Tomato seedling problems

OK, help me understand this. I started some Better Boy tomato seeds which are resistant to tons of the diseases in jiffy mix in containers. All the conditions were right and I never watered from above. Now on two of them, the cotyledons have tons of dark spots, which I assume is a fungus. But blight is different than black spot right? I´m just wondering how it got that way when the conditions and soil was definitely NOT conducive to fungal infections. Now I also started some of those tomatoes in the garden and they are doing fine.

Everyone says to not water overhead, but that´s very difficult in the garden if you don´t have a drip system. Also, how do tomatoes in the wild do OK, I mean it rains and surely they get splashed by dirt?!

The fungus is in the air or the soil. Keeping good dry air around the plants will keep the fungus from growing on the plant.

ZS I drip water but long ago I watered over head. When you have to water overhead it's far more important to do it early in the day before the heat builds up and you also have time to get the plants dry prior to nightfall.

No tomato variety has any resistance to fungus diseases. Here, I have to keep the leaves coated with a daconil spray, which blocks the receptor sites for fungus. I spray once a week and after any rain, and water with soaker hoses.

I'm not sure there are tomatoes in the wild - probably just some wild plants with tiny fruits in the tropics that modern tomatoes originally came from. Untreated tomato plants in areas where fungus is prevalent would still be able to produce a few fruits and seeds for the next generation - they'd just yellow and sicken starting from the bottom branches up until the diseases finally killed them.

Thanks for your replies. I will continue trying with these tomatoes and make sure I only water in early morning. There isn´t much I can do about the rain though. Daconil spray sounds interested, I´ll have to look into it Ozark.

The comments ´´No tomato variety has any resistance to fungus diseases´´ confuses me as varieties cleary claim too. They claim to be resistant to Verticillum, or Fusarium or various other diseases.

Z

ZS then there is always getting serious about defeating the blight I have it is and has been non exsistent since about 10 years ago.

First I went to the hippy hoop house above.

Then I went to the improved version

xThis hoop house is 14x45 and was pretty cheap to build. Actualy it grows just as well as the $7000 one above

This message was edited May 30, 2011 10:34 PM

These little mini gh are 4feet x12 feet and work to. They will grow 7 Romas or about 20 peppers

There are lots of ways to beat the blight it's just a matter of how much do you want to spend.

I am really envious of those of you who can just plain old grow outside in the dirt and let them sprawl.

I planted 2 Better Boy plants March 12th, fertilized every 2 weeks with Miracle Grow, 1 gallon each. Right now, May 31st I have taken 20 tomatoes off the plants, and the leaves are turning brown, and have about 4 tomatoes left on plant. Has the plant reached it's end of the road?? and should I plant earlier, I live in Florida, east coast, 2 hours from Miami.....I would appreciate anyones help...Thank you

you may have bought a tomato varity that only produces one batch per season.

Do you see webbing on the leaves?