

http://www.usablight.org/?q=map