Tomato Blight

Sawyerfortyish · July 07, 2009, 07:07:26 AM

What does tomato blight look like? Can you spray something on them to get rid of it if I have it. My plants don't look healthy the stalks aren't strong enough to hold the plant up and a lot of the leaves are rolled up. I haven't had time to look but can someone post a picture of what a blighted tomato looks like. Now that the sun came out for the first time in a month all my time is being spent in the hay field. Gotta make hay when the sun shines.

Coon · July 07, 2009, 06:31:39 PM

Sounds like you got a potasium problem. The leaves will usually curl up as you mentioned like this with either too much or too little.

Another problem it could be is from too much of a drastic change in the climate they are exposed to. Often this occurrs when you take them from inside a greenhouse and put them outside in the garden early on in the growing season.

Coon.

Sawyerfortyish · July 07, 2009, 11:13:26 PM

I bought them at a green house and planted them memorial day they have grown. Some not all have there leaves curled. It looks like it's only affecting one kind and not some of the others I have 3 differant kinds. I just looked around the internet and now I don't think it's blight. It looks like a leaf curl that fruit trees have. So now I'm wondering what to do.

Coon · July 08, 2009, 12:27:05 AM

How far away are they from growing fruit? I am not too sure but I know some of mine had leaf curl just as you mentioned. I gave them a small dose of potasium fertilizer once they stabilized a bit from transplanting. There has not been any new curling of the leaveince but those that were curled are still that way. I just look at it as that they have some character to them. The first six plants I got are starting to bloom but the other twelve are about a week away from bloom. All I care about is that they bare fruit that are not deformed and start rotting.

SwampDonkey · July 08, 2009, 05:09:23 AM

Blighted tomatoes will have rust or black spots on the leaves, fruit will rot on the vine. I know it is showing up in some potato fields. They have to be destroyed by law here. Around here even garden potatoes have to be destroyed if blighted. On potatoes it has a sour pungent smell you can detect from the pickup window. Both Maine and New Brunswick manage disease as a collaborate effort, one lets the other know of incidents.

Sawyerfortyish · July 08, 2009, 07:37:32 AM

I have 1 apple tree that looks healthy a hundred yards away. SD the 3 kinds of blight I read about in tomatoes all have spots or yellowing of leaves. I don't have that. I think this is something else. It might be just all the rain and little sun with no heat that we been getting. We got our first 3 days in a row with no rain over the weekend since May.

Woodcarver · July 08, 2009, 11:13:57 AM

Sounds like you may be getting some root rot from all the rain you've had. It will cause the plant to wilt.

There are a number of different fungal diseases that can affect tomatoes. As Donk indicated the fungal diseases cause spots of one sort of another on the leaves. Damp weather promotes development of fungal problems, but hard rains tend to wash the spores off the leaves, causing less of a problem.

pineywoods · July 08, 2009, 10:11:29 PM

I have a different kind of tomato blight. Four footed, fuzzy tailed varmints. Dang bushy tail squirrels wiped out the whole patch before the first tomato ripened. Even broke down the plants. Now they have started on my pear tree.....

Ironwood · July 08, 2009, 11:13:46 PM

Blight locally is wiping out the mater's. Wifey just reported two of ours are affected, more to follow I am sure. No pics.

Ironwood

Woodcarver · July 09, 2009, 12:08:39 AM

Piney, the cure for the type of blight you are experiencing is a lead pill delivered at a hight rate of speed.

WH_Conley · July 09, 2009, 12:49:53 AM

Piney, my blight has consisted of his cousins, Peter and Bambi. The solution is near, at about 2900 fps.

Sawyerfortyish · July 09, 2009, 01:47:38 AM

Ya know sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. By the time ya fight the critters fight the weather the insects and plant illnesses and weeds just to get some vegies from your garden makes ya wonder is it worth it? I can only say at least I know how they were grown what was put on them and how they were handled and by who. So I'll guess I'll just keep on trying. I know I don't like the idea of my food comming from another country.

GF · July 09, 2009, 02:12:21 PM

Have you sprayed any type weed killer around such as 2-4-D? This will cause the leaves to curl if the vapors even from a nearby field get on them.

GF