Help!!! Foliage problems are scaring me...

[Anthony_Toronto]

I had a bit of this in the middle and end of last season, but this season it has started early and is more prevalent. Starting at lower branches, leaves are getting brownish spots and the green leaves are then drying up until nice and crisp. A few stems have small spots on them. As for the leaves, there are no water soaked areas, no fuzzy growth, no wilting, no yellowing (until the leaves start dying, after which the stems that have not crisped up turn yellow, maybe because the lack of photosynthesis causes the plant to cut off the branch in question), no apparent mold, fungus, or mildew, no browning, no apparent impact on fruit, but if things keep progressing like this the fruit won't have enough leaves to shade the fruit and produce enough sugar to make them grow and taste good. Appearance and symptoms don't seem to conform to the diseases I see on either of the below links. The closest would probably be some of the pics of Bacterial Canker, but its not quite a match/missing too many of the listed symptoms (leaves remain green (DESPITE the brown appearance in some of the pics), do not wilt, no yellow slime in stems). Any thoughts/suggestions?

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/p...emsolver/leaf/

http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.corne...ey.html#Canker

[carolyn137]

Welcone Anthony, good to see you here at Tville.

Probably your thread belongs in the disease Forum and did you see the problem solver thread there at the top? But I see you have the Cornell one and that's a good one too.

Please describe the spots on the leaves as to relative size, whether you see concentric circles inside the spots, if there's yellow halos around the spots and has the lesions progress do you see any holes in the middle of the lesions.

If I remember correctly you don't take pictures; no camera with me either.

You say no wilting at all and Bacterial Canker wouldn't be my first guess and it doesn't have any spots on the leaves either, as your plants do, for that would be one of the two common fungal foliage pathogens Early Blight ( A. solani) or Septoria Leaf Spot. And both can cause stem lesions and both can defoliate a plant rather quicly if left unchecked.

DiD you spray antyrthing to help prevent these two foliage infections? And if not I think I'd do the following.

Take off all affected leaves, it's still relatively early in the season so there's still time for new foliage. THen if it were me I'd start a regular schedule of spraying with Daconil. I know you know about it from the other place where you post and if you go to the Pest and Disease Forum here you'll find a recent thread all about Daconil which is an excellent anti-fungal for both of those diseases.

You might also want to take a look at the Cornell link you have as well as TAMU:

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/p...problemsolver/

And see if you can match up symptoms. it's good to remember that pictures are static but disease is progressive so it isn't always the easiest to Dx diseases via a photo. And there's always the possibility that your plants have more than one disease right now.

[Anthony_Toronto]

Hi Carolyn. Still getting used to things over here, next time (hopefully there is no next time for this stuff!!) I will look for disease forum.

Could you not see the thumbnails I attached to my post? I can see them but maybe they didn't show up for public view for some reason.

No spraying yet, but sounds like that is the next step. Not sure if I can get Daconil north of the border, I will investigate.

No yellow halos, no holes in the middle of lesions, possibly some concentric circles, spots generally range from 1 mm to maybe 1/4 inch. Spots on stem were small, maybe 2 to 3 mm in diameter.

Will do some closer inspection.

ALSO, I think that at least some of the thumbnails I attached show leaves that were feasted upon by flea beatles, and later sustained some disease.

P.S. happy belated birthday...and it looks like i will no longer be posting at that other place, too many yellow pear fans there apparently.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Anthony_Toronto

Hi Carolyn. Still getting used to things over here, next time (hopefully there is no next time for this stuff!!) I will look for disease forum.

Could you not see the thumbnails I attached to my post? I can see them but maybe they didn't show up for public view for some reason.

No spraying yet, but sounds like that is the next step. Not sure if I can get Daconil north of the border, I will investigate.

No yellow halos, no holes in the middle of lesions, possibly some concentric circles, spots generally range from 1 mm to maybe 1/4 inch. Spots on stem were small, maybe 2 to 3 mm in diameter.

Will do some closer inspection.

ALSO, I think that at least some of the thumbnails I attached show leaves that were feasted upon by flea beatles, and later sustained some disease.

P.S. happy belated birthday...and it looks like i will no longer be posting at that other place, too many yellow pear fans there apparently.

Yes, I saw the thumnails there but thought that you'd pulled them out of the two links you had before them so I didn't even obther to look.

Your pictures almost llok like 3 D to me. I do see ome spots that look like Early Blight, possibly some Septoria, but I'm going to let some othjers take a look as well and see what we can come up with.

The larger shot of your garden shows som nice looking plants that fro afar don't show much problem/\\How many of your plants are showing what you showed in the pictures. I ask b'c if it's a foliagte disease I would assume that via airborne transmission that most of your plants would be affected.

Lower leaves affected would seem to indicate splashback reinfection from spores that dropped to the soil last year.

Best to take off all affected leaves and since Iknow you can't get Daconil in Canada I think I'd suggest starting with a copper spray for now.

Your backyard by now looks very familiar. Well I remember your pictures of the tomato plants in the snow.

And why am I up at this ridiculous hour? My one cat kid wouldn't come home when she should and there's lots of wild critters out there. She finally came home and I had just gotten back to sleep when I heard her making a racket at the screen door in front. I was up ASAP b'c normally I don't leave that door open b'c of my Black Bear, now 3 yo but I hadn't seen it this summer yet and it's so darn hot in here I left it open to get some air circulating.

Now back to bed until maybe 5 AM when I'll open all of the sliding doors and try to get some cool air in here. Yesterday it got up to 99 and I don't even want to think what today might bring.

[Anthony_Toronto]

I am up late working and about to sneak into bed...

Plants look ok now, but I think a bit behind where they were last year, despite going in the ground 20 days earlier and despite the great weather we have been having. Primarily, several plants are either smaller or far more sparse than last year (no pruning for me), after getting very stocky/thick stemmed/multi stemmed starts (moreso than any other year for me).

Majority show at least some signs of disease, but some very little, for now at least. Largely on bottom leaves, a few affected at 3 or 4 feet off the ground. Mulched garden for first time last year, seemed to have a fair bit of assorted fungal growths by the end of last season. Have had some slime molds appear and then disappear this season. Will attempt to take off affected leaves and get some copper.

I did probably wait a bit long to remove leaves that were in contact with the mulch, I assume that this probably hastened the damage if the cause is soil- (or mulch-) borne. We will see what happens...wish me luck, and thanks for the advice!

[Anthony_Toronto]

Well I pulled off all the diseased leaves that I could see, and the hot sunny weather over the last 7 or 8 days seems to have slowed any progression of whatever it is. However, I did notice that on the particularly hard-hit plants, the fruit stems are just about all crimped/bent, with some apparent stem degradation at the location of the crimp. I can only assume that, even if there is no progression of the disease at these locations, size and quality of the fruit will be at least somewhat compromised. Have also seen several examples of slime molds appearing in my mulch and then drying up...and when I have dug into the mulch a bit, I can see threads of fungus pretty much throughout.

Have not found any Copper yet, but will get some, will treat as agressively as is recommended.

p.s., first fruits are starting to ripen on two of my 'potato leaf black cherry' plants, we will see if they have the same colour and characteristics as the lone version of this one had last year (identical appearance and flavour to black cherry, which I also grew, but 50% larger on a potato leaf plant). Saved seeds from purple haze (not a big fan) three years ago, grew several different types out two years ago (some RL some PL, some with small beefsteaks (could have called one BC BEEF, grew 1.5 inch beefsteaks in strings/bunches of 7-9 that had the colour and flavour of BC), some with egg shaped, some with round), saved the best of those and grew out again last year, and one gave me the 'PLBC' which I have grown out this year. Fingers crossed that they turn out...though the first ripening ones have a bit more burgundy/red/pink than true BC or the 'PLBC' from last year. Hopefully whatever I can stabilize over next few seasons will taste good. Big, productive plant.