I hope you all are doing well this weekend.

I am, unfortunately, a bit anxious to say the least, as I walked out to find my Hawaiian Pineapple plant with some disturbing looking foliage on it. Then, I saw the same on my 2 Cherokee Purple plants, which surround a seemingly healthy Green Zebra (hope it's okay).

Does this photo look like late blight to you guys? Gray Mold?

Please Help. I am so on edge and even sad-never thought my garden could make me feel this way...

See photo (have more if you need them-one shows a white mold spore on the back of a leaf).

Thanks So Much,
Stella

Leaf mold.

Here's a link to a tomato disease website that might help
you.

Sorry I'm not Carolyn or Dave or Betsy, but I did sleep
at a Holiday Inn last night.

I'm unfamiliar with Southern Blight-going to look it up in a moment. I am pretty sure that it's not early blight though. My Mom always seems to have early blight over at her place, so I'm pretty good at identifying that stuff.

My leaves are darkish gray with white mold showing on the back. It's not pretty...

Thanks, OhioFem, for the input.

Stella

But the odds of LB are slim so I wouldn't put any money on that diagnosis. Not only is it the most rare of the common tomato diseases and not only does it take the plant down totally with a few days but there is no record as already mentioned of cases in your area per the tracking website. So what are the odds of your being the first and only? Possible but slim.

We always have a tendency to jump to the worst possible conclusion when a symptom appears even though the odds greatly favor it being something much simpler - like environmental damage, pest damage, or leaf mold.

So what you do is either (1) sacrifice the plant without a definitive diagnosis just to be safe OR (2) you remove all the affected foliage and dispose of it carefully, spray the plant and other plants as well with a good fungicide, and wait and watch for 48 hours. The plant will either show signs of unaffected new growth and recover or continue to decline rapidly at which time it can be pulled.

Weather in much of the country this year has been extremely fungus favorable so routine preventative spraying of fungicides is strongly recommended. If not for LB then for the other fungus diseases.

Hope this helps.

Dave

I agree with Dave that we really can't see enough to tell what the problem is with your plant. His advice about spraying with a fungicide is spot on and an excellent plan. Don't forget to spray your unaffected plants to since that will help them avoid the disease if they are not yet affected.

Betsy

By the way, Carolyn137 prefers to be called Carolyn, not Dr. Carolyn, and she's a very smart sweetie.

Thank you both so much for posting. I really appreciate it.

I was/am more disappointed and sad than anything about my tomato plants and certainly more so than I care to admit;-) I put a lot of work into digging out the garden here at our new house/first home for my husband and me. Plus, my tomatoes were all looking so big, beautiful and full of promise.

In any case, thanks again, Dave. Your post somehow calmed me down and helped me to think rationally about how to handle things. I think I am going to pull for the sake of my neighbor's gardens (it's either late blight or gray mold-both nasty). It's getting worse and worse too just like you described...

Thank you too, Betsy, for chiming in and for the heads up:-)

Good Night

There are other things you could do before giving up...bring a sample to your county extension, post a couple more photos here so we might give more informed opinions, use chlorothalonil and see if the disease slows (LB would have laid your tomato flat by now, right?) I'd just hate for you to feel defeated if it does turn out to be something your plants could grow through!

Whatever you decide, you have plenty of sympathetic hearts here!

Instead, I'd just try to treat your tomatoes well and give them time. Admittedly, I live in a DRY, desert state, not in a humid, subtropical area, like you, but in my experience (in my own local area), most tomato diseases, if they even occur, tend to be nuisances rather than disasters. MOST of them affect how the plant looks, and might possibly decrease production, but they don't generally kill the plants.

If you are concerned about a fungal borne infection, and that is what your pictures most resemble to me, then you might consider trying a copper based fungicide, and leave it at that, to see what happens.

Good luck.