is this bacterial or fungal? HELP! - Page 2

b54red · June 20, 2016

It will move in the hot southern soil and eventually be found in many spots of your garden. I have dealt with its increasing affects for over 35 years in my garden spot. As the years passed the number of plants affected increased most years except after a particularly cold winter which seems to slow it down. Sandy soil is a friend to fusarium wilt and the more organic matter in the soil will help some but not stop it. You probably only have one race of fusarium now but over time you may develop one of the other two also and then you will have real problems like I have had. It eventually got so bad I had to go to only using plants grafted onto rootstock with resistance to all three races of fusarium. Since doing that it has been a rare thing for me to find a plant with fusarium.

Since you have only one plant affected so far you may want to try something that worked temporarily to stave off fusarium and that was soaking the ground where the plant was with a dilute bleach solution. It was only temporary for me because the fusarium was everywhere in my beds and eventually would move back into the treated areas. I would not recommend this for a large area as it will pretty much kill everything in the soil for a while both good and bad.

If you want to go with grafting you might not have to buy the really expensive rootstock like I have had to do in order to alleviate most of your problems. Big Beef is an excellent rootstock and cheap with good resistance to two races of fusarium and nematodes. I tested it and found it had little affect on the heirloom grafted to it and was one of the easiest roostocks to take the graft successfully. My problem with it was that it only protected against two races of fusarium and I had all three so eventually the plants would succumb to it unless they happened to be in a rare spot in my garden that wasn't affected by it.

Personally I don't think you will have to worry about all three races of fusarium since they are not that active much above the Gulf Coast area so far from what I have read. If I was you I would treat a three or four foot area around the spot that plant was in and forget about it. Unless it starts taking down lots of plants you should be able to live with losing a few each year and treating just those spots. A good hard winter might further alleviate your problem. I also plant a good number of plants expecting to lose a few each year to the various plagues of the south. With TSWV, spider mites, gray mold, late blight, septoria and many other diseases I still lose a few plants even though nematodes and fusarium are not a big bother any longer with the grafted plants.

Bill

Cole_Robbie · June 21, 2016

http://solutionsforyourlife.ufl.edu/...o-Diseases.pdf

The above link has a lot of good pics for diagnosis.

Pythium and Fusarium are both a type of wilt. I'm not sure they are distinguishable by visual inspection. The way BigVan was talking about his soil being wet and possibly over-watering makes me want to be an argumentative optimist and cling to the idea that it is pythium and not fusarium, because that would be much better news for him. Pythium doesn't spread and doesn't contaminate soil.

aclum · June 21, 2016

Hi Van,

Good link for the silver mulch. DustDevil, I use the reflective mulch too and think it's great! I get mine from Johnny's for about the same price as Van's source.

Anne

Nematode · June 21, 2016

My .02 is herbicide damage. Those are bumps, maybe not adventitious roots on the stem.
Growth is distorted.
Here is a helpful resource. From University of Tennessee extension
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...BkQFb7XluyMOHg

Nematode · June 21, 2016

Oh I had herbicide damage last year and.this year.
Last year lost one plant just like you. The herbicide weakens them, and one day they just go limp. Had the brown in the stem, no bacterial wilt milk. Container grown so no soil pests involved.
Good luck.

BigVanVader · June 21, 2016

Thank you for the replies everyone. It hit two plants already, one much further down the row had a branch wilted and when I removed it I saw the same bark brown so its a goner as well. I think the heavy winds caused root injury on a few plants making them susceptible. I noticed they were swinging around some the other day but didn't think much of it, but after further reading it seems root injury can create an opening for attack to an otherwise healthy plant. That makes the most sense since I have plastic down and the plants looked great until a couple days after the windy day.

I plan to continue using this area and may just make a raised be structure then back fill with alpaca manure for next year. I hope that my continued soil building and cover cropping will eventually let nature control it better and I am currently reading studies about beneficial microbe inoculation to help control but the results seem mixed at best.

My Foot Smells · June 21, 2016

is the pickle-like bumps related to diagnosis? I have some with similar affect, but it was cool and rained for about a month. I, too, thought it was more symptomatic with adventious root development (bump).

my heirlooms have taken a beating this year. hybrids are not affected. if it is indeed fursurim wilt, I wonder if the solarization thing will also kill bacteria spores. (as well as rkn reduction).

I obviously have some "stuff" going on in the soil and have limited space and often plant in same area year after year. Rotation is not really an option.

You always hope the weather is cooperative, but it NEVER is - at least here. Maybe one year in 20, so it seems.

I do have raised beds as native is hard clay. So can dig out as well. It's too far into the season to reinvent the wheel this year, so already planning ahead for fall preparation.

BigVanVader · June 21, 2016

Yeah, the bumps are a stress response to the restriction and inability to translocate nutrients from roots to plant, so the plant tries to form roots along the whole stem to make up for it. The difference between this and typical root nodes is they form much further up the stem and even on relatively newer growth. This is a good link on fusarium.
http://www.kdcomm.net/~tomato/Tomato.../fusarium.html

mashermike · June 21, 2016

I live near Athens, GA (go Dawgs). You are a little north but our conditions are similar. I believe I have all three types of Fusarium wilts. Today I pulled a plant that looks very similar to yours. I believe this to be F1 or F2. If this was off site herbicide damage most plants would be affected. Put another plant in that spot. If it's Fusarium, it will die the same way. And it will happen the same way next season. IMO, this is the confirmation of Fusarium. In my garden there are three distinct patterns that let me know it's Fusarium:
1) One node of leaves wilt or sometimes larger sections of the plant wilt. This condition works it way around the plant and the plant dies.
2) Entire plant wilts (and dies).
3) One node of leaves turns light (pastel) yellow at the same time and then wilts. This pattern works it's way around the plant in the same way as #1. I believe this is Fusarium F3 but not sure.

In my bed, Big Beef gets #3 every year. If your bed gets all three races it's a game changer.

Mike

BigVanVader · June 21, 2016

Thanks Mike, I plan on planting a Big Beef in the spots where I have to pull any. We shall see what happens.

b54red · June 21, 2016

Quote:

Originally Posted by mashermike

I live near Athens, GA (go Dawgs). You are a little north but our conditions are similar. I believe I have all three types of Fusarium wilts. Today I pulled a plant that looks very similar to yours. I believe this to be F1 or F2. If this was off site herbicide damage most plants would be affected. Put another plant in that spot. If it's Fusarium, it will die the same way. And it will happen the same way next season. IMO, this is the confirmation of Fusarium. In my garden there are three distinct patterns that let me know it's Fusarium:
1) One node of leaves wilt or sometimes larger sections of the plant wilt. This condition works it way around the plant and the plant dies.
2) Entire plant wilts (and dies).
3) One node of leaves turns light (pastel) yellow at the same time and then wilts. This pattern works it's way around the plant in the same way as #1. I believe this is Fusarium F3 but not sure.

In my bed, Big Beef gets #3 every year. If your bed gets all three races it's a game changer.

Mike

Mike, number 2 on your list is more associated with Bacterial Wilt which will wilt an entire healthy green plant in a few days. Fusarium rarely acts that fast and the wilting is usually preceded by some leaf yellowing moving up the plant or at least up one stem of the plant. On very young seedlings you will sometimes see fusarium wilt the whole plant before much yellowing occurs but it still acts slower than Bacterial Wilt.

The first sign of me having all three races of fusarium was Big Beef starting to so more poorly and sometimes falling to fusarium wilt early in the season. It progressed to the point where I couldn't get a single Big Beef plant to last the summer. Actually I had better luck with Neves Azorean Red and Inidian Stripe just before I switched to grafting. NAR and IS were falling to fusarium frequently later than Big Beef but neither was immune to the ravages of fusarium for long enough to satisfy me.

Bill

BigVanVader · June 21, 2016

That's interesting Bill because the 2 plants affected so far are both ISPL. They never had any yellowing either, just wilted a few days then died.

mashermike · June 21, 2016

Quote:

Mike, number 2 on your list is more associated with Bacterial Wilt which will wilt an entire healthy green plant in a few days.

Thanks Bill! I don't see the white oozing from a cut stem or discoloration so I ruled out bacterial. Whatever it is, it's 100% fatal and it overwinters in the soil.

BigVanVader · June 21, 2016

To update I just checked the other plant showing wilt. The wilt was all on one side of the plant so I pruned it all off yesterday before spraying fungicide. To my surprise it looks fine today. Too early to tell but I have a hope and a prayer it survives. I haven't watered since Friday and it's been sunny and 95 degrees since then. If I was over watering it won't happen again. I'm hoping Cole was right. I read that Pythium can be treated with a copper soil drench so I did that too for the heck of it.

One of my mentors told me that all tomato issues come from stress to the plant so he recommended stop watering, open the plastic around the stems so the soil can breathe and to prune only before I plan to spray fungicide. I think maybe I created a perfect environment for issues. I Will keep this thread updated if any more issues arise. Thanks for all the wisdom TV!

Cole_Robbie · June 22, 2016

Now you've got me thinking I might have some fusarium wilt myself. The weather has been hot, and I have been watering sparingly, so it's hard to tell sickness from water stress.

Here's a product I was just looking at:
http://www.planetnatural.com/product/mycostop/

It's crazy expensive though, of course. It would cost me $35 just to spray all my plants once.

Here's another, a different substance:
https://www.amazon.com/Plantshield/dp/B000J2KCSY

And an older article mentioning both the above products:
https://pubs.ext.vt.edu/2906/2906-1298/2906-1298.html

I may just let a few plants die rather than spend the money. I could use the space, anyway.

June 20, 2016	#16
b54red Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Alabama Posts: 7,068	It will move in the hot southern soil and eventually be found in many spots of your garden. I have dealt with its increasing affects for over 35 years in my garden spot. As the years passed the number of plants affected increased most years except after a particularly cold winter which seems to slow it down. Sandy soil is a friend to fusarium wilt and the more organic matter in the soil will help some but not stop it. You probably only have one race of fusarium now but over time you may develop one of the other two also and then you will have real problems like I have had. It eventually got so bad I had to go to only using plants grafted onto rootstock with resistance to all three races of fusarium. Since doing that it has been a rare thing for me to find a plant with fusarium. Since you have only one plant affected so far you may want to try something that worked temporarily to stave off fusarium and that was soaking the ground where the plant was with a dilute bleach solution. It was only temporary for me because the fusarium was everywhere in my beds and eventually would move back into the treated areas. I would not recommend this for a large area as it will pretty much kill everything in the soil for a while both good and bad. If you want to go with grafting you might not have to buy the really expensive rootstock like I have had to do in order to alleviate most of your problems. Big Beef is an excellent rootstock and cheap with good resistance to two races of fusarium and nematodes. I tested it and found it had little affect on the heirloom grafted to it and was one of the easiest roostocks to take the graft successfully. My problem with it was that it only protected against two races of fusarium and I had all three so eventually the plants would succumb to it unless they happened to be in a rare spot in my garden that wasn't affected by it. Personally I don't think you will have to worry about all three races of fusarium since they are not that active much above the Gulf Coast area so far from what I have read. If I was you I would treat a three or four foot area around the spot that plant was in and forget about it. Unless it starts taking down lots of plants you should be able to live with losing a few each year and treating just those spots. A good hard winter might further alleviate your problem. I also plant a good number of plants expecting to lose a few each year to the various plagues of the south. With TSWV, spider mites, gray mold, late blight, septoria and many other diseases I still lose a few plants even though nematodes and fusarium are not a big bother any longer with the grafted plants. Bill

June 21, 2016	#17
Cole_Robbie Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: Illinois, zone 6 Posts: 8,407	http://solutionsforyourlife.ufl.edu/...o-Diseases.pdf The above link has a lot of good pics for diagnosis. Pythium and Fusarium are both a type of wilt. I'm not sure they are distinguishable by visual inspection. The way BigVan was talking about his soil being wet and possibly over-watering makes me want to be an argumentative optimist and cling to the idea that it is pythium and not fusarium, because that would be much better news for him. Pythium doesn't spread and doesn't contaminate soil.

June 21, 2016	#18
aclum Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Merced, CA Posts: 832	Hi Van, Good link for the silver mulch. DustDevil, I use the reflective mulch too and think it's great! I get mine from Johnny's for about the same price as Van's source. Anne

June 21, 2016	#19
Nematode Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2012 Location: massachusetts Posts: 1,710	My .02 is herbicide damage. Those are bumps, maybe not adventitious roots on the stem. Growth is distorted. Here is a helpful resource. From University of Tennessee extension https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...BkQFb7XluyMOHg

June 21, 2016	#21
BigVanVader Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Mar 2014 Location: Greenville, South Carolina Posts: 3,099	Thank you for the replies everyone. It hit two plants already, one much further down the row had a branch wilted and when I removed it I saw the same bark brown so its a goner as well. I think the heavy winds caused root injury on a few plants making them susceptible. I noticed they were swinging around some the other day but didn't think much of it, but after further reading it seems root injury can create an opening for attack to an otherwise healthy plant. That makes the most sense since I have plastic down and the plants looked great until a couple days after the windy day. I plan to continue using this area and may just make a raised be structure then back fill with alpaca manure for next year. I hope that my continued soil building and cover cropping will eventually let nature control it better and I am currently reading studies about beneficial microbe inoculation to help control but the results seem mixed at best.

June 21, 2016	#22
My Foot Smells Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2015 Location: Pulaski County, Arkansas Posts: 1,239	is the pickle-like bumps related to diagnosis? I have some with similar affect, but it was cool and rained for about a month. I, too, thought it was more symptomatic with adventious root development (bump). my heirlooms have taken a beating this year. hybrids are not affected. if it is indeed fursurim wilt, I wonder if the solarization thing will also kill bacteria spores. (as well as rkn reduction). I obviously have some "stuff" going on in the soil and have limited space and often plant in same area year after year. Rotation is not really an option. You always hope the weather is cooperative, but it NEVER is - at least here. Maybe one year in 20, so it seems. I do have raised beds as native is hard clay. So can dig out as well. It's too far into the season to reinvent the wheel this year, so already planning ahead for fall preparation.

June 21, 2016	#24
mashermike Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2009 Location: GA Posts: 55	I live near Athens, GA (go Dawgs). You are a little north but our conditions are similar. I believe I have all three types of Fusarium wilts. Today I pulled a plant that looks very similar to yours. I believe this to be F1 or F2. If this was off site herbicide damage most plants would be affected. Put another plant in that spot. If it's Fusarium, it will die the same way. And it will happen the same way next season. IMO, this is the confirmation of Fusarium. In my garden there are three distinct patterns that let me know it's Fusarium: 1) One node of leaves wilt or sometimes larger sections of the plant wilt. This condition works it way around the plant and the plant dies. 2) Entire plant wilts (and dies). 3) One node of leaves turns light (pastel) yellow at the same time and then wilts. This pattern works it's way around the plant in the same way as #1. I believe this is Fusarium F3 but not sure. In my bed, Big Beef gets #3 every year. If your bed gets all three races it's a game changer. Mike

June 22, 2016	#30
Cole_Robbie Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jun 2012 Location: Illinois, zone 6 Posts: 8,407	Now you've got me thinking I might have some fusarium wilt myself. The weather has been hot, and I have been watering sparingly, so it's hard to tell sickness from water stress. Here's a product I was just looking at: http://www.planetnatural.com/product/mycostop/ It's crazy expensive though, of course. It would cost me $35 just to spray all my plants once. Here's another, a different substance: https://www.amazon.com/Plantshield/dp/B000J2KCSY And an older article mentioning both the above products: https://pubs.ext.vt.edu/2906/2906-1298/2906-1298.html I may just let a few plants die rather than spend the money. I could use the space, anyway.