I live in Southeast Iowa. Warm humid summers. Each year my tomatoes plants develope blight and are practically dead by mid September. I garden organically and try to fight back by rotating beds each year, mulching heavily, and keep the plants healthy. I thought I had it licked this year because the plants were such a lush green. But then in mid August the bottoms leaves of the Romas turned brown, then it spread sideways through the bed into the Jet Stars, Long Keepers, and Beefsteaks.

The mulch is then in places now and most of the plants are still green at the very top. This is getting frustrating. If your plants are still alive, please give me a tip.

Thanks.

-- Kathy (redfernfarm@lisco.com), September 03, 1999

Answers

Are you sure that is not something called fusarium wilt? I had that in my garden, something that I had never had before. I had always planted hybrid (Big Boy and Jet stars), that were resistant to Fusariun. It causes the bottom leaves to curl over and turn brown, starting from the bottom of the plant. It mostly effected my Burbanks--an heirloom variety with no resistance to wilt. My Romas are kinda wilty, but holding their own. I found out that fusarium causes the veins to clog up and the plant starves. I started feeding them heavily with (Organic Garden, forgive me) Miracle Grow, and they kept bearing. They are still droopy, but I have been getting fruit from them. I wonder if the blight can be gotten rid of, like they say to get rid of Fusarium? They say to lay plastic on the affected area and let it "cook" for several months (kills the virus), or pumping the area full of a chemical that is listed in the Ortho book at the local garden center. The rest of the county is struggling with blight, too--I would like to know how to prevent/avoid it.

-- Leann Banta (thelionandlamb@hotmail.com), September 04, 1999.

Leann, It sounds a lot like Fusarium wilt. I guess I should read up to tell the difference. The leave are brown with black spots on the bottom of the plants and they don't drop off.

I'll try some foliar feed, spraying the living parts with manure tea or some other nutrious drink. That should work like your Miracle Grow. And I'll try baking the soil with the plastic cover next Spring before planting.

Thanks.

-- Kathy (redfernfarm@lisco.com), September 05, 1999.

For an organic foliar feed, try Spray N Grow. The testimonial letters and the tests done with SNG are very impressive. Their website is at http://www.spray-n-grow.com They have organic sprays of various uses that sound incredible as well. They strongly advocate for everyone to do their own testing, i.e. some plants with SNG, and some without.

-- greenbeanman (greenbeanman@ourtownusa.net), September 05, 1999.

Kathy, In our area this is called late blight, but all diseases are called blight around here. Early determinate 'maters are more prone to diseases than indeterminate plants. Despite diseases being soil borne and conventional logic to tie the plants and keep foliage dry, I have no leaf damage on plants that sprawl on ground or hay or compost mulch for several feet before starting them up cages. I have been told that adding Calcium (lime) and Magnesium (epsom salts) to the planting hole helps, and I usually do this for all the nightshades. Copper spray is suggested as a preventative; equestrum (horsetail), absinthe (wormwood), or hydrogen peroxide as a treatment. I foliar feed kelp and add rabbit manure to the soil surface. Plants grown straight up show damage but yield well. Minimize stress of all types to help the plants maintain health so the disease cannot express itself. Don't try everything on every plant, try to find out the minimum that works for you, and let the rest of us know.

-- Kendy Sawyer (sweetfire@grove.net), September 09, 1999.

Since the cooler dry weather, the tops of my tomatos are putting on beautiful, lush growth. The bottom 2 - 3 feet of each plant is brown, with withered leaves clinging to the vine. I foliar feed a mixture of manure tea, molasus and cider vinegar a few days ago on the green leaves. My weekly tomatoe harvest is down to almost 10% of what it was in mid august. I will try all sugestions next year. If the internet is up, I'll let you know how things work.

Thanks for all the advice.

-- Kathy (redfernfarm@lisco.com), September 09, 1999.

We have had the blight/fusarium problem for years too and spent lots of time and energy trying to get rid of it- even to the point of saving seed from the least affected plants year after year. One day I sat back and really thought about it and realized that, at the end of the season, we still had lots of green tomatoes on the vines that we could bring in to ripen. As well, we had had all the tomatoes we could can and eat. Why did I really want or need to get rid of the disease? The plants produce well for most of the season and, by the time the disease has finished them off, we have all the tomatoes we need. Since then my solution has been to disregard the disease, plant a few more plants to make up for whatever we lose and not worry about it. Another benefit is that the plants are mostly dead by the time we get frost so we do not feel bad if we do not cover them.

-- Peter Brady (r.farm@bmts.com), October 04, 1999.

Kathy, I have had some similar problems w?disease. I had Early, late spot this year if you can believe it ! Had it on all of my tomato plants both spring and fall. The way I controlled it was to make a copper spray @ the recommended rate (on the container)and sprayed the toms, cukes (which they say you can't do), peppers and eggplant. The peppers and eggplant need less and will be adversly affected if given the same dosage as the toms and cukes. This can be used as a preventative or a cure. You would need to spray everytime it rains while the problem is ongoing. Solarizing your garden soil will also work to kill the microbes. Good luck !!!

-- Jim Ricker (jrdrkr@prodigy.net), October 10, 1999.

Keep your tomatoes of the ground and mulched. Rain will splash the disease onto the plant. Be sure and clean the all the plant residue out of the garden this fall. Use the plastic in the spring to sterilize the soil. Rotate your tomatoes where no nightshade plants have been grown.

Good luck!

-- Bob Cornell (r2cornell@hotmail.com), October 30, 1999.

One more thing to try: thin copper wire inserted through the stem and into the ground. Some of the posters at Savage Garden EZ board say they have had good results.

-- Kendy Sawyer (sweetfire@grove.net), November 07, 1999.

We have had blight for 3 years (that's with rotation), but this year we mulched half of our tomatoes...the ones that were mulched heavily did not get "The Blight", but the other ones did... Mostly this year we just had problems with the dry weather... Try mulching heavily with straw...we didn't use any pesticides at all, just kept them evenly watered and suckered.

-- Melody Woodard (maw232@aol.com), November 08, 1999.