Disease or pest, which to treat first

[Dewayne mater]

My plants have some combination of issues I'm trying to manage and I'm trying to figure out which issue to attack first. I think my most urgent issues are an appearance of some black mold (small amounts, but...) and a growing population of red spider mites. There is also some early blight too.

I've been using various fungicides like copper mixed with mancozeb, organozide with actinovate, and the like, and recently a good coating of neem and insecticidal soap.

Mold scares me and seems like it can go bad fast so it should be first. Agree?

Bill think I should go the nuclear option on go bleach spray? What is your trigger for that option?

Thanks!

Dewayne mater

[rnewste]

Dewayne,

You might want to give this a try for the spider mites:



Been using it for the past month, and I have the best looking plants I've ever had - beautiful green!

Raybo

[Dewayne mater]

Thanks Raybo. Spinosad has gone out a couple of times this year. However, its been a few weeks and that was gonna be the thing I tried! I also have take down, but, want to save that option if possible.

Looking forward to ripe tomatoes soon!

Dewayne mater

[rnewste]

Dewayne,

I've been applying the Spinosad product every Saturday evening for the past month - no more whiteflies or other critters. I also believe the whiteflies/critters make the foliage diseases worse - just my unscientific opinion. My plants look like they are in Ireland at this point in time.

Raybo

[coastal bend]

Raybo, is right Spinsoad is the best bt . Where I live (south Texas) has very high worm pressure. I could not raise tomatoes without it. The older BT could not control the worm pressure. With Spinosad there is no problems. plus it controls other pest also. You will find out that it will last for 2 weeks before you apply again. It is translinear in the leaf and last for a longer time. I've mixed it with copper & mancozeb with out any problems.

[kurt]

To get rid of the critters is a good method.All the info states that if a plant has a malady insects will transport via body and or thru biting sucking etc.It is called vectoring.Then at the same time identify the malady and treat.I keep the Spinosad off the flowers for possible interaction with the bees.I rely on the bees for mangoe,lychee,loganberry,suriname cherry,moringa pollinization.They all do not flower at one time.

[b54red]

If you are talking about gray mold then hit it first with the dilute bleach spray then wait and hour and apply whatever insecticide you want. Gray mold will devastate a plant down here if it gets a foothold. I check my plants for it daily and if I see a single leaf with just the very first little bit of it I remove the whole leaf stem and if I see it again in a day or two then I apply the bleach spray. Every time I have delayed treating gray mold I have ended up losing the plant.

I know nothing about spinosad so I'll leave that discussion up to those that are familiar with its use. I don't apply any poison until pests appear except bt on cabbage type plants. I hit a few of my lower leaves on a couple of peppers and two tomato plants yesterday with Sevin dust as they were getting devoured by tiny worms. When I picked my beans yesterday there were areas infested with some very young aphid type critters and so I guess I'll have to treat them or pull them. Up until this past week or so my garden has been fairly pest free but the ladybugs have all moved on. I haven't seen one in two weeks and they were everywhere a month ago. I hated seeing them leave because every time they decide to move on to greener pastures, the pests find my garden to be the greener pastures. I haven't seen a single Assassin bug this year either and they were crawling all over my tomatoes and peppers last year. Maybe the cold winter got them but it didn't get the sting bugs because I have seen more of them than ever this year.

Bill

[Dewayne mater]

Thanks Bill, Ray, Kurt, etc

I think it may be gray mold, though some molds are similar looking at the very beginning to my less trained eye. I removed those infected stems last night and then it rained over night. I think I'll go bleach this evening as we've had a rare bit of rain, cloudy, cool weather for a few days and disease pressure is high. Probably will do spinosad follow up, just to keep the disease spread down.

Here are two pics of what could be gray mold, and I'd appreciate your opinions on that.

I've also attached a picture of some of my tainers and some of my soil grown tomatoes. As you can see, I'm off to a good start. This year, I'm trying to be super proactive on issues and I've pruned a lot, believe it or not. What I'm learning is "a lot" of pruning is probably no where near enough. Its a jungle out there!

Dewayne mater

[b54red]

That definitely looks like gray mold. What variety did it show up on first or did it just show up on one plant? I have found that some of the black and GWR tomatoes are far more susceptible to gray mold.

Bill

[Dewayne mater]

Bill - It was on Black cherry and black and brown boar...both varieties are susceptible to mold around here anyway. I didn't notice it elsewhere, but, as you know, it starts in a small way, so who knows.

I did use bleach spray last night as I was thinking this gray mold too. Thanks for that out of the box solution! So far, nothing has crisped, but, that will probably happen in a day or two. We have a 3 or 4 more days with high humidity and some chance of rain. I was thinking this might be a good time for daconil, with some disease freshly dead from bleach. What would be your approach at this point? I'm thinking disease is most important to treat first, while recognizing that insects spread disease quickly.

Thanks for the reply!

Dewayne mater

[b54red]

You can go with copper or Daconil but I have found both lacking with gray mold. Usually I am only successful in stopping GM if I treat very early and aggressively. I remove any infected leaves by taking the whole leaf stem and then apply a bleach spray. Once the leaves are dry I apply Daconil unless rain is forecast in the next few days; if it is I will use a copper spray as it doesn't seem to wash off as fast. Even if it comes back the aggessive treatment will usually stop it from affecting fruit until much latter in the season. Dry weather and low humidity are the best things to slow the spread of gray mold but then that is true of nearly all tomato diseases.

Bill

[newgardener_tx]

I just pulled out a black berry (last one) with similar syndrome as Dewaynes's pic.

[Dewayne mater]

Let me add to the list of plants with gray mold. After 24 hours of the bleach treatment, it is clear that I had more extensive mold that was apparent (Bill - just like you always say, more than you see). The plants affected appear to be Black Cherry (2) Black and Brown Boar (2) JD's special C-Tex, Cherokee Green and Indigo Apple. They sit next to reds, pinks and sun golds, all of which appear to be unaffected so far. 7 of 14 plants affected on my "north garden" (on the north side of the house).

JD's was hit worst with me removing about 1/3 to 40% of leaves tonight. Cry. This is very concerning since this plant has 27 tomatoes on it, a few of which should ripen in the next week or so. I sure hope I've gotten all or nearly all of the mold and the rest will be happy! I'll keep updating the thread as we go on.

Notably, none of my in ground plants were affected. They have a major advantage of being in a protected spot that doesn't get a ton of wind blowing in disease, etc. Still, it is curious that they have no dying leaves after bleach spray.

Dewayne mater

[Dewayne mater]

I sprayed with Copper fungicide yesterday morning (at least and hour before sun hit them) and the plants look significantly worse this morning. Sun gold has quite a bit of yellowing of leaves from top to bottom. Other plants show varying degrees of wilting leaves that I suppose indicate that mold was much more prevalent than I realized. Look at the pre spray pics above...they sure don't look like they were covered in mold. I'm wondering if a strong copper spray a couple of days post bleach caused more leaf harm?

I'm amazed they looked so healthy and now look so bad. Hopefully, the TONS of tomatoes will ripen and taste good.

2 plants in an earthtainer look unaffected and my in ground plants also look like they have only a very small amount of damage. Not sure how I could have had that much disease on 10 plants given my regular spraying with a variety of antifungals: neem, actinovate withExceLG, copper/mancozeb, serenade, and daconil. Those plants look nothing like what you see in the picture above any more. Wondering if I should hit them with nitrogen and perhaps a kelp spray to try to stimulate new growth?

Dewayne mater

[newgardener_tx]

After I pulled out black Cherry, my healthy Copia with 25 big striped fruits got hit with the gray mold, within two days I have to pull it out.
Now my three big beef with plenty big fruits are yellowing/stop growing. Can't believe they were so green before. Although I think big beefs have bacteria wilt. So many diseases this year. I also have BER for the plants in the container that I have Calcium problem. So far I have lost Brandywine, Aunt RGG, J-D S. C-Tex, German Johnson, Black Cherry, Cherokee Green, some Big Beef, some Cherokee purple, even one Celebrity. Mortgage Lifter is struggling. Maybe a couple more. Cry, cry, cry.