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strawbaleking · August 19, 2018

Hi, Bill!
Thanks for responding!
I think I have read every post you have made during the last few years. Seeing you struggle for the last decade but working your way through it and sharing success and failures with all of us. I have been trying most of the same things because of you. Just delayed due to lazyness...
So, based on the photos and my dry California weather, using shadecloth and drip watering, does it seem like I only have fusarium?
It just freaked me out just like it did you when Big Beef started to do the wilts. It's just that it and the Whopper never got the yellows of it's neighbors just started to showing show up over a week. I mean it seemed like it might be bacterial because of no yellowing or crisping, but the milky test just wouldn't show it. So I dunno... most of the other stuff is F. I can't tell if anything foliage disease on them, they are just sick. However on the blacks that get it, they don't yellow, they just crisp up from bottom and mostly on one side. Do blacks react differently to F? Pinks for me seem to get partial stems and leaves light green then very yellow and stay yellow for a good while before brown. Reds with reg leaves are mixed yellowing and brown death.
Either way, with this current year being a more of a real problem compared to the last 10, I have to graft more and get better at it. I, like you, tried some container growing. It's just so hot and dry here. Also harder to keep the roots cooler. The straw bale method was working pretty good, but I guess it was more contaminated from the grower this year (or the ground beneath which I did not put plastic down like I know I should have) and the composting process not hot enough to kill the fusarium(I found a study recently that it was pretty hard to kill this way).
So yes, I must learn to graft better with more practice. I had more success like you when it was cooler. I didn't do many, just tried with few nursery plants. I wished I had spent to money this year on growing seedlings again and of course actually using RST 106 instead of using Big Beef as rs but I never had a problem before with Big Beef. I even have some younger BB in some ground spots that I have not grown in for a while and they are ok. They don't look anywhere near the health of the bale grown plants. Well, before all this...
So, since I don't have Vert I would think here, and my usual deaths are in late July early August just after full loadset and ripening, I should use RST 106 for the F3 and Bac Wilt protection? I will use again the mostly root removal method, that did help as did cooler temps. I did find for the heck of it I could even *not* root a cutting and then graft to it and get some to live, crazy how they want to live.

August 19, 2018	#6
strawbaleking Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Sep 2015 Location: Olympia, WA Posts: 31	Hi, Bill! Thanks for responding! I think I have read every post you have made during the last few years. Seeing you struggle for the last decade but working your way through it and sharing success and failures with all of us. I have been trying most of the same things because of you. Just delayed due to lazyness... So, based on the photos and my dry California weather, using shadecloth and drip watering, does it seem like I only have fusarium? It just freaked me out just like it did you when Big Beef started to do the wilts. It's just that it and the Whopper never got the yellows of it's neighbors just started to showing show up over a week. I mean it seemed like it might be bacterial because of no yellowing or crisping, but the milky test just wouldn't show it. So I dunno... most of the other stuff is F. I can't tell if anything foliage disease on them, they are just sick. However on the blacks that get it, they don't yellow, they just crisp up from bottom and mostly on one side. Do blacks react differently to F? Pinks for me seem to get partial stems and leaves light green then very yellow and stay yellow for a good while before brown. Reds with reg leaves are mixed yellowing and brown death. Either way, with this current year being a more of a real problem compared to the last 10, I have to graft more and get better at it. I, like you, tried some container growing. It's just so hot and dry here. Also harder to keep the roots cooler. The straw bale method was working pretty good, but I guess it was more contaminated from the grower this year (or the ground beneath which I did not put plastic down like I know I should have) and the composting process not hot enough to kill the fusarium(I found a study recently that it was pretty hard to kill this way). So yes, I must learn to graft better with more practice. I had more success like you when it was cooler. I didn't do many, just tried with few nursery plants. I wished I had spent to money this year on growing seedlings again and of course actually using RST 106 instead of using Big Beef as rs but I never had a problem before with Big Beef. I even have some younger BB in some ground spots that I have not grown in for a while and they are ok. They don't look anywhere near the health of the bale grown plants. Well, before all this... So, since I don't have Vert I would think here, and my usual deaths are in late July early August just after full loadset and ripening, I should use RST 106 for the F3 and Bac Wilt protection? I will use again the mostly root removal method, that did help as did cooler temps. I did find for the heck of it I could even not root a cutting and then graft to it and get some to live, crazy how they want to live.