Blight Research Part 2 - June 19, 2021

 

In all these years of growing tomatoes and bitching about tomato blight, I have never actually examined the spots on the leaves to determine exactly what type of fungus is present.  I see yellowing and browning of the leaves, and think "BLIGHT!" and start panicking.  

After watching some videos yesterday (links below), I got up close and personal with the leaves.  What I've been referring to this year as "early blight" has probably been septoria leaf spot, not official early blight.  Here's a picture.

June 19, 2021

This plant has been sprayed three times this month, the first two times with baking soda/cooking oil/dishdetergent/water, the second time with liquid copper fungicide.  Before each spraying, I've removed the yellowing leaves, so I'm pretty sure this leaf has developed this fungus since the copper fungicide treatment three days ago.  The treatments may have slowed the fungus, but they haven't killed it - not that I can tell.

I don't know if it really makes much difference if it's septoria leaf spot or early blight.  It appears that the preventions (spacing, mulching, etc.) and the treatments are the same for both types of fungus.  And none of it really works to ELIMINATE the problem, so the battle continues.

I am going to try the hydrogen peroxide/water combo on this plant to see what happens.  My best hand-pump sprayer is already about half full of fungicide left over from the last spraying.  It wouldn't surprise me if there's still a little baking soda residue from the first two sprayings.  I might not ought to add peroxide to the mix; it might create a rocket!  ;)  But I think that, somewhere in the shed, there's another sprayer that might work long enough to do one plant.

Here are a couple of links to things I found useful:

Gary Pilarchik (The Rusted Garden) (The Rusted Garden) - YouTube

Identify and Treat Septoria Leaf Spot on Tomatoes | Gardener’s Path (gardenerspath.com)

I took some other pictures of the garden today.

The first halves of the green bean rows - there's a row on each side of the fence.  These are the beans I've re-planted FOUR TIMES.  To the right are squash and zucchini.  There will be watermelons at the far end of this row, once the seeds that I planted yesterday decide to sprout.

The troublesome tomato rows.  The tomatoes are LOADED with fruit, so I figure the electric-toothbrush-buzzing of the blooms might have actually worked.  I have cut so many "blighted" leaves off the plants that I fear the fruit will scald if I cut any more.

Every cardboard box that comes into my possession goes straight to the garden for weed control.  Yes, grass still comes up on both sides of it, but we just move it out of the way, chop the grass, and move it back.  The fence posts to the far left mark where the butterbeans (second attempt) are planted.  I think they're trying to come up.  I see white seeds on the soil surface that weren't on the soil surface two days ago.  I'm tempted to cover them with dirt but fear smothering them!  The three rows to the right of the fence are purple hull peas.  They need water.  The tall green plants are various peppers, with an eggplant and a few basil plants at the far end.  The middle between the peppers and the tomato plants to the right is heavily mulched with pine straw.  Yeah, the grass comes up through it, but not like it would come up on bare ground.   

Cucumbers at the front, okra at the rear.  The cucumbers have a few thumb-sized fruits, lots of blooms.  They keep trying to reach out and grab the tomatoes to the left and the green beans to the right.  Every day, I toss them back onto the heap.  This might be a mistake.  In fact, it was probably a mistake to put them there, between two rows of fencing, but I was out of space elsewhere.