I would agree...

I have a bottle of Ortho® MAX® Garden Disease Control Concentrate thats a few years old. Do you think it should still be good after a few years? If I mix the right concentration can I overspray the plants and damage them?

Fungicides have a relatively short shelf life of effectiveness so a new bottle would be better. But yes you can over-spray the plants and you can certainly damage them just as with any spray. That particular problem has been discussed here a couple of times recently. Go for a light misting of all the leaves, not a soaking drench. And as with all sprays, never in the heat of day or in the direct sunshine. Early morning is best.

But first you must be sure to remove all the affected foliage and dispose of it far from the garden area so you know what you have left to work with.

Dave

I spent a while removing them and also removing some other leaves to create better airflow in the middle.

A little pruning is a good Idea. I also agree with a slight fungal problem. Remove affected foliage, and spray with a fungicide, and bottoms of leaves too. I use Daconil.

What are your favorite products for disease control to use for your vegetable plants?

I alternate Daconil and copper once per week at the height of the season.

I use the same rotation. Sometimes I throw Mancozeb in the mix.

I pruned one of the tomatoes even more. It had too many infected leaves. After pruning anything that looked even slightly infected, this is how it looked a few days later. I didn't have time to buy a new spray for the infection. At this point what is my best route for the plants?

The best thing for the rest of the plants is to pull and pitch that one. But then you'd lose all those fruit. So about all you can do with that plant is try to keep it alive long enough for the fruit to reach color break, then remove them and pitch the rest of the plant.

But the odds are the other plants could develop the same problem if not regularly treated with fungicides. It may just be the pics but that location looks awfully shady - plants are quite leggy - and crowded and those conditions encourage disease problems. Just an FYI.

Dave

I took the picture this morning and we are having major storms all week so its been cloudy. It gets sun most of the day. Its leggy because I pruned it heavily.

Cutting it back to one stem that looks healthy (on the left) and spraying it wouldn't help this plant? I think i would rather cut my losses with it to save the rest.

Yeah, I'd get rid of that one, so it doesn't spread. Maybe you could use the green ones for fried green, or pickles. Now I'm thinking it was a wilt, due to how fast it spread on the plant.

Would this be enough to protect my other tomatoes? Bonide 16-fl oz Copper Fungicide or should I buy this Daconil 32 oz. Ready-to-Use Fungicide

The two products aren't really comparable. Not only do they work in different ways but the Bonide is organic, the Daconil is not. Daconil is consistently recommended as the best in hundreds of posts here unless you garden organically. But the ready-to-use is a very limited supply of it as regular 7-10 day applications are required so cost becomes a factor.

And while either product will help, keep in mind the plants have already been exposed. So the goal now is just to keep them alive, to slow it down, not to prevent or 'cure' anything.

Dave

PS: "Its leggy because I pruned it heavily." No what I meant is they are all (in the photo) leggy. Some sun even most of the day can still be not enough sun exposure.

I am not looking to cure the one that's severely infected. That will be cut down and pulled out.

My intention to not let this kill all my other tomatoes nearby. I understand they are different. I don't want to invest in more than one and was wondering which is better overall. i don't garden organically.

I'd start with the Daconil, and as Dave suggested, buy the concentrate, and mix it yourself. Am guessing you don't have a hand sprayer, but imo, that would be a good investment. You can usually find a cheap one for about $10.

I had one but its broken. I have empty ortho bug sprays with the magic wand. Could I use that as a sprayer?

I checked and both Daconli the ready spray and concentrated formula would not be ready for pickup till at least a week at HD for me.

Thanks.

@digidrt - About them looking leggy. What does a non-leggy tomato plant look at this stage? I thought they were doing really well and not leggy, till this started to spread and I was cutting off branches everywhere from it.

"My intention to not let this kill all my other tomatoes nearby. I
understand they are different. I don't want to invest in more than one
and was wondering which is better overall. i don't garden organically."

Then as I said above - Daconil is consistently rated the best.

My point was you cannot 'cure' the remaining plants either. They are already infected with the spores even if they are not showing symptoms yet. It would be impossible for one plant alone to get infected and none of the others when they are all planted so close together.

So at this point the fungicide will only help slow down the process not prevent it from developing. Is Home Depot your only option? Around here even Walmart and Dollar General carry Daconil. So do Lowe\s, Tractor Supply, all the farm and home stores, Ace Hardware, etc.

What makes a plant leggy is the internode length - the # inches of bare stem between each leaf branch or flower cluster and the next. Average is approx. 2" but on leggy plants that stem is stretched and you'll often find lengths of 4-6" or even more. The stretched stems are weak and have difficulty holding themselves up and the whole plant appears wispy rather than full and bushy. If that is the best sun exposure you have to work with then you don't have any choice. But if a better sun spot is available consider using it next time, ok?

Dave

Thanks.

Lowes also doesn't have it in stock. They will ship it to me in 1-3 days. That's unfortunately my best option.

I am learning year by year. Last year i planted a bunch in the same spot 6 inches apart in 2 rows. Big mistake and lesson learned. This year i tried spacing them 18 inches apart. Next year i will space them at least 2 feet apart. If i can I would do 3 feet spacing. This isn't the biggest area where it gets the most sun. I have another spot but it's barely a foot wide and up against a fence, which is a great spot for my cucumbers to climb.

I think where they are gets over 12 hours of sun.