Jamie,

Since blight is a general word that most folks use to describe a sick tomato plant I'm glad you tried to make a diagnosis of what specific diseases your plants might be suffering from.

In the first pictures I don't see any lesions at all that look like Early Blight( A. solani) which would be a dark brown spot, with concentric circles inside the lesion and usually surrounded by a yellow halo.

And yes I see the brown longish lesion on the stem.

Nor do I see any good evidence of Late Blight ( P. infestans)

So before I speak to whether or not there are naturally occurring varieties that are tolerant of "blight" infection, I think a diagnosis has to be made first.

Carolyn

Thank you Carolyn, I am at a loss, as I have returned to the Problem Solver #2 and could not find a seemingly accurate match for what's going on with my tomatoes... I see what you mean re: early & late blight misdiagnosis... what I have is clearly not early, and doesn't appear to be late either. Could it be a leaf mold? I have had my plants under a plastic covering to keep rain off and attempt to raise temps at night, but may have inadvertently created a very humid environment... here's a pic of tomate leaf mold I found:

I took some more pictures and will try to describe more accurately the symptoms I am seeing:

Here's a leaf that has curled and totally dried up all paper-like

A few days ago I uprooted a Viva Italia that was very very infected and its main stem at the base was all brown/black similar to this picture:

Here are the backs of some of the leaves (note the off color sections).

All of the discolorations that you see on all photos are papery...

Before planting I amended my soil with "sea soil" and soon after planting the atarts I sprinkled some calcium around each for BER. Since then I have fertilized once with MG tomato fertilizer... I have seven plants and all but the Bali tomato are showing symptoms...

Any further hints or suggestions Carolyn (or any other experienced folk)? Thanks, Jamie

Jamie, I may have missed it but where do you garden? I ask b'c the first of your photos does suggest powdery mildew. Daconil might be considered ASAP.

The lesions on the leaves speak to me of something environmental, not infectious, and too much moisture/too high humidity are both possible.

I looked up Bali on the SSE Yearbooks and no one who has listed it has made any comments about it being tolerant of any kind of tomato diseases. Some got their seeds from Jere Gettle via SSE membership so perhaps he lists it at Baker Creek and that's where you got it from.

Carolyn

Hmmm.... lots to consider there. First off, I am on Vancouver Island (Canada) just north of Seattle in the PNW. Might the prob be heat stress? I have the plants against a wall of sorts and it is draped with plastic which forms part of the plastic covering I had fashioned to help keep rain off and night temps a little warmer during our cool and wet June. So far in July we have had nice sunny weather, however I took a temp reading in the shade at the base of the plants against this reflective wall and it read 95 degrees!... This may explain why the Bali plant (i.e. from the tropics) is surviving while the others (Early Girl Bush, Superfantastic, Pink Brandywine, Viva Italia) are suffering. I will remove this plastic backing and see what this does. I have only been watering twice a week and during June with all our rain, my plastic covering was preventing all but the water I added from getting to the plants...

As for powdery mildew, I've never notice any whitish aspect to the lesions, but will check online and see what more I can learn about it...

I would love to have access to Daconil if need be, but I can't get it or any similar fungicide up here in Canada... Best I can do is copper spray, a sulphur-based fungiside called Safer's Defender, and one which has "folpet" as its active ingedient...

As to the source of seed, I bought the start at a local nursery who I am guessing got the seeds from Saltspring Island Seeds. They are close by and list the Bali in their catalogue...

Thanks so much Carolyn for your help with this... take care... Jamie

I should also add that the past 3-4 days I have noticed that the leaves on all plants by the end of the day have been all wilted and droopy, only to perk up again by morning. It was real bad yesterday so I gave them a very deep watering...

powdery mildew loves the heat. if you look at your pictures, you will see white powdery spots...also, the cover you had on your tomato plants would be the perfect environment for powdery mildew.

powdery mildew has the tendency to turn leaves papery as well.

when in serious doubt...cut off a leaf section and take it to your knowledgable nursery...

Okay, I will apply a treatment for powdery mildew, using the "Safer's Defender" fungicide that I bought but have yet to use:

"A liquid, sulphur-based fungicide which controls the most common surface-infecting fungal problems such as powdery mildew, black spot and rust."

Yet I think the whitish areas you are seeing is the dried residue from when I sprayed the copper solution on the plants a week and a half ago... However, the nursery people said the fungicide was very benign so I figure I'll give it a shot. And I will take an affected branch to the local nursery experts... brilliant idea!

Thanks for your help andreajp...

This doesn't apply to sulfur-based fungicides, but you can enhance the fungicidal activity of both chlorothalonil and mancozeb by mixing either of them with a copper-based product.

Best thing to do, IMO, is to learn the conditions that favor each of the fungal infections, and spray with fungicide when those conditions arise, rather than when the fungus appears. Once those plants are infected, you're stuck spraying them the rest of the season, because the sprays only stop the fungus from spreading. Let the spray wear off, and that infection will march on from where it left off.

Yet I think the whitish areas you are seeing is the dried residue from when I sprayed the copper solution on the plants a week and a half ago... However, the nursery people said the fungicide was very benign so I figure I'll give it a shot. And I will take an affected branch to the local nursery experts

******

I too thought the droplets on the leaves were the result of your copper spraying.

There are two different fungi that cause two different Powdery Mildews with different symptoms on tomato foliage and I didn't see any lesions that resembled either of them, at least on the pictures you showed based on standard pictures of both of those diseases.

Do check with your nursery if you know that they do have expertise but in most cases I know of nurseries usually offer for sale tomato plants that had been grown by someone else somewhere and don't have good knowledge of tomato diseases. If it's a nursery where they grow all their own veggie/fruit plants perhaps they would know more. And I say perhaps b'c even my own commercial farmer friends rely on the local Cornell Cooperative Extension for diagnosis and suggested treatment for most problems.

See what you think when you go there but please keep in the back of your mind contacting your local Cooperative Extension where there would be expertise and they also would know which diseases were prevalent in your locale this season.

Good Luck.

Carolyn

hey barnowl,

check back with us and tell us what they say!! i'm curious because i have a plant that has a lot of the same symptoms you're showing. i assumed it was powdery mildew.

i haven't treated for it yet.

i was just watching "gardening by the yard" and he said the best treatment for powdery mildew (if that is indeed what is on your plants) is:
one teaspoon horticultural oil
one teaspoon horticultural soap
one teaspoon baking soda
all mixed with a gallon of water...

he put the entire mixture into a gallon sprayer and put a golf ball into the sprayer as well to keep everything in mixture.

hope that helps...

~a

So I finally made it to the local nursery last night (we have 18 month twin boys to keep us busy, need I say more ;-) and one of the gardeners there gave me her thoughts. Its a large nursuery, been in business a long time here though they do get their tomato starts shipped in... I brought in a fairly representative branch of the symptoms my plants are exhibiting. The lady said it looked more like sun burn than late or early blight, and definitely not mildew. Moreover, given that the first sign of disease was well over two weeks ago, all of the plants would be dead by now if it was blight (I did spray with copper two weeks ago, and the sulphur-fungicide that I sprayed last weekend did absolutely nothing).

When she mentioned sun burn, I explained about their location next to a reflective wall and the much higher temps I was getting there than in the rest of the back yard. We've been having lots of hot weather these past two weeks, and some days the leaves would be fully drooped over and perk up again in the evening. Also I suspect that in general I have failed to give the plants adequate deep waterings as usually my watering consists of going back and forth with the hose garden wand to all of the plants for 20 minutes or so... Could the browning and crisping be simply inadequate watering compounded by the high temps (a number of days it got over 100F) and reflective glare? The leaves are still turning brown but at a very slow pace, making me believe that further that it is heat related (its cooled down a bit and I've been watering deeper).

Anyways, there's a little update, any more thoughts to add??? And the Bali tomato plant still shows absolutely no signs of any probs whatsoever... Jamie

no ideas...

just wanted to commend you for having the time to make it to the nursery with 18 month old twin boys! i have one 26 month old boy (well, and 3 teenagers)...and i barely have time to wash my hair some days!!!! i have NO idea how people do it with twins!!!

:)

well..no matter what it might be that's getting your plants..i hope you get a bountiful harvest!!

take care,
a

There's a few things you can do to help prevent blight from happening in the first place.

1) Make raised beds/mounds. If you have an unnaturally wet season the water will drain and you won't have to worry about it sitting there
2) Mulch all around the tomatoes with straw. Blight is found in the soil and when you water it splashes on the leaves spreading the disease. Mulching will prevent that from happening.
3) Don't water late in the day, instead water in the early morning.
4) Top dress with corn meal to out compete the blight

Carolyn or someone else who has more knowledge of this can correct me if I'm wrong but I think the best way to treat this would to pluck all the infected leaves (if possible) and throw them in the trash. Then spray the plant with a diluted skim milk/water mixture. That should stop any further spread of the disease. Also make sure to remove any dead/infected leaves that have fallen to the ground near the plants.