Early Blight on Tomato Plants?

Hello everyone!

I've been reading through this forum voraciously since I started my first container garden 4 weeks ago. I am SO EXCITED about my little garden and am so thrilled to have access to all the amazing knowledge on this site!

So my 2 tomato plants have been doing great (1 red brandywine, 1 yellow brandywine), except I've noticed little tiny brown spots on the underside of some leaves. After doing some research online it looks like it might be the beginning of early blight. I tried to do a search for this topic but can't because I'm not a subscribing member.

Do you have any tips for me to keep this from spreading? Should I remove all the leaves that have the spots? A lot of the websites I read said I should spray every 7-10 days with a fungicide but I couldn't find any information on a good one to use. Any thoughts/tips would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Early blight is a fungus and it can get into your garden via seeds or transplants. And once there it will overwinter in old tomato debris. Planting resistant varieties is a first defense. Keeping the garden clean of debris is a second, particularly after harvest. If the weather is right the fungus can move up the plant from the first infected lower leaves. As the fungus runs its course, the infected leaves will turn brown and fall off. You can get ahead of the fungus by removing the leaves and getting them out of the garden. BUT either way the leaves are gone and as a result fruit will likely be smaller (the leaves are little fruit building factories) and exposed to sunscald (leaf cover is gone). You have time still to plant resistant varieties this season.

Thanks for the help Stephen!

Do you have any favorite tomatoes that are resistant to these diseases?

While it is certainly possible for Early Blight to be transmitted from seeds or from sick transplants, it is far more likely that Early Blight was already present in your soil. It seems to be present in most soils sooner or later.

Early Blight is prevalent in Houston, TX, and my plants all eventually get it as the season wears on and we have more and more wet weather. But I still manage to get a very good crop of tomatoes, and I grow mostly heirlooms.

There are very few tomato varieties available to the general public with documented tolerance or resistance to Early Blight. I would hate to see you limit yourself to just a handful of hybrids to tackle a problem you can solve yourself.

My suggestion to you is to apply a thick layer of mulch such as pine straw, shredded pine bark, shredded leaves, or any other mulch which has not been "dyed" to "super red" or "super black". And secondly, I would spray your plants once per week with a fungal preventative (it is not actually a fungicide) such as Daconil (chlorothalonil 26.2%) labeled for tomatoes, Daconil diluted to a proper concentration sprayed onto your plants once per week will prevent funguses from binding with the leaves and entering the plants. And harvest time is 24 hours after spraying. If you are wanting to be 100% organic, there is an antifungal product called Serenade.

If you have Early Blight present, then it is possible you also have anthracnose spores which can ruin the fruit later on, so I would take action now.

Feldon I am so glad you chimed in (I was really hoping you would!)

I'm growing almost all heirlooms right now - 1 carmello, 2 brandywines, and hoping to add a paul robeson to the mix. I was thinking maybe I should add at least ONE HYBRID that may not succumb to disease but like you said, I really don't want to limit myself to just hybrids.

I'm not even sure my problem IS early blight - it was just a guess based on reading about symptoms. Maybe I'll post a photo for help. But I'm definitely going to take your advice with the mulch and fungicide- thank you! Do you have an opinion on Soap Shield? (http://www.gardensalive.com/product.asp?pn=8066) It's a fungicide I was considering.

Thanks again for chiming in!

There are are great hybrids: Sungold, Jet Star, Momotaro, Brandy Boy which is a Brandywine hybrid.

If there was a delicious large pink beefsteak hybrid, I might be growing it too.

The problem with using copper is that you get copper buildup in the soil. Probably not a problem for roses, but for edible crops, you eventually hit a wall where you are not being safe.

Some pictures of Early Blight you can check out:
http://www.settfest.com/2009/01/pests-and-diseases/ (1st pic)
http://www.avrdc.org/photos/tomato_diseases/early_blight_01.jpg


This message was edited Apr 3, 2009 10:37 PM

Thanks so much for the great info. I'm glad to get a list of good hybrids. I'm growing some Sungold tomatoes this year too so hope that turns out okay.

I just checked out those links you provided, and now I'm thinking the problem might be Tomato spotted wilt virus! The spotting isn't quite so bad yet - just some very small, faint rust colored speckles on the underside of some of my most bottom leaves. But this link (http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/factsheets/Virus_SpottedWilt.htm) says to avoid planting certain plants near your tomatoes to avoid transer of TVSW from thrips - and I have TWO of these plants near my tomatoes. Narstitium and Marigolds. And here I thought these would be great companion flowers to have nearby.

I am so confused. Why is gardening so hard????

TSWV is very new to California. First outbreaks in 2003. Still not being found on a large scale as of 2008.

http://westernfarmpress.com/vegetables/tomato-virus-0822/

Note there are a lot of bad pictures out there which do not really show what I consider the classic look of TSWV.

I would check out this thread:
http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=1519

TSWV can exhibit as a purplish spotting of leaves especially along the veins (centers of the leaves). It can also exhibit as a purplish bronzing of the leaves especially around the veins.

I've attached a photo, and there is also an excellent photo at UT Knoxville here:
http://eppftpserver.ag.utk.edu/profiles/disease/vegetable/TSWV.htm

I really hope you don't have TSWV because it is devastating (plants must be pulled immediately to prevent the disease from being spread to other plants) and the thrips (very small flies) which transmit the disease infect the plants before you can kill them with pesticides.

I personally believe that a lot of the companion planting suggestions could use some more scientific or at least double-blind testing. For instance, Marigolds attract spider mites and other pests.

I grow my tomatoes all by themselves with nothing next to them except grass. I know it's not "exciting" gardening to have a bed of just tomatoes and blank spaces around them, but that's just what I do and it works for me.