Blight

Late blight confirmed in Grafton county. http://extension.unh.edu/Agric/LateBlight.htm

Sorry to hear that. Do you live in that County?

I read the link and it is scary that this can be transmitted by wind.

Furbalsmom wrote:Sorry to hear that. Do you live in that County?

I read the link and it is scary that this can be transmitted by wind.

Nope, I live in Cheshire county. But with this weather coming, this late blight is going to be spreading.

I'm grave digging here, but wanted the share a real time map for the dreaded BLIGHT
http://usablight.org/

Late blight confirmed in Middlesex County, MA
http://www.usablight.org/?q=map

Tomato blight confirmed in Norfolk County, Mass. on July 6, 2012. It was also found in Maine ME blight 7/2012

I am going back to Agway today to see about getting a pretreatment spray, I think sulfur. Has any one here ever done a pretreatment for blight?ME blight 7/2012

Grow Big or Go Home. How to make a simple baking soda spray for mildew and fungus prevention. Some folks also add just a little bit of dish soap to the mixture, or maybe smashed garlic.

I pretreated my potatoes, tomatoes and eggplants yesterday with copper fungicide. I broke down and finally bought a garden sprayer. Wow, that thing makes spraying so easy! This thing will come in really handy when it's time for the baking soda spray treatment for PM on the squash and cukes!

So, you do not believe the stuff the guy in the video makes will work? Is that it? Or are you treating something different? Thanks for sharing.

cpl100 wrote:So, you do not believe the stuff the guy in the video makes will work? Is that it? Or are you treating something different? Thanks for sharing.

I don't trust that the baking soda solution is going to satisfactorily prevent blight infection. It is a good solution to spray on cukes and beans and such for powdery or downy mildew.

camprn wrote:I pretreated my potatoes, tomatoes and eggplants yesterday with copper fungicide. I broke down and finally bought a garden sprayer. Wow, that thing makes spraying so easy! This thing will come in really handy when it's time for the baking soda spray treatment for PM on the squash and cukes!

Just make sure you rinse the sprayer out with warm warer and then a soapy solution and rinse well in cold water for like humans ..... One vegetables treatment is another vegetables posion . Don't be tempted to use weed killer in the sprayer either for the same reasons , lest you kill off valuable veg or flowers.

Uh oh. I was just thinking this morning about this and how I hadn't heard anything. (I'm in Somerville, MA--essentially Boston) and how the tomatoes look great, if slow to get fruit.

Do folks know if there is anything that one should NOT use this baking soda/veg oil mixture on? Guess we'll try this as a preventative and if we see anything suspicious, so for the copper.

plantoid wrote:

camprn wrote:I pretreated my potatoes, tomatoes and eggplants yesterday with copper fungicide. I broke down and finally bought a garden sprayer. Wow, that thing makes spraying so easy! This thing will come in really handy when it's time for the baking soda spray treatment for PM on the squash and cukes!

Just make sure you rinse the sprayer out with warm warer and then a soapy solution and rinse well in cold water for like humans ..... One vegetables treatment is another vegetables posion . Don't be tempted to use weed killer in the sprayer either for the same reasons , lest you kill off valuable veg or flowers.

Very good advice, thanks for that Plantiod!!

I had good luck with stopping what I think is late blight with the copper fungicide. I kept up with the spraying every week until I left town.

Kay

Bump

Blight Tracker
http://usablight.org/

Is that how it typically works? It starts in FL and moves north as the season progresses? That's spooky.

The Blight Tracker link camprn posted shows where late blight has been reported. To find a forecast of when late blight may reach your particular area, use the Blitecast site. Select the agricultural reporting station closest to you for most accurate forecasting. This chart is for the Northeast and has stations from NJ to ME, although unfortunately there are very few stations in NH and ME. What the Blitecast is doing is making a calculation based on average temperature and hours that foliage is wet.

When the Severity value exceeds 18, you are supposed to start preventive spraying and then repeat at intervals during the season. Be aware that for most of New England, the severity value is now waaay past 18, flashing red, danger zone, even if blight has not yet appeared.  I sprayed copper on my peppers and tomatoes Monday, then we promptly had a huge thunderstorm Monday afternoon and another on Tuesday.

By the way, Cornell has one of the best and most prolific ag extension programs around. Their info page on late blight is here, with really great photographs of affected plants and fruits and links to other resources. An interesting article on their site is this one suggesting that planting even a few potatoes in your home garden is putting all your tomatoes at risk from late blight because potatoes are so susceptible.

If you are lazy like me, the UMass Vegetable Newsletter I mentioned here provides a weekly update on latest locations of diseases and pests and information on what you should be doing about it this week, including identification and treatment. So you don't have to actively track all these web sites, their professionals do it for you. Of course, their focus is MA (which works well for me, particularly since a reporting station is located in my town), but it should be generally applicable to New England.

Sticky worthy!


Because of the potential of spreading blight I always plant potatoes far away from my tomatoes.

Late blight sounds bad. I guess it hits Fla. then proceeds to the NE? I am battling early blight and septoria leaf spot/blight. I had Southern blight last yr, and I guess I chose the wrong treatment to prevent the early/septora types. Pretreatment is good, but, I had lots of rain and it attacked while we had 4 days of rain. I looked from the house to the garden and could see that it had struck! Tomato plants are still alive, fruit on, but all leaves are gone. If they live, I will have to provide shade for the fruits. I've started some more plants, but don't know whether it is worth it or not.
Jo

littlejo, looking at the map, it doesn't look like it's hit the GA/SC area this year, at least not so far.

jazzycat wrote:littlejo, looking at the map, it doesn't look like it's hit the GA/SC area this year, at least not so far.

OR it has yet to be reported for that area. Jo, I suggest you ring your extension service and let them know of your troubles.

Late blight is a wind-borne fungal disease. If you go to the Blight Tracker map and at the top select Occurrence Map>2012 you can see where it occurred in reportable amounts last year. GA/SC aren't affected because its too dam hot in those states. Late blight likes cool damp weather and tends to start in the more temperate mid-Atlantic states and moves northward on the wind. However, if we keep getting these weird weather patterns with cooler weather down south, you never know.

New England has always had late blight around but I guess conditions were never right to make it bad. It is something I never worried about. In 2009 it cropped up with a vengeance and wiped out tomato and potato crops, particularly those of small and organic farmers since they couldn't use the heavy duty fungicides. A lot of blame was put on infected Bonnie Plants tomatoes from Alabama, the ones sold at Wal-Mart, Lowes, and HD. Since then it has been a big problem every year, but not as bad as 2009. The moral of that story is, grow your own seedlings or buy from a local greenhouse.

dvelten wrote:The moral of that story is, grow your own seedlings or buy from a local greenhouse.

+1

dvelten, we do it get it, but not this time of year. I know someone who had to destroy 3/4 of his crop (he was growing to sell). But that was a 6-8 weeks ago, and we've had unseasonably cool weather this year, up until a few weeks ago.

 

My tomatos have lots of leaves / branches like this.... help what is it?  Blight?