Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - View Single Post

bcday · August 4, 2009

I would say it's worth a shot -- after all, 400 of your plants still look healthy, right? I've defeated LB and got ripe unblemished fruit before, and only lost a few plants that were all determinate varieties.

If you check the current updates online by Cornell, UCONN and other extension services, you'll see that they are now getting reports that spraying is succeeding in saving fields that had infected plants. If you're a market gardener and not organic, you have access to much stronger fungicides than a home gardener could use, and those will give you very good results.

It does help if the weather cooperates though. Warm, dry and sunny is what we need.

Edit -- spraying chlorothalonil now will help the healthy plants stay healthy. And copper spray such as Kocide is said to be able to kill spores before they get too far along. Neither of those will heal foliage that is already infected, and you need to remove all of that and seal it up in plastic bags so that it doesn't continue releasing spores onto your healthy plants. Don't go into the field to prune infected leaves when the foliage is wet, wait until it dries out.

I ordered Kocide from Johnny's and it arrived two days later. It's not too late to order supplies you don't have yet.

August 4, 2009	#2
bcday Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: NY z5 Posts: 1,205	I would say it's worth a shot -- after all, 400 of your plants still look healthy, right? I've defeated LB and got ripe unblemished fruit before, and only lost a few plants that were all determinate varieties. If you check the current updates online by Cornell, UCONN and other extension services, you'll see that they are now getting reports that spraying is succeeding in saving fields that had infected plants. If you're a market gardener and not organic, you have access to much stronger fungicides than a home gardener could use, and those will give you very good results. It does help if the weather cooperates though. Warm, dry and sunny is what we need. Edit -- spraying chlorothalonil now will help the healthy plants stay healthy. And copper spray such as Kocide is said to be able to kill spores before they get too far along. Neither of those will heal foliage that is already infected, and you need to remove all of that and seal it up in plastic bags so that it doesn't continue releasing spores onto your healthy plants. Don't go into the field to prune infected leaves when the foliage is wet, wait until it dries out. I ordered Kocide from Johnny's and it arrived two days later. It's not too late to order supplies you don't have yet.