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Old May 4, 2018   #16
b54red
Tomatovillian™
 
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Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Alabama
Posts: 7,068
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Quote:
Originally Posted by brownrexx View Post
It looks like you may have some EB also The brown areas with the yellow around them is probably EB and those spores are usually in the soil and splash up onto the plant which is why EB starts at the bottom.

As far as I know LB does not cause any yellow leaves. At least it never has for me. I just start seeing irregular brown blotches and Poof! within a week the plant is dead. I tried cutting off the infected leaves and branches the first time I ever saw it but it was no use, the plant died anyway. Now if I see LB I immediately remove the plant to avoid spreading the spores which will develop under the leaves and look kind of whitish and fuzzy. Like I said - it's a killer.
I have actually beaten Late Blight back successfully a couple of times but it requires spotting it very early and acting immediately. As soon as the very first signs of LB show on the first plant which usually occurs near the top I spray every tomato in the garden top to bottom with the strongest diluted bleach solution the plants can take and spray the ground and all surrounding plants. I repeat the process the next day or at the latest two days later and then see how well it has worked to stop the spread of the infection. The first time I tried this treatment I waited two days and ended up losing half my plants. The second time I didn't fool around but still did not start early enough and lost about 20% of my plants. The last two times I was much quicker to recognize the LB first signs and only lost one or two plants. One thing that helped me catch it sooner was going out and inspecting the top half of the plants really closely the every day for a few days after a rain. Every time that I know I had LB it appeared the week after a rain so I welcome the rain but there is that lingering fear what it might bring.

I now treat Gray Mold just as quickly so it is far less of a problem than it has been in the past when I would procrastinate and wait to be sure. Every time for the past few years when I thought I had it I did. It used to always surprise me how far the stuff extended up the plant above where I saw the signs of Gray Mold. The diluted bleach spray will basically kill any foliage that has Gray Mold and the shriveled leaves 2 days after spraying show how much infection there actually was. I urge anyone who deals with Gray Mold or who wants to attempt to slow or stop LB to read the diluted bleach spray thread on this site before using it.

Oh yes LB can strike in the hot middle of summer. It did it twice in my memory of over 40 years of growing tomatoes. The first time was over 30 years ago and I had no idea what killed all my tomatoes in less than two weeks and did the same to everyone else near me who was growing tomatoes. We finally found out from the county agent that the culprit was Late Blight. The last time was several years ago so now I check for it from early summer til it freezes.

Bill
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