sphinxeyes
gardener
Suburbia, small garden in side yard, containers on larger back deck. Hot humid summers.
Posts: 154
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Post by sphinxeyes on Aug 11, 2009 20:29:12 GMT -5
Late Blight is a BIG problem this year, I don't think that's a surprise to anyone. There were several articles in the local papers in the past few weeks all about it. The solution they all say is to spray with copper repeatedly, or pull out the whole plant, bag it and toss it. But what's the small household gardener to do? I only have maybe 2 dozen tomato plants growing and if I pulled out every one that showed signs of blight (some of mine have yellowing leaves with brown spots, but so far don't look exactly like the pictures of infected plants they show in the papers), I wouldn't be left with much. I pruned off a lot of the infected leaves and so far it doesn't seem to have infected the stems. The fruits themselves are still producing, some cracked and some with BER, but many of them are still healthy looking. I don't like the idea of spraying anything like copper on them and the papers mentioned that organic farmers won't have any other options besides trashing their crops for this year. I don't know if the pruning will do anything to slow down the spread or not. Would it be better to pick tomatoes before they ripen and bring them indoors before the plants get worse, to save as many as I can? I've noticed that the tops of my potato plants are somewhat wilted too, so maybe it would be best to dig those up now too. Especially since it's supposed to rain all this week.
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Post by lavandulagirl on Aug 11, 2009 23:38:56 GMT -5
Out of curiosity, did you buy started plants, or did you start from seed? If you bought plants, where did you buy them from?
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sphinxeyes
gardener
Suburbia, small garden in side yard, containers on larger back deck. Hot humid summers.
Posts: 154
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Post by sphinxeyes on Aug 11, 2009 23:57:28 GMT -5
I started all my plants from seeds, most of which I've gotten from people here, but there were also some Roma and Big Boys which I got from Home Depot.
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Post by lavandulagirl on Aug 12, 2009 0:06:56 GMT -5
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sphinxeyes
gardener
Suburbia, small garden in side yard, containers on larger back deck. Hot humid summers.
Posts: 154
|
Post by sphinxeyes on Aug 12, 2009 0:20:30 GMT -5
Oops, I missed reading that thread before, but I did see the article in the Times. I guess I'm one of those people who sees their plants as puppies, as you said in your post, LoL. I haven't pulled any plants out yet, just done the pruning. I had some yellowing of the bottom leaves before, but wasn't sure if this was due to the blight of not. Although a few fruits have spots on them, none are all shriveled and mangled like the examples I've seen of fruit that is affected. A lot of the tomatoes I've been boiling and vacuum sealing, scooping out any bruised parts. There's no danger in eating fruit that might have some signs of blight is there?
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Post by canadamike on Aug 12, 2009 1:36:12 GMT -5
I would try spraying sulfur, just in case it works, I have done it before with success, it is often too late but not all the time. Just folllow the instructions on the box....often, what people call blight is mildew: a lot of it, for me as a paper columnist, has as much to do with psychology and perception and reading properly the descriptions as it has with science. No offense my dear, but you are a new gardener. I know you are educated and intelligent and coherent and all ( and also young and very cute ) . But what do YOU call blight? Do you have pictures, there may be a lesson here, or maybe not. But at least there would be sharing, and this, in itself, is already a victory..
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Post by PatrickW on Aug 12, 2009 2:05:01 GMT -5
Nothing does very much good against late blight. Copper sprays are only useful to prevent infection, and don't do anything once your plants become infected. This is true even with the powerful chemicals farmers use, they only work to prevent infection, and nothing can save a plant once it gets blight.
Blight normally destroys plants very quickly, usually within a few days or a week. If you aren't sure if your plants are infected, you could wait and keep removing foliage like you're doing. Black splotches on the stems or discolored fruits are the real sign it's all over.
Once the plants get blight, be sure to eat or process any edible fruits quickly. If you pick fruit from an infected plant, then bring it indoors and let it sit, it will rot within days or even hours.
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Post by canadamike on Aug 12, 2009 3:37:43 GMT -5
Patrick is right. My point was ( and is) what do you call blight, because there is much confusion between it and mildew with most folks, often because both are around at the same time. One is easier to deal with than the other, although the word easy does not come...easily...
But Patrick recommendation of fast action is in order, nothing can spoil a bushell of tomatoes as fast as blight.
You leave them to ripen more for canning them then 2-3 days later you get that smell in the garage and your wife wants you to throw the whole bushell away,,,despite some OK tomatoes left in the mix, and all the rotten juice in the bottom of the container.
And the 3 million fruit flies.....
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Post by PatrickW on Aug 12, 2009 4:52:12 GMT -5
Especially in the middle of a blight outbreak when there is so much excitement and hysteria, it's really easy to feel under pressure to destroy your plants. Like Mike said, if you have never seen blight before you may easily confuse it with something else. It's better to wait until you are completely sure before destroying your plants.
Once you have seen blight, you will know for next time!
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Post by lavandulagirl on Aug 12, 2009 8:31:30 GMT -5
I was talking to a neighbor of my parents' last week... she called me to see if I could diagnose late blight over the phone. What she described ... yellowing leaves, split fruit... I told her without seeing the plants, I couldn't be sure, but there were a lot of other possibilities, including something as simple as overwatering. My understanding is that the East Coast has been unseasonably wet and cool. These are not the best conditions for tomatoes, notwithstanding other issues.
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sphinxeyes
gardener
Suburbia, small garden in side yard, containers on larger back deck. Hot humid summers.
Posts: 154
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Post by sphinxeyes on Aug 12, 2009 12:49:00 GMT -5
Ah, see this is exactly why I thought I would ask this question here! ;D I looked up pictures of blight on the web, but none of them quite look like what my plants have. And from what I saw yesterday there was no spotting or darkness on the stems, only the ends of the leaves, which are for the most part yellow with brown spots. Mildew would be a good possibility, since it has indeed been very wet and cool on the east coast this summer. It's supposed to rain the rest of this week, so I'll hold off on any watering for awhile. I'll take some pictures of the leaves if I see anymore damage.
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Post by lavandulagirl on Aug 12, 2009 14:48:44 GMT -5
If it isn't late blight, Sphinxeyes, feel free to name each one of those puppies! Hahahaha!
(BTW - I wasn't intending to be rude with the puppy comment in the other thread, I just meant that the backyard grower (I'm one of these) tends to be way more emotionally invested in this life they are nurturing, as opposed to the larger scale grower, who views the sick plant as a threat to their livelihood.)
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Post by michaeljohnson on Aug 14, 2009 0:25:19 GMT -5
The classic signs of Late Blight-are withering of the lower leaves mainly, to a brown shriveled look, together with brown blotches on the stem at several points about half an inch to three quarters of an inch long, sometimes it only strikes the upper portion of the plant in the last couple of foot-with a single blotch on the stem-which cuts the plant in half and the top keels over within two days or sooner, followed by tomatoes with brown blotches and marks on the upper portion of the tomato usually covering about a third of it, if not pulled the tomato drops off within a few days as it is rotten at the top,
Lousy rotten disease-it has claimed ten of my plants within the past two weeks-even struck two in the greenhouse- always during the first two weeks in August-every darned year.
Our old friend and well known tomato grower (Tomato Addict) has posted on her web blog that she has lost her entire crop this year because of blight, the first year it has ever happened to her in all the years she has been growing tomatoes she says.
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Post by flowerpower on Aug 14, 2009 4:33:00 GMT -5
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Post by PatrickW on Aug 14, 2009 11:27:04 GMT -5
The real key to identifying blight is that it totally decimates your plants in a very short time! There's no missing that...
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