Lost my tomatoes to TMV

[meat hunter]

?

 

[irishteabear]

Bummer. Sorry to hear that.

 

[yodelhawk]

Man that sucks. Even worse that you have to get rid of the dirt! I can't grow a darn thing so I quit trying. Hope you do better next year.

 

[alx]

That sucks.Anybody grow tobacco up their in the old days...Horrible plant for soil.My grandfather set records per acre yield in ohio,but that was during ww2-needed the cash.

Most TMV was bred out of all domestic tobacco at least 10 years ago.Wouldn't make much sense not too...I smoke marlboros now and again around garden and never had a problem in 20 years.-dont wash hands etc...The tobacco from Turkey- like Camels are not geneticaly bred to get rid of it.Much like GILROY-the used to be garlic capital in california.They grew intensive crop after crop and have a resistant strain of soil rot fungus that has screweed them....

Did you check the roots of plants.will check pics.I hate veggie diseases...Gonna solarize the soil where i plant pumpkins-powdery mildew.

 

[meat hunter]

No, no tobacco grown here. It looks like this virus is prevalent in a whole host of veggies and weeds as well. Also known by the name, potato mosaic virus, tomato mosaic virus along with a few others. The area south of us grows taters, but its quite a ways away. I forgot how the virus is transmitted, I will go back and check. So much for saving any seeds for next years crop. I need a good reliable seed source. Anyone have a good place to get quality seeds? No more store bought stuff.

 

[beer-b-q]

Sorry to hear about your tomatoes, That really sucks...

 

[alx]

The potato etc i forgot about.I have used Burpee out of pennsylvania last 30 years(little mama for canning),but they now get seeds for alot of plants from asia,germany etc...Quality control issues-dang i miss the old america

I grow heirloom seeds from a few places,but low yields and way more disease friendy.Kind of a two edge sword deal.

I grow all my plants in this homemade leaf compost anywho.This is for next fall-ground yesterday..I have enough stored from 2008 for next spring/summer.you can see some in background for early spring/summer...

This is pure leaf compost that i use a compost thermometer and log temps so i kill all weed seed/pathogens etc...

I am updating my garden log in that section soon...Proof is in the pudding,until i get whacked by disease

 

[ronp]

That sucks big time. I had a similiar thing happen 2 years in a row, I just quit planting.

Can you kill the virus with black plastic on the dirt?

 

[alx]

Solarizing the soil is a technique using clear plastic to super heat soil.It works on shallow mildew like powdery mildew,but not sure about others.You do this months before planting...

 

[oneeye]

I live 3 hours north of the Twin City Metromess and we do not have a prayer for getting ripe 'maters this year. We have only had like 4 nights where it actually stayed warm - all summer long!!! This past week it froze 2 nights in a row. We had covered everything but it still slows down the already slowed ripening process. It will suck to not have my Mason jars full either! But, the sweet corn crop is great right now.

 

[meat hunter]

?

 

[alx]

Man, I feel for your blight.Let us know how the solarizing works out.I will be trying it near pumpkin patch for powdery mildew

I would send you a box of tomatoes,but i am tapped out.Sister and brother have dibs on rest.

 

[tender loins]

Meat Hunter, you have LATE BLIGHT!!!!

You really need to contact your local county extension service and report it!

I am in the northeast and it usually NEVER shows it's ugly head, but most of the plants sold by Bonny Plants to places like Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, etc, either HAD Late Blight or contracted it. Many diseased plants got sold to the public!

LAte Blight is a very serious disease--it's the SAME thing that caused the Irish Potato Famine in the mid-1800's! Plants can look fine on a Friday and a pile of rotting stinking mess on Monday!

Best to remove the plants and bag them in clear plastic bags, seal the bags, and leave them in the sun to be sure everything inside dies. Then put it out for trash pickup; DO NOT COMPOST THE PLANTS!

You don't need to solarize your soil; Late Blight needs a living host, like a buried potato, to overwinter. It cannot live alone in the soil. (But EARLY Blight can, a completely different disease.)

For more info on how serious this is (it's worse than the Bubonic Plague to tomatoes & potatoes, seriously) see these links:

http://www.hort.cornell.edu/departme...ght_tomato.htm Late Blight on Tomato disease photos.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/l...823043.html?53 Weekly late blight updates in the Northeast; links to FAQs, misinformation too. Ignore the organic nuts with their agendas in this thread. Be sure to check the first 2 links on this GardenWeb page, and go to the bottom and look at earlier report dates to understand what happened. Oh, and all spraying milk will do is make your garden stink.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/l...3262502.html?7 Within 48 hours Leaves went from Green to Brown

http://www.umassvegetable.org/LateBl...andPotato.html UMass Late Blight Alert...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0701163647.htm (Here's where it started) Late Blight -- Irish Potato Famine Fungus -- Attacks U.S. Northeast Gardens And Farms Hard

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/l...632467993.html Late Blight Reports - The Boston Globe

This is a very serious disease that is extremely contagious to tomato & potato farmers. Home gardeners can have diseased plants that can infect nearby tomato or potato farms. It can easily travel by wind.

I'm a member at that GardenWeb tomato growing forum. It is now believed to have infected almost everything up the eastern seaboard except I think GA, and was ALSO reported in OH, IN, MI, ONT,QUE & WI too recently. Add MN now!!!!

Anyone growing tomatoes here, please take heed: I hope I don't sound overdoing it here, but this is extremely serious. There is no cure and LB is usually LETHAL to plants. I just spent >$400 to try to slow it down or prevent it here on 100+ tomato plants!

 

[meat hunter]

You know what, I think your right. I got what info I could off the net and the University of Minnesotas ext office. The links you send me were much more informative. I will call the local extension agency in the morning. I was just reading now on the net that the whole country can expect to see this problem. I dont have time to look right now, but is there anything I can do to save what little tomatoes I have left? Thanks for the info. If is greatly appreciated.

 

[richoso1]

Now that is a drag my friend, a lot of work went into that, only to be ruined.

 

[alx]

Sounds like you nailed it TenderLoins.Can never have to many eyes/experience on these things.I have been a infrequent poster on gardenweb -baygrower-.Do you have any garden photos to share???

 

[tender loins]

Save plants? or fruits? The problem with LB is that it may take 3-4 days to see it... in other words, the plant may look normal but be infected because of the delay time.

If the watery dark patches are on the stems & vines, the plants are pretty much goners. If you just have it on some leaves, remove those leaves, put them in a plastic bag & seal it to remove whatever disease you can see. Out of about 60 plants at my house here, only 5 have LB on some leaves. Every morning, I remove leaves and stick them in a plastic bag from the newspaper and knot it closed and stick in the sun til garbage day. Then I spray a fungicide after that, about every 5 days. Hot dry weather & regular fungicide spraying keeps it in check if you remove all visible signs.

The best way to fight LB is to use fungicides as preventatives before any disease is present. Next year, I will begin spraying as early as 6" tall plants, even before they go in the ground! If you are organic, use copper fungicides, though they aren't very effective; another item is called Serenade, though the jury is still out on it against Late Blight.

If not organic, use Daconil or Ortho Garden Disease Control--both of these have 29.6% chlorothalonil as the active ingredient. I have been alternating these with Mancozeb, available from Bonide at garden centers. The Daconil I bought at Walmart, the Ortho at H-D. Commercial strength stuff similar to this would be Bravo, Echo (I think), Equus, and other names but the strength is 54% or even higher.

All of these are still contact or surface fungicides. There are very few systemic fungicides available to home gardeners. Systemics enter the plant and travel throughout the plant to protect it. Some are called "translaminar" or something like that, where it travels through the leaf from one side to the other. A friend just bought Previcur Flex, it was a systemic or translaminar, it was $259.95 for 2.5 gallon jug!

Surface fungicides on the other hand, you need to spray the entire plant, even the undersides of the leaves.

If you still have fruits that don't LOOK infected, if they are at least to the breaker stage where they start changing color from light green, maybe you can try removing them and somehow scrubbing them clean indoors and let them ripen there. I don't know how long they would last outdoors on the plants, especially if you still have spores around.

I still have a lot of questions myself, like why don't all my plants have it not just 5... and how long will it stay alive in the air & wind?

If anything, I would read the FAQs at the Cornell University link...

http://www.hort.cornell.edu/departme...path/lbfaq.pdf

They update this with more Q&A every week or 2.

Hope this helps.

 

[tender loins]

Most of my photos are of tomatoes & peppers harvested. I have about 60 plants here and another 50+ at a friend's in the burbs. I also grow 10-25 varieties of heirloom garlic (12 this year I think), a few hundred onions, some triplesweet corn, etc. Giant pumpkins too, but have taken the last 2 years off & grew 400-500 garlic in the same space instead. Any specific pics just ask.

 

[alx]

I am lokking for some German White Garlic from your area.P.M. me if you have any etc.I know the garlic is not cheap,but very interested in a couple pounds from good source-to plant this fall-nov. 15th- .....Nice Job on that I.D. I did not think it was tobacco etc...........

 

[tender loins]

I would have to check if it has an alias name; I grow German Extra Hardy every other year, I think that's different. I also grew Polish Hardneck.

Last fall I planted a lot of Asiatic/Turban types (Creole Red, Burgundy, Labera Purple, Cuban Purple, Wonha, etc.)

While I'll be at our Tomato TasteFest, a customer of mine will be at the Garlic Festival in the Poconos Saturday. Not sure how far that is from you. http://www.shawneemt.com/s_poconogarlicfestival.html

I told him to look for 3 specific really huge varieties I was looking for. I can try asking him to pick some up if he calls.

I remember reading a rough cross-reference guide last year, maybe some are the same with different names?

Sorry for going off-topic!