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chervena_chuska

Help needed to ID browning/spots of leaf edges

chervena_chuska
12 years ago

Hi all,

Hoping to get help diagnosing this problem with my tomatoes: On both older and newer leaves toward the bottom of the plant, there are black spots and brown around the whole edge of leaves. This seems to have gotten worse in the humid weather we've had. There are some black/brown spots on the stems as well but I don't see any canker area or stem problems like bacterial canker is supposed to have. I do have a couple peppers with similar edge of leaf browning.

Detailed pics are at the link. The plants are otherwise doing great. Any ideas? Is this marginal edge browning related to some other fungal disease?

Would be most grateful for a reply. I'm loathe to tear out otherwise good looking tomatoes by jumping the gun. :-(

Thanks!

Here is a link that might be useful: Leaf edge browning & small spots

Comments (2)

  • digdirt2
    12 years ago

    I can only give you the same advice as what you'll find in all the other "what is wrong with my tomato plants" posts here. The 'what you need to do' (treatment) is the same regardless of which bacteria or fungus is causing the problem unless it is Late Blight. And since you say the plants look good otherwise I strongly doubt it is Late Blight.

    Are you using a good fungicide on them as recommended? You should be. Weekly per the label instructions of whichever one you choose to use. Why are you leaving the affected leaves on the plant? That only makes the problem worse and spreads it. They need to be removed as soon as they develop and disposed of out of the garden. How long have the plants had this problem? Is it getting worse or staying the same?

    Contact your local county AG extension office and ask if Late Blight has been ID'd in your area. If so then that is a good indication of your problem and the plants are quickly lost no matter what you do.

    If not, then what you do is spray the plants, keep them cleaned of damaged affected leaves, improve the air circulation around and through them, and keep them going with lots of TLC care until you can harvest.

    Good luck.

    Dave

  • chervena_chuska
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Hi Dave,

    Thanks for the response. I have been removing the leaves diligently since all of our rain earlier in the year and spraying with Copper soap and Neem, though things looked pretty good up until a couple days ago. The problem looked much worse yesterday with some wilting and yellowing on one plant and the edges of the leaves browning had spread to other plants, which is something I haven't seen before on my plants, so I wanted to try to determine what it was. It seems that bacterial canker diagnosis calls for removing the whole plant before it spreads to all the beds and leaves all the beds infected for 2+ years, which is considerably worse than the standard keeping up a regimen of regular spraying to hold back Septoria or early blight.
    That's why I'm trying to be sure I know what I'm dealing with and why I photographed the leaves before removing as many as I could.

    It's not late blight, I know what that looks like.

    Otherwise they seem very healthy and robust and I am watering by soaker hose, keeping the lower 12-16 inches pruned, spaced them further apart than I have ever before.

    I'll post back if I get an answer from my county ext.

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